Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

Flash Fiction Challenge: Life Is Hell

Last week’s challenge: Five Random Words.

This week’s challenge is as straightforward or as oblique as you care to make it:

I want you to write a story about Hell.

Now, this can be a literal Hell.

It can be a literal Hell from actual religion.

It can be a Hell of your own design and desire.

It can be a metaphorical or figurative Hell.

The story needn’t take place in Hell — but it needs to touch on the idea or the metaphor in some way or fashion. Feel free to get creative with the idea — don’t feel constrained by precise definitions (though you can be, if you choose to be).

I put up this challenge as a bit of a nod to the fact that my own Hell-book, The Blue Blazes, is today a Kindle Daily Deal. (And here I’m shamelessly elbowing you to see if you care to check it out.) Plus, I’m writing the sequel, now, so I too will be writing about Hell this morning!

You’ve got 1000 words. Due in a week — in by noon EST on Friday, 4/11. Post the story at your online space, then drop a link back to that story in the comments below.

Welcome to Hell.

We have such sights to show you.

terribleminds

112 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: Life Is Hell”

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    • Actually, it’s “Biking in Hell,” and it’s under 600 words–keeping things a little shorter for the A to Z Challenge. And I had to find a “J” word for hell. . .

      Reply

  9. I really thought of a bunch of “hell” scenarios. I honestly believe that hell is a state of mind that is of your own choosing. I thought about an event in my own life and the work conditions that some must endure today due to circumstance and things not of their own choosing. It goes without saying that jobs are scarce and people are scared. Obviously, there is a hell for everyone.

    This really did happen.
    .
    http://taylormaderandomwrites.blogspot.com/2014/04/choosing-life-in-hell-flash-fiction.html

    Reply

    • A friend of mine, one time, was going through a crisis of faith. We talked about whether my atheism was about being “angry” with god, and what I thought about the idea of the afterlife. Talking about hell, I told him that the only way hell might makes sense was if it was more like purgatory, a kind of way station on the way to accept whatever needed to be accepted. Sort of like life, but without the unfair biological ending.

      If I read your story right, you really captured the horror of that unfairness.

      Reply

  16. Shockingly small number of submissions this week! Guess it scared the hell out of us.

    And Chuck–you should have set the word count at 666.

    Reply

  17. I missed the deadline by 11 hours, and I overshot the limit by 1,950 words, but I finished my story about Hell. It’s a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, although I may have tinkered with the ending somewhat.

    I also combined this challenge with the 10 chapters one from a couple of weeks ago, since I hadn’t done that one yet. I’m not sure I get to claim success on that front, though, because I kind of blew the word count out of the water.

    Reply
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