Flash Fiction Challenge: Revenge Of X Meets Y Pop Culture Mashup


This’un is another of my favorite challenges, as it’s always a hoot to see the results. Here’s how it works: roll a d20 or use a random number generator, once for each of the two tables below. (Or, if you really want, just pick two that tickle your pink parts.)

Then, take each of the results and mash them together in a flash fiction story.

The goal is not to tell a literal fan-fic story set in those pop culture storyworlds — though, I guess if you wanna do that, hey, YOU DO YOU. The goal is to take the spirit of those two properties and find a story that embodies the weird mashup. (The origins of this particular challenge come from that old Hollywood conceit of pitching your original story to executives as X meets Y — “It’s The Flintstones meets Nightmare on Elm Street ha ha ha right? BOOM NAILED IT.”) So, you might get 50 SHADES OF GREY MEETS D&D or MINECRAFT MEETS THE SHINING or SILENCE OF THE LAMBS MEETS JONNY QUEST and then you have to a tell a story representative of that mashup, not a story that literally mashes up those properties. Dig it? Dug it? Done.

You have, oh, let’s say 2000 words for this one.

Due back by next Friday, 2/19, noon EST.

Post the story at your online space.

Give us a link in the comments below so we can follow it back.

Now, the two tables –

Table X

  1. Scooby-Doo
  2. The Wheel of Time
  3. Die Hard
  4. Star Wars
  5. Silence of the Lambs
  6. Superman
  7. Batman
  8. The Martian
  9. Godzilla
  10. Friends
  11. Gone Girl
  12. Minecraft
  13. Neuromancer
  14. 50 Shades of Grey
  15. X-Men
  16. World War Z
  17. Fast and the Furious
  18. Sherlock Holmes
  19. Police Academy
  20. Alice in Wonderland

Table Y

  1. Orphan Black
  2. Paranormal Activity
  3. Looney Tunes
  4. Jonny Quest
  5. Jurassic Park/World
  6. The Hunger Games
  7. The Shining
  8. Reservoir Dogs
  9. Planet of the Apes
  10. Gilmore Girls
  11. Friday Night Lights
  12. Dungeons & Dragons
  13. Transformers
  14. When Harry Met Sally
  15. Rosemary’s Baby
  16. The Muppets
  17. The Last Starfighter
  18. Mad Max
  19. The Purge
  20. The Fly

55 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: Revenge Of X Meets Y Pop Culture Mashup”

  1. AHHH I got Alice in Wonderland and Mad Max. I’m usually not one for Alice in Wonderland inspired-stories/spinoffs (mostly just because of overexposure) but this mash-up sounds so, so fun.

    • A mom travels to visit her daughter at college after they had a nasty fight at Thanksgiving, in the hopes of reconciling and bringing her home for Christmas — but when she gets there, this Detective Mom finds her daughter’s college has been taken over by an armed militia bent on robbing the university’s rare coin collection on display in the museum. Throw in lots of snappy banter and a yearning for coffee and you’re golden. 😛

  2. After re rolling twice and having no idea what at least one of them is… I think I might just be too out of touch with pop culture…

  3. Alice and Wonderland and Gilmore Girls… An interesting mash-up, plus it’ll be a challenge to see if I can do Lorelai/Rory’s usual banter justice. *cracks knuckles* Let’s do this 🙂

  4. Last week, the darn challenge stuck in my mind all week but didn’t come out until too late. This week, I’m getting it over with so my brain can get back to what I’m really supposed to be writing…

    Pitch: In a dystopian future where the bioengineered simians and primates have taken over, only those humans with selectively evolved genes survived. Now, both species are caught in an existential struggle for dominance over the world where humans once reigned supreme. Think: X-Men (15) meets Planet of the Apes (9).

    http://infamous-scribbler.com/blog/2016/02/13/pop-culture-mash-up-special/

  5. Was hoping to see Downton Abbey on one the tables. Like Downton meets the Muppets could have been interesting — Mr. Carson is kind of a muppet already, as is Mr. Mosley… and of course the Dowager.

  6. […] This week’s Chuck Wendig flash fiction challenge is to take two different pop-culture story worlds and mash them together to write a new story.  It’s not necessarily a fan-fiction challenge, but that’s sort of how mine turned out.  I got World War Z and Jurassic Park.  There’s really only one place that combo could go.  I hope you like it. […]

    • Well, dcxli, I thought it was terrific. Always a sucker for superhero/comic stories and this was reminiscent of those battleworld/warworld types you see a lot in comics. Good job!

      • I’m glad you liked it. I managed to get distracted, as I often do, and I didn’t have enough time to flesh out the world as much as I would have liked.

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