It’s been challenging
But has it been … SUPER CHALLENGING? That’s right, the 16th (whoa) Super Challenge kicks off tonight. Good luck to all our writers (and their beleaguered beta readers), and Coffeehouse? I’ll see you in a month. I’ll miss you all! In the meantime, check out the popular vote results right here, to hold you over.
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!
But we don’t limit kudos to posts: our commentariat commendation goes to a writer who has gone above and beyond to offer help and community to authors with work on the grids. You can check out our Critic’s Guide for examples of what we mean, but we don’t limit the commentariat commendation to posts with the concrit badge on. There are definitely still ways to help and support authors who don’t feel confident asking for robust criticism, and we trust our community to find them. On weeks when we find a comment to commend, we’ll let you know in the Roundup section.
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 #473 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Nonfiction
Baby Needs by Shannon Barber
Sometimes we forget that we can use techniques from one genre of writing in a completely different genre. In this essay, Shannon elegantly illustrates the use of poetic techniques – lyricism, making abstract ideas concrete, repetition, metaphor, and more – to convey a powerful and prosaic so-what. They begin by introducing us to the notion of “afraid” as distinct from “fear.” “Afraid” is presented as something children experience, something that seems large when you’re small, but diminishes with age and experience. “Fear,” on the other hand, carries a greater note of malevolence, a greater threat of harm or death. Through this essay, Shannon uses repetition to get the reader more comfortable with each theme, to make the themes feel more banal, more acceptable, and by doing this, they mirror the way people of colour (especially Black people) have come to live with constant fear, dread, and imminent death. They take us metaphorically and temporally through how they embraced the thrill of fear, how that feeling is what allows them to move forward in life – a literal “feel the fear and do it anyway.” The repeated motif of the mask worked to show how the benign fears (and masks) of childhood were replaced with new adult fears (and masks). Shannon invites the reader to consider the dilemma for PoC (especially Black folks) in wearing a mask – does one wear a mask and risk violence and/or death from racist assumptions about a person of colour wearing a mask, or does one forgo a mask and risk death from this virus?
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #473
This week’s grid was a lovely example of what happens when we stop waiting around for a story to happen to us that’s “important enough” and just write the stories we have. Those are the kinds of stories that let your writing and voice shine, whether they’re about scrambled eggs or video games, paperclips or photographs. One caveat: because these stories are so dependent on your sense of them as central, it’s critical to figure out your theme and stick to it. That might mean writing your essay and then paring it down to the bits that stand out for you, building a new essay around that moment of clarity. Figure out what made you care, and your readers will care too.
I say “trust your reader” a lot, but I mean it every time. On the other hand, I also mean it when I say “get a good beta reader and make sure you put everything in your post.” What’s the balance here? Well, if you’ve got enough information in your story or poem, you can trust your reader to understand what you’re saying (yes, even the readers who for some reason feel constantly compelled to comment “I don’t understand poetry,” folks, it’s not really that hard, did it give you a feeling? yes? you understood it. Stop running yourself down in your own comment, you’re not stupid. Also sometimes you didn’t “get it” because “it” wasn’t there; not all poetry is good.). You don’t have to summarize yourself or tie everything up with a moral or write that last stanza that’s like “here’s what I was actually saying in the whole rest of the poem.” Honestly at that point you’re writing the poem twice so why did you bother with all the effort in the first part? (the answer is: Because that’s the good part.) That said, if your intelligent beta reader can’t pick out what you were trying to say, you might need to adjust your language or content to clarify that idea or emotion for a broader audience than just-you. And then? Then you can hit publish, knowing your poem contains just enough and not too much, and trust your readers to get it.
Voice! When you’ve only got 48 (or 53) words, have a consistent voice. You get so used to packing the words in a certain way that when a prompt like this comes along it can be a bit difficult to use well. Using a phrase prompt often requires you to adjust your narrative voice so that it sounds like you wrote the whole story, not just the bit that isn’t the prompt. Take a minute to re-read the grid: which authors were able to adjust their narrative voice to match the prompt phrase? Which prompts stuck out, clearly written by a different person? Even if readers aren’t consciously aware of shifts in voice, it can affect how they feel about a story overall.
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 #473
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
Loading InLinkz ...Fiction|Poetry Challenge
Loading InLinkz ...Microprose Challenge
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.
