YeahWrite Super Challenge #17

Each round of the Super Challenge starts at 10pm Eastern US Time on a Friday and closes at 10pm Eastern US Time on the Sunday immediately following, giving you 48 hours to complete your entry. (If a Super Challenge weekend ever crosses Daylight Saving Time in the US, we promise to give you the full 48 hours.) Each round will have a different genre and prompt style. Writers will be separated into groups and each group will receive a prompt. All groups will respond to that prompt in the genre assigned for each round. The rounds are scheduled as follows:

Your feedback is emailed to you the Wednesday before the next round begins, and we’ll announce who’s moving on that day at noon. Competition winners will be announced on September 18, 2020!

We’re making things easy for you this time around by sticking with one low registration fee of $25. That’s our usual early bird price, but since time has basically stopped existing as we knew it in 2020, we’re giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. Registration closes at 10pm US Eastern Time on August 5.

After filling out the registration form, you can send your payment via PayPal – please put the code YWSC17 in the “notes” box of PayPal so we know we’re not just getting free money out of thin air! If you do not have a PayPal account, an invoice will be sent to you within 24 hours. The entry fee must be received in full by YeahWrite on or before August 7, 2020, to participate. Once the registration is completed online and your payment is processed, we’ll send a confirmation e-mail to the email you give us on your registration form. Be patient – sometimes it takes PayPal a minute to process your payment and we can’t send your confirmation until we have that. If you sent your payment on time and PayPal doesn’t process it until the next day, we’ll still consider you to have registered on time!

YeahWrite Tier 2 members get a $5 discount on Super Challenge registration! Use the code YWSC17M instead, so that we can confirm your membership and payment correctly.

If you haven’t signed up for our mailer yet, this would be a great time. We’ll keep you informed of events around the site as well as important Super Challenge news.

Our prizes are, at a minimum, $150 for first, $100 for second, and $50 for third place. But the total actual amount of the prizes will be announced after all entries have been received.

Why? Because just like your sibling, we’re gonna split the money with you. That’s right: the total cash prizes for first, second and third place will add up to half of the entry fees*. You know what that means? The more folks enter, the bigger the prize gets. Sign yourself up and then go share this news with your friends and community! Make the competition bigger, better and tougher for all of us!

Final prize amounts:

• 1st prize: $250
• 2nd prize: $150
• 3rd prize: $100

* Unless a prize in that amount would trigger provisions of US law relating to transfer of fees; in that case we reserve the right to split the money in such a way that we award more prizes (i.e. first through fifth place).

For full text of the rules of the competition, go here. By entering the competition you agree to abide and be bound by these rules, so go actually read them. Besides, they contain really useful information about how to submit your work and in what format, in case you get tired of reading this FAQ.

Who can enter?
Anyone 18 or older can enter the competition, as long as it’s not void where you live. YeahWrite editors are, naturally, not eligible. If we had actual employees they wouldn’t be eligible either, and it goes without saying that our competition judges are not eligible.

How many writers can work on an essay?
An essay is considered the work of the registered writer. We won’t split up the prizes. That said, you can show your work to others during the course of each round, receive feedback, and make revisions.

When will I get my assignment and when is it due?
On the Friday that each round opens, you’ll receive an email with your group assignment. At 10pm Eastern US Time we’ll post the prompt assignments via a YeahWrite blog post linked in the email and on this page under the appropriate round number below. Find your group’s prompt, write your essay, and email it to us by 10pm on the Sunday immediately following. That means you have exactly 48 hours to write!

How do I submit my essay?
Email your essay in .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .txt format to superchallenge@yeahwrite.me before 10pm on the closing day of each round. Use the subject line “YeahWrite Super Challenge Round [x] Group [y] submission.” Make sure the filename is as specified in the official rules.

How do I format my essay?
Your essay must be in 12 point font – either Arial or Times New Roman. The first page should be blank except for the Title Page information described in the rules. The title page does not count toward your maximum word count of 1,000 words. Make sure your name does not appear anywhere in your essay or on the file. The name of the file must be as follows: [group number]-[title]. For example, if you are in Group 2 and the title of your essay is “Daisy Petals” then the filename will be 2-Daisy Petals.doc (or .rtf or .txt, as applicable).

What if I need to make changes to an essay I’ve submitted?
Sorry. We don’t accept revisions or changes to your work. Once you hit send that’s it, game over. The only exception will be if you forgot to attach your essay to your original submission email – you can still re-send the email with your attachment as long as you send it before the round closes at 10pm. We’ll send you a confirmation email when we get your essay. Submitting two essays can be grounds for disqualification. If the file you’ve sent us won’t open, we may email you to ask for another copy.

Do footnotes or citations count towards the word limit?
Yes. If you choose to use citations or footnotes to credit your sources (and you should credit your sources, if applicable), remember that those will count towards your overall word limit. 

When do I get my results?
You’ll receive feedback from our judges early on the Wednesday before the next round opens – about two and a half weeks after you turn your work in. We’ll post who is moving on to the next round on that Wednesday as well, at noon US Eastern time. The only exception is the final round – you’ll receive your feedback on time but we’ll post the final round winners on Friday at 3pm Eastern time.

Who owns the copyright to my work?
You do. For a more complete explanation of what rights you are granting to YeahWrite by entering your work in the Super Challenge, see the official rules.

So can I post my work on my blog?
Not until after you receive feedback from the judges, please. Don’t make your work available in a forum where the judges might run across it until the judging is done. After each round of the challenge is over, we’ll also create a special grid to link up your work, since it’s not eligible for our regular challenge grids.

What feedback will I get on my work?
In every round you participate in, you’ll get an email telling you what the judges liked about your work, and what you need to work on. We’ll make sure to get you this feedback before the next round, so that it’s useful to you as you move through the competition!

Who are the judges?
A staff of professional writers, educators, and editors. We often have celebrity guest judges, usually in the final round, so stay tuned and keep checking our Announcements section on this page!

Can I see some examples of essays that have been written for this competition in the past?
Sure! Check out our last nonfiction Super Challenge right here. Scroll down for the special Super Challenge grids. Our writers have the option to link their essays to these grids after they received their scores. You can also check out the results for the last challenge.

What if I have more questions?
Please send questions about the Super Challenge to superchallenge@yeahwrite.me only, and not to our Facebook, Twitter, or other email addresses. We will not be reviewing other email addresses or social media for Super Challenge related questions, and we want to make sure you hear back from us!

IMPORTANT: If you have questions during the Super Challenge, and you send them to other email addresses or to Facebook or Twitter, you may be effectively contacting a judge and we would have to disqualify your entry for that round. Don’t do that to yourself: use the Super Challenge address: superchallenge@yeahwrite.me.

See? we told you we’d remind you again.

You can find answers to more Frequently Asked Questions here: Super Challenge FAQ

The second and final round of the Super Challenge for our “short list” runs from 10pm August 28th to 10pm August 30th.

At 10pm on August 28th, this button will take you to the prompt.

At 3pm on September 18th, find out who won with this button!