I’ll be back…
If you’re as old as me, you probably hear that in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice. If you’re not, you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? Well, after this winners’ post, I’m taking off for an entire week. That’s right, you won’t have me to kick around anymore. Um. While I drive for 32 hours. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. I adore the person I’m about to be trapped in a car with, but more importantly, we’re music-compatible and we both love crappy convenience station roller food. How bad can it be? Besides, if it’s the worst ever, at least I’ll have something for the nonfiction grid. Might even make it to the top of the popular vote!
Besides the popular vote, we also have the option of handing out an editorial staff pick to any post on our grids. Picks are based on writing quality, how successful the author is in conveying information, and just plain style. 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- and we’d love to, so keep that great work coming!
On weeks when we don’t award a staff pick, keep an extra close eye on the Roundup. That’s our rundown of trends we see from week to 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 Roundup, keep scrolling down to check out who won the popular vote on both 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? Both 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!
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #430
Narrative structure. People talk about it a lot, but what is it? The shortest answer is a plot. Some kind of rising and falling action. A reason to care about where we’re going in this story, and a place to go to. That doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of action: in Melony’s piece this week we went to self-realization while sitting at the computer, and in MM Schreier’s, we went to an internal re-check while sitting at the bus stop. But it mattered that we wanted to go there, right? Narrative structure: the thing that makes the story hang together. Which is different from narration, the way you tell the story.
The biggest problem with nonfiction narration, in this editor’s never actually humble opinion, is that it’s too easy to edit the writer out of the story. I would one thousand times rather be given a story to edit whose English isn’t perfect but whose writer genuinely cares about the topic even though they stumble a little over the phrasing, than a perfectly polished gem of an essay in which you can’t tell who the author is or where they’re from. The former, you can fix easily with a round or two of beta reads and edits. The latter is so much harder. Telling people to get a little raw, to put themselves back in the essay, that’s scary. Especially when they’ve been rewarded their entire academic career for sounding neutral and generic. But trust me: let your personal essays be personal. It’ll pay off.
Thought exercise: If you wrote a story in just dialogue, could your reader tell anything about your characters without them explaining it?
The way different characters talk, the thoughts they have and the actions they take because of those thoughts, those are important things in your story. Your characters really should be different people. Sometimes that takes the form of different speech patterns. Sometimes it’s different responses to the same stimulus (one character might be thrilled by fireworks; another might be irritated, or nervous). Once you start thinking about your characters as different people with different motivations, you’ll have a better sense of how they react to things, and what you need to put into the story for them to react to.
That’s it for this week! 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! If you’re more the self-help type, remember to scroll through our writing help section for tips and tricks. Even if a post isn’t directed at your favorite grid, there’s probably a handy hint for you in there anyway! 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 challenges kick off at midnight tonight!
Congratulations to the Crowd Favorites at YeahWrite #430
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 Challenge
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