It’s complicated
Some of my complicated relationship with fireworks comes from growing up in the desert, where we routinely had wildfires that would result in friends staying with you for a week or two while they waited to see if their house would burn down. Some of it comes from having family members with the type of PTSD that’s triggered by loud sounds. Hilariously, none of it is from being a dog owner: my dogs have always been ridiculously chill about the bright lights and explosions surrounding them, and my otherwise-anxious-on-the-daily aging Weimaraner slept like a baby all night.
Complicated relationships – whether with people or with inanimate objects – are a great wellspring of inspiration for fiction and nonfiction, aren’t they? The trick is to let them be complicated. To not oversimplify them and reduce people to cardboard cutouts, a backdrop for one character’s emotion or action. In both fiction and nonfiction, people are messy. They’re frustrating and they have multiple motivations that result in inconsistent actions. But embracing that messiness – even in yourself – can be really freeing. Also, it tends to result in better writing, which results in…um… I forget, why are we here today?
But it’s not all about the popular vote at YeahWrite, folks. We also have our editorial staff picks to hand out. See, while there’s a popular vote winner every week, we don’t always give out a staff pick. Our editors comb the grids to find, not just the best writing on our grid this week, but what we think is pretty darn great writing anywhere anytime. Picks are based on writing quality, how successful the author is in conveying information, and just plain style. If you got a staff pick this week, grab your badge from the sidebar and wear it with pride! The great part is that we don’t have a finite number of picks to hand out. That means that if two, three, five, or even all the works on one grid are fantastic, we can give them all kudos.
The other benefit of the editors’ pick, of course, is that unlike the popular vote we’ll tell you why we liked that post. So don’t just skip reading the blurb if it’s not about your post; you’ll pick up some handy pointers about what makes good writing great that you can apply to your own work. For more of that critical feedback, keep an eye on our Roundup for a quick rundown of trends we see each week. We try to highlight the good stuff and point out problems that more than one writer is struggling with. There’s probably a handy tip in there for you right now, so check it out!
Once you’re done reading through the Editorial Staff Picks and Roundup (and congratulating the winners in the comments), keep scrolling down to check out who won the popular vote on all three grids. If you earned the highest number of votes in any challenge, you are this week’s Crowd Favorite! If you came in first, second or third, you get “Top Three” honors. Grab your badge from our sidebar!
Looking for your badge? All our grids have the same Winner, Editorial Staff Pick, and Top Three badges. It doesn’t clutter up our sidebar, and they’ll still look pretty on yours!
YeahWrite #429 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Fiction|Poetry
I know the goal for this month’s poetry slam is to mimic another poet’s piece, but that doesn’t take away a poem’s individual validity. Many poets use other poems to inspire their work. That’s because the tangents a poet chooses to take from the original work can be analyzed and help shape the poet’s voice. Not only did Kirsten demonstrate that she understood the technical side of Joy Harjo’s poem, she also used her own voice to capture an emotion. The yearning for something better is palpable throughout the poem. She employed novel imagery and metaphors to convey her message, and she changed my perspective on clouds. From now on, my mind will always wrap them in babushkas!
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #429
Your story might not start in the place you think it does.
That was a hard one for me to figure out with nonfiction, because nonfiction is so much about editing down and taking away until the reader is left with just what they need to know, that I’m often left with more of a list of events than I’d like. But nonfiction needs a narrative structure too, and a hook, and you’ve got about three sentences tops to get the reader leaning toward their screen and wanting to know more. Often, this means if your first few paragraphs are backstory and explanation, you should consider discarding those, jumping right into the “action,” and figuring out how to work that other information in later, if the reader really needs it.
I, for one, welcome our new poetry overlords. And you probably do too-poetry is a complex way of exploring feelings and truths that don’t quite fit neatly into a narrative structure. And of playing with single literary devices (like metaphor) as practice for prose! Which is why it’s a little frustrating to see one of my least favorite comments popping up week after week. It’s an un-favorite because it violates my two rules of commenting: it’s unhelpul to the writer, and it’s self-denigrating for the commenter.
Did you guess what it is yet? I’m not qualified to critique poetry, but I see you wrote something this week good for you.
What is the point of that? I can never tell if it’s aimed to make the writer feel bad about the reader’s feelings of inadequacy or to pretty much just tell the poet “Hey, I’m not not even gonna try to be helpful. You’re on your own.” I have news for you, y’all: you are absolutely qualified to critique poetry! It doesn’t have to be any harder than critiquing fiction or nonfiction. In fact, we wrote this handy guide explaining how you can use your existing critical reading skills on poetry. You’re smart enough to do it, trust me. I believe in you.
I know it seems like people’s feelings are more directly involved in their poetry than their prose, but trust me, it hurts the same amount to get bad criticism – or unconstructive criticism – no matter what you’re writing. So stop putting yourself down, and help to build a poet up. Flex those commenting muscles!
So, I have no idea how many people know that I write steampunk, but I write steampunk. And I read steampunk, and Regency-era hot messes, and Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and y’all I like a hyphen as much as the next writer, is what I’m trying to say. But there are rules. And they can feel a little complicated sometimes (is this a compound adjective or nah?) but they’re really pretty simple and most of them proceed from the idea that in 2019 most words don’t have hyphens.
Why is this important? Well, because when we count words for the microprose grid, correctly hyphenated words are one word. Incorrectly hyphenated words are two words, unless they should be one word. Um. ok, examples.
“It was a dog-eat-dog world.” Five words.
“I like dog-food.” Four words. Dog food doesn’t have a hyphen.
“I went up-stairs.” Three words. Upstairs is one word, no hyphen.
If you catch yourself using a lot of hyphens in an attempt to beat a tight wordcount like the one on this week’s grid, stop and think whether it might not be a better use of your time to edit out some words instead of jamming them together. Conversely, you might be able to gain a word or two where you need it by taking out an incorrect hyphen in an adjective or word. Confused? Here’s some more help.
That’s it for this week! Remember, we don’t always give out a pick on every grid; if we were impressed by several posts on one grid we’ll give them all picks, and if nothing really stood out for us we’ll hold off. If you didn’t get a pick this week, read back through the Roundup to see if you can use some of this week’s tips and tricks.
If you’re lost in the middle of the grid and wondering how you can get a little more feedback on your posts, check out our membership perks!
Everybody: before you go, please take some time to leave your favorites a little love in the comments, and don’t forget, next week’s challenge grids will be kicking off right here at midnight!
Congratulations to the Crowd Favorites at YeahWrite #429
The thumbnails are now sorted in order of most votes to fewest. Ties in the overall number of votes are broken by number of editor votes.
Congratulations if you’re at or near the top! Writing well is hard work, and we’re honored you’ve chosen us this week to showcase your entry.
If you’re at or near the bottom, don’t be discouraged. You’re in the right community for learning and growing as a writer, and we are always available with resources for those who ask nicely.
To our readers and voters: thank you! See you next week.
Nonfiction
Loading InLinkz ...Fiction|Poetry
Loading InLinkz ... Loading InLinkz ...About the author:
Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.
Why’s the Non-fiction Roundup all about how to critique poetry?