Flash Fiction Challenge: Must Contain This Sentence…


Last week’s challenge: “Behold Your Theme.”

Here, then, are three random sentences:

“The borderlands expire thanks to the hundred violins.”

“A poetic pattern retains inertia.”

“The criminal disappears after the inventor.”

That’s it.

I generated them randomly, online.

You will choose one of these three sentences and include it in a piece of flash fiction, maximum of 1000 words. (For bonus kudos, use all three sentences in one story. Ooooh.)

Due by this Friday, the 16th, noon EST.

Post at your blog.

Drop a link to it here so we can all see it.

Go forth and write!


90 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: Must Contain This Sentence…”

  1. Can’t do this one. I’m actually socially over-loaded this week.
    You ?
    Yeah me ,really!

    • This line: “History crawls across the dead cities of Mars, darkens their tunnels, rides their manufactured winds like a dandelion seed.” This is perfect. I loved your whole story, marveled at it, but that line gives me chills. Awesomeness! I am struggling with this challenge, and now, I feel ridiculously inept to follow this.

      • Thank you! I really, really, really (xN) struggled with this one too. I didn’t finish it so much as give up on my ability to make it make any more sense. Then this morning I realized that the last line should be “Where is her Vesuvius?” instead and I was … well, I ate an entire piece of cake with my tea, that’s what I was. A giant piece of cake eater. And I’m still kind of mad I couldn’t get that third sentence in.

        • Of the three, the only one I couldn’t manage to squeeze in was the violin line. It seems to me like it SHOULD fit the proem-thing I made, but I just couldn’t get the rhythm right, even with some tweaks. I might find that lightning will strike later and cause it to behave for me.

    • Pitch perfect, period-correct, and culturally specific, all of which is pulled off with the special effect of language. I want a whole collection of pieces like this. (And I want to eat all the cake, too.)

    • OK, upfront I must confess this one hits all my kinks: clever hackery, management that underestimates the intelligence and ill-will of its underlings, revolutionary endgame … oh yes, and just plain weirdness. Great job with the alternating viewpoint, with complete confidence that we’d follow — because I did.

  2. Inspired by TWO sentences from the challenge. Oh yeah, I’m all about overachieving, baby. Sat down at the typewriter and (literally) banged this sucker out almost immediately after reading the e-mail.

    http://writingcyborg.blogspot.com/2014/05/untitled.html

    This one is fiction in the way that some of the postmodernists are fiction. More of a…rumination? No…characters, per se. Maybe one. But hell, isn’t Chuck all about breaking those rule-things? Hopefully it works. This is a first draft, so I’m sure I’ll tweak the crap out of it.

    • REally twisty self-justifying narrator (I think this one takes a few steps beyond “unreliable”) and I have really serious questions about the motives of the human star-warrior, which all adds up to a really strong aftertaste.

    • An entire epic-picaresque novel packed into a thousand words. At the usual exchange rate of 1K words = 1 picture, you’ve painted quite a canvas, with the most exciting bits implied just beyond the frame.

      • I am beyond flattered by your praise! Thank you so much for your compliments – I can’t tell you how encouraging they are from a writer of such excellent caliber!

    • the opening pulled me in with its intense absorption in details of the craft – and then events took off wildly from there. I am still wondering what the heck happened, but in a really good way, as in “must reread this.”

    • “Gorgon-glaring teenagers” wins my part of the internets, and the story just gets better from here. Yours is the first entry that takes the prompts as hilarious (and occasionally disturbing) translation errors. Whether you’re writing from first-hand experience or well-researched intuition, you’ve nailed the dynamic here.

    • Very nice twist! The first paragraph had me thinking that the main character might actually be a dog, lol. I was picturing a golden retriever for some reason. Did you ever consider that?

      • Didn’t see the golden retriever scenario, but now that you mention it, it does fit the first paragraph, gave me a good laugh! I’ll keep the “canine POV” idea in mind for one of these weeks.

  3. […] Recently, I was perusing the writer-webs and came across Chuck Wendig’s blog (http://terribleminds.com/). I found that weekly he invites writers to participate in a Flash Fiction Challenge, ranging anywhere between 1000-1500 words. Although, I totally missed the deadline I nonetheless took part of the challenge. In the future I’m hoping to be a bit more punctual! Below is my story in correspondence to this prompt: Chuck Wendig’s Challenge […]

  4. I am late at below atrocious-with-the-devils-fecal-swiping’s levels on this challenge. Life has a way of plucking you out of the writers stream of time and you have to be courageous enough to dive back in (excuse?). I wrote this story for this particular challenge and wasn’t able to get back to actually posting it on my blog (absent of life, lol) or linking it back here, lol. I’m hoping to be a bit more punctual in the near future!

    http://storiesarewords.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/the-hundred-violins-flash-fiction-story/

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