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YeahWrite Super Challenge #22

Fiction

Welcome to the YeahWrite Fiction Super Challenge!

Welcome – or welcome back – to YeahWrite’s biggest challenge of all. The Super Challenge brings together the best parts of our community: writing, reading, feedback and, well, winning! We alternate fiction and nonfiction challenges (because why should fiction writers have all the fun of prompts and tight deadlines?) and it’s time for a quick and much-needed break from reality, so it’s a good thing we’re headed for fiction.

YeahWrite has been a vibrant community of writers for ten years, and we’ve never missed a week in all that time. If you’ve ever been inspired to write by one of our weekly prompts, you know they’re a great way to learn, grow and connect with our community of writers, but the Super Challenge is where it all comes together, where your hard work and practice pays off – literally pays off, I mean, with prizes! If you’re finding YeahWrite for the first time, welcome aboard. We hope you’re along for the ride. Check out our Facebook group, the Coffeehouse, and our Discord server for more ways to connect with our community of readers and writers!

YeahWrite’s Super Challenge is more than just a competition. Think of it like a fun, fast-paced, hands-on workshop that pushes you to produce a story you’d be proud to submit for later publication, as many of our participants have gone on to do.

What makes us different?

  • Unique, anthology-style prompts.
  • Personalized feedback on every entry from professional editors and writers who give you what you need to really polish a fun-to-write competition story for later publication.
  • Guaranteed minimum cash prizes: $150 for first place, $100 for second, and $50 for third. (And it can only go up from there!)
  • A wonderful and supportive community of writers!

Get ready for a weekend of fun, fierce writing!

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About

The YeahWrite Fiction Super Challenge is a prompted challenge where writers compete to complete the best work of short fiction in a single weekend each round. Prompts are released on Friday, and the completed work must be turned in by Sunday night.

The competition takes place over two rounds. Why not one mega-round, you ask? Well, we still think that it’s important to have more than one shot at winning: anyone can have a bad weekend, but with more than one round your odds of getting a prompt where your strengths as a writer can shine are higher. It also smooths out scoring and judging anomalies, and keeps the focus on the quality of the writing. In fact, that’s why many competitive anthologies have a “long list” and a “short list” of writers under consideration.

For Super Challenge #22 we’ll be mirroring that format: Round One is our long list, and Round Two, the final, will be our short list of about ten writers. For Round One, you’ll be broken into smaller groups and judged within your group; the top writers from each group will advance to the final round. (If we can’t split these groups to get to ten writers advancing, we’ll advance the lowest number over ten that lets us advance an equal number of writers from each group.) Make sense? This structure should enable us to give you the best and fairest shot at the top spot, while fitting more neatly into your life and leaving you time to enter that other competition you’re excited about, or get those edits in on your long-awaited novel.

All competing writers will receive feedback on their work from the judges at the end of each round. The final writers will compete for cash prizes for first, second, and third place.

Schedule

Each round of the 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. 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.

Dates Prompt Combination
November 12-14, 2021

Prompt Combo

Writers will receive a combination of two prompts, drawn from the following, to include in their story. While no single prompt needs to be the main focus of the story, all must be included in such a way as to be integral to the plot. There are no genre restrictions, unless one of the prompts is a genre.

  • an action (such as “picking up a stone” or “greeting someone”)
  • an event (such as “a wedding” or “a symphony rehearsal”)
  • a setting
  • an emotion
  • an image (might be of a character, a setting, or an object; we like nouns)
  • a character
  • a genre
  • a phrase or complete sentence (may contain fill-in-the-blank sections, may need to be used as-is)
December 3-5, 2021

Two Genre Mashup

Writers will receive two genres and must tell a story that is a combination of the main tropes of both genres. Some genres that may be included are: romance, mystery, horror, fairy tale, fantasy, science fiction. We also go offroad sometimes with genres like picaresque or epistolary, but don’t worry: we’ll give you a definition and some resources! There are no character or topic restrictions, but elements of both genres must be clearly identifiable in the finished story.

Winners will be announced on December 24, 2021.

Fees and Registration

Registration opens: October 4, 2021

Registration fees:

  • Earlybird registration (on or before October 17, 2021): $35
  • Standard registration (October 18-November 10, 2021): $45

Registration closes: November 10, 2021, 10pm US Eastern Time

After filling out the registration form, you can send your payment via PayPal – please put the code YWSC22 in the “notes” box of PayPal so we know we’re not just getting free money out of thin air! Once the registration form is completed online, a registration confirmation e-mail will be sent to the email provided on the registration form. (PayPal will send you its own separate confirmation of payment.) The entry fee must be received in full by YeahWrite on or before November 10, 2021 to participate. If you do not have a PayPal account, we will send you an invoice within 24 hours of receiving your completed registration form.

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.

Prizes

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 we want to give out more money than that. So once we hit 25 entrants, we’ll split the total entry fees with our winners (in about the same proportions as our minimums).* 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 are:

  • 1st place – $275
  • 2nd place – $225
  • 3rd place – $175

* 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).

FAQ and Rules

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. This FAQ does not replace the rules, but clarifies questions we’ve been asked about them. If you have more questions, you can email superchallenge@yeahwrite.me about them. PLEASE, and we’ll remind you again, PLEASE don’t use any other email, DM, post, etc. to contact us with your questions: you can accidentally reveal your identity to judges and disqualify yourself. We don’t want that to happen.

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 a story?
A story is considered the work of the registered writer. We won’t split up the prizes, but you’re welcome to share. 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?
Assignments will be posted at 10pm Eastern US Time on the opening Friday of each challenge, and it is due by 10pm on the Sunday immediately following. That means you have exactly 48 hours to write your story!

How do I submit my story?
Please use the Super Challenge Submission Form posted on the kickoff post for the challenge. You will be able to upload your file directly in the form. We accept the following file formats: .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .txt. The submission form does require you to create a Google account if you don’t already have one, just like Submittable, Moksha, or other submission management systems. We do not collect your Google account information, and we will communicate with you only via the email that you provide directly in the form. Please note that we do not accept submissions in Google docs, even though it’s a Google form.

How do I format my story?
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 specific round’s opening post. 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 a story 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 story to your original submission email. Submitting two stories can be grounds for disqualification. (If we can’t open your story, we’ll ask you for it again, don’t worry!)

When do I get my results?
You’ll receive feedback from our judges early on the Wednesday before the next round opens, in plenty of time for you to review it and brush up on any weak points before moving on in the competition. We’ll post who is moving on to the next round on that Wednesday as well, at noon US Eastern time. The 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.

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!

What kinds of story are acceptable?
While YeahWrite does not place restrictions on use of strong language or on genre, our editorial standards respect the diversity and dignity of our audience. YeahWrite does not and will not accept works which insult or demean any person based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other similar traits. This doesn’t mean you cannot write a story about or containing racism or homophobia between characters or as part of the plot, but it does mean that your story itself shouldn’t be racist or homophobic. It comes down to this: always remember that people who are not like you will read your stories. What do you want them to think about you as a person and a writer?

You should feel free to add a meaningful content warning on your title page (under the summary) if you plan to deal with topics which might be difficult to engage with. We won’t count it toward your wordcount, and it may help you stay in front of judges who can fully engage with your story on the level it deserves.

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

What if I have more questions?

Questions about the Super Challenge must only be asked via two mediums: 1) You can email them directly to superchallenge@yeahwrite.me or 2) If you are a member of our Discord server, ping @sc-admin within the Super Challenge general-chat channel. Do not reach out 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.

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

For a more in-depth response to your most common “how do you run the Super Challenge and why is it that way” questions, check out the Super Challenge FAQ. Neither that page nor this FAQ are a substitute for reading the rules, so read the rules (they’re short, we promise).

Round Updates

Are you ready for this? So are we. We’ll post the prompts and winners here as the competition goes on! Good luck, writers!

Round One

The first round of the Super Challenge runs from 10pm November 12 to 10pm November 14, 2021.

At 10pm on November 12, this button will take you to the prompt.

At noon on December 1 (you’ll receive your feedback in the 24 hours prior to that), find out who won with this button!

 


Congratulations to our round one winners!

Jennie Brass
Amanda Clear
Katie Battaglia Delay
Katelyn Foster
Kate Goodheart
Corrie Haldane
Bridget Haug
Karen Mitani
C.A. Raine
Kristen Ray
MM Schreier
Gail A. Webber

Final Round

The final round of the Super Challenge runs from 10pm December 3 to 10pm December 5, 2021.

At 10pm on December 3, this button will take you to the prompt.

At 3pm on December 24, find out who won with this button!

October 4, 2021:

  • Earlybird registration is open through October 17!

November 11, 2021:

  • Registration is closed! Good luck to all our participants. Final prize amounts are:
    • 1st place – $275
    • 2nd place – $225
    • 3rd place – $175

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