Last week’s challenge: “Choose Your Random Words“
So, this week’s challenge is going to be awesome.
SHUT UP IT WILL TOO.
Here’s what’s going to happen.
I’m going to list 20 different pop culture properties — books, movies, comics.
You’re going to randomly choose two and mash them up into a piece of ~1000-word flash fiction.
Here’s why — because whenever I read reviews of my books or whenever you pitch a film to somebody you always mash up two wildly different properties to give a feel for what it is. (As I’ve noted elsewhere, Blue Blazes often gets called Goodfellas meets Lovecraft meets The D&D Monster Manual.) It’s a fun way to envision a story, so boom, that’s what we’re doing here.
Note: the result should be thematic and stylistic, not actual mash-up fanfiction. (Again, envision you take your story into a pitch meeting and to pitch it, you combine two seemingly unlike pop culture properties. It’s like that.)
Story due by Friday, June 14th, noon EST.
Post at your online space. Link back here.
Here’s the list. Choose two or pick ’em randomly with a d20 or random number generator.
- Casablanca
- Die Hard
- Breaking Bad
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
- The Maltese Falcon
- Terminator
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
- Star Wars
- Game of Thrones
- The Handmaid’s Tale
- Batman
- The Stand
- Neverwhere
- The Godfather
- Planet of the Apes
- Rosemary’s Baby
- Arrested Development
- The Walking Dead
- Reservoir Dogs
- Pride & Prejudice
131 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: It’s ABC Meets XYZ!”
[…] rolled for the Terribleminds ABC meets XYZ challenge, and got “Game of Thrones” meets “Batman”. I’m not sure I […]
The d20 gave me Game of Thrones and Batman. I… am not sure I stopped there.
http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/2013/06/10/flash-fiction-kings-landings-hero/
[…] fiction challenge because… fill in your own excuse here. I couldn’t miss this week’s flash fiction challenge, though. We were given a list of 20 books, films, comics, and TV shows. We were to randomly choose […]
The mysteries of the d20 gave me “Die Hard” and “Reservoir Dogs.” I don’t exactly know how the resulting twist here came about at the end, but I did enjoy the sideways reference to another one of my favorite movies (a list on which both Die Hard and Reservoir Dogs appear), “The Big Lebowski.”
Bodies
OMG… 7 & 11 believe it or not… Batman and Bueller… fun.
[…] flash fiction piece for a Chuck Wendig prompt. If this one seems a little clipped that’s because I think I’m going to make it into a […]
So, as I mentioned earlier, I got Terminator and Game of Thrones. The thing I came up with was surprisingly fun. It’s turned into a short story, maybe even a novella (not sure yet), so thank you for the plot bunnies. I put up the flash fiction piece though.
http://elisanuckle.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/flash-fiction-the-runeman-and-the-magistrate-of-fire/
So Planet of the Apes and The Walking Dead collide resulting in the Planet of the Walking Monkey Carcasses… er, something. In any case, the story came out like this:
http://www.jqpdx.com/2013/06/10/the-visitor/
I would watch the hell out of this if it was a movie.
Oh, my word… That. Was. Awesome!
[…] weekly blog challenge up. http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/07/flash-fiction-challenge-its-abc-meets-xyz/. I’m really glad I started doing them. They are crazy fun, and really force me to try out […]
http://flyknifecomics.com/flash-fiction-7/
It’s Casablanca meets Star Wars! What fun.
[…] this week’s flash fiction challenge at terribleminds.com was to mashup two movies from a list of 20. I was very excited about this theme and settled on […]
Breaking bad and Star Wars. Here’s my second ever attempt at flash fiction: Desperate Jib (I’m calling it Flash Fiction and a Half since I’ve written about 1500 words!)
http://fidgetandthink.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/the-mashup/
Star Wars and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was my lot. I should have planned the story more in advance, because it clearly got away with me. But I’ll present it anyway. Sorry about the massive word count.
http://www.trinetoftschmidt.com/2013/06/flash-fiction-mash-up/
It’s Die Hard meets The Handmaid’s Tale for me, in Women’s Work: http://ksbrennan.com/womens-work
Awesome! Round two of this would be pretty epic. I’m picturing the handmaiden killing Swedes, walking barefoot over broken glass and bungee jumping off of exploding towers using a bridal gown…
Thanks!
[…] gave an interesting challenge for this week–smash two movies together. Good thing I rolled Planet of the Apes and The Godfather, two […]
I rolled Planet of the Apes meets The Godfather.
I cheated and left it at 1006 words. But they are 1006 GOOD words!
http://iamwritingwhileblack.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/flash-fiction-leaving-so-soon-1006-words/
It’s like Batman meets Star Wars!
“Knight Error”
http://jmboverthinking.blogspot.com/2013/06/flash-fiction-challenge-its-abc-meets.html
[…] My contribution to the Flash Fiction Challenge found here […]
Okay, so my challenge was 14. The Godfather & 18. The Walking Dead.
So here we go with “Shooters” – http://spotofink.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/flash-fiction-challenge-shooters/
[…] week at Terribleminds we were given twenty different pop-culture properties, and had to mash two of them up like the base […]
Well, done and dusted, though I question the cleaner…
http://joetblogs.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/terribleminds-flash-fiction-challenge-abc-meets-xyz/
[…] this week’s challenge was to combine two pop culture properties based by rolling a d20 twice and choosing from a list of […]
Frankenstein meets Pride and Prejudice – this one came out very oddly, but it’s been a really weird week.
http://knotachance.tumblr.com/
Got this done a day early since I’ll be busy the next few nights. I didn’t want to miss the cut-off. http://contrastsolution.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-weekly-challenge.html
[…] This is my flash fiction for the ABC Meets XYZ Flash Fiction Challenge presented at terribleminds. […]
Alright. Took me a while to figure out something. I rolled up Pride and Prejudice meets The Godfather. http://vgaubersoldat72.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/flash-fiction-challenge-abc-meets-xyz/
[…] short story prompted from Chuck Wendig’s weekly challenges, this time it was called “ABC meets XYZ“. It was fun but incredibly […]
“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” meets “The Walking Dead” turned out to be called “The World Ended and I Still Need Condoms” (content warning, PG-13 I guess?):
http://panningforclouds.com/2013/06/13/the-world-ended-and-i-still-need-condoms-1153-words/
I rolled “Reservoir Dogs” and “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”, and came up with “For Ten Silver Fishes”:http://nickegelhoff.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/flash-fiction-challenge-its-abc-meets-xyz/
[…] entry is in response to Chuck Wendig’s entry at http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/07/flash-fiction-challenge-its-abc-meets-xyz/ […]
Here is my entry:
http://b0bsbl0g.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/the-raven-and-the-blushing-nightingale/
This is a Game of Thrones/Batman mash up.
It’s Batman meets Ferris Bueller’s Day Off!
“Masked: What She Does Not Know”
http://polyglottal-toad.tumblr.com/post/52909339673/masked-what-she-does-not-know
Truly, I don’t think it’s very good, but that’s all right. This is my first flash piece in 6+ months and I’m very tired. Still no excuse for sloppy writing, but there you have it. It’s Die Hard meets Walking Dead.
http://kaikiriyama.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/terrible-minds-flash-fiction-challenge-6-7-13/
Whoo *wipes sweat off forehead*, this was the hardest one yet. I had “Star Wars” meets “The Stand,” I give you “The Choice.” Enjoy!
http://jasminestanford.blogspot.com/2013/06/flash-fiction-choice.html
This probably isn’t the right idea, but Casablanca meets Star Wars in “Paradisio”. And it’s long because the previous week was short. OK?
http://jemimapett.com/2013/06/14/paradisio/
Yippee Ki Yay Nerf Herder! The combination of Die Hard and Star Wars was awesome to me.
http://magell2.blogspot.com/2013/06/yippee-ki-yay-nerf-herder.html
[…] Friday, Chuck Wendig over at Terribleminds hosts Flash Fiction Friday. This week, or last week, I guess, the challenge was, “ABC Meets […]
[…] this week! Shock! Horror! I was inspired to take part in the latest Flash Fiction Challenge on Chuck Wendig’s blog: It’s ABC meets XYZ. I chose two titles from a list of twenty popular movies, TV shows and […]
Left it to the last minute (what is it about deadlines that inspires such a raging torrent of procrastination?) so it’s rough as guts, but anyway… My two were The Handmaid’s Tale and Reservoir Dogs, and I wrote the first idea that those titles brought to mind. It’s called 712 and you can find it here:
http://whoamolly.com/2013/06/15/flash-fiction-challenge-abc-meets-xyz/
I got Pride & Prejudice meets Ferris Beuller…A little rough around the edges…And titled “Maybe I Was Wrong.”
http://amberroettger.com/blog/?p=655
[…] one is a response to Mr. Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge (found here), in which my goal (after random selection, of course) was to combine the thematic/stylistic […]
Late but here, here’s my take on a mash-up of Pride and Prejudice and Planet of the Apes: Under Your Skin.
http://toothsomefiction.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/under-your-skin/
[…] Last week’s challenge: “ABC Meets XYZ“ […]
[…] This last week, while Voyager Comics has been off on our Summer/June vacation, I’ve been playing around with a list of 20 well-known properties suggested by author Chuck Wendig for a flash fiction exercise . […]