Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

Flash Fiction Challenge: The Epic Game Of Aspects Redux

I’ve gotten a lot of people telling me how much they loved the previous Game of Aspects challenges, so —

WE SHALL DO IT AGAIN.

And we’ll do it even bigger this time.

But! Before we do, I need your help.

Or, someone’s help.

I want to do this game of aspects thing as a website. Like, imagine that there’s a website that every time you click it, it gives you a new combination of flash fiction story seeds based off these types of lists. Maybe there’s a front page that lets you customize some aspect — maybe no front-page. I dunno. Anyone out there savvy enough to talk me through this? You can hit me up in the comments or at my terribleminds-at-gmail-dot-com email address. My thanks in advance, you wonderful humans.

Now, onto the game.

This time, again you can either go do the Random Number Generator at Random.org, or you can instead use a d20. Not a d10 this time, word-whippers. A MOTHERFUCKING d20.

So, let’s get on with it. You know the drill — you’ve got three categories below

You’ve got Subgenre / Conflict / Element to Include.

Pick one from each category either randomly or by your own hand (though randomly is the most fun), then write a flash fiction short story no longer than 1000 words. Post at your online space, link back to it in the comments here, and voila. Easy-peasy, George-and-Weezy.

Oh, EDIT: Due by Friday, October 5th, noon EST. I won’t pick favorites until after that weekend is over, as I’ll be in Loverly Georgia (state, not country), at the Crossroads Writing Conference.

Once again, as I’m having so much fun with this, I’ll send my favorite story a prize.

No idea what the prize is. We’ll just call it a MYSTERY BOX.

On with the lists!

Subgenre

1. Men’s Adventure

2. Dieselpunk

3. Post-Apocalyptic

4. Southern Gothic

5. Comic Fantasy

6. Superhero

7. Hardboiled

8. Wuxia

9. Weird West

10. Wild West

11. Yuri

12. Whodunit

13. Science-Fantasy

14. Magic Realism

15. Spy Thriller

16. Black Comedy

17. Alien Invasion

18. Time Travel

19. Twisted Fairy Tale

20. Fanfiction

Conflict / Problem

1. Lover’s Quarrel!

2. Civil War!

3. Heist Gone Wrong!

4. Assassin!

5. Abduction!

6. Exiled!

7. Haunted By The Past!

8. Sins Of The Father!

9. Betrayed!

10. A Changed World!

11. Trapped!

12. A Quest For Something!

13. A Quest For Someone!

14. Revenge!

15. Enemies At The Gate!

16. Family Thrown Apart!

17. Disease!

18. Lost!

19. Get The Band Back Together!

20. Sanctioned Competition!

Element to Include

1. Unicorn

2. Sentient Supercomputer

3. Sea Monster

4. Plane (or Spaceship) Crash

5. A Dead Body

6. A Summoning Ritual

7. A Hallucination

8. Flying Monkeys

9. A Hologram

10. The Devil

11. A Dirty Magazine

12. An Ancient Sword

13. The Restless Dead

14. A Gourmet Meal

15. A Severed Hand

16. Poisonous Snakes

17. A Black Hole

18. Some Manner Of Werecreature/Shapeshifter

19. A Talking Tree

20. Heaven

terribleminds

101 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: The Epic Game Of Aspects Redux”

Newer Comments »

  1. Makes me wish I knew something about websites.

    The only thing experience I have with something like that are writing prompt games I’ve seen on livejournal. People would make lists of prompts. You choose the list you want to work with, mix up lists (like take one prompt from one list and mix it with another from another list) and write something from that. You get awards for finishing off lists or for doing certain amount of words.

    But it was a community type of thing. No so much the automated website I think you’re talking about.

    Reply

  2. During the second game, katfrench did a script to generate from the lists you provided. You may want to get in contact with her since all you should have to do is update the lists that her code is using.

    8000 possible choices here Chuck. This is madness! Great, but madness nevertheless. I’ll have mine written by Monday. 😉

    Reply

  4. I could help with the website idea. I do that sort of thing for a living and it sounds like a fun side project. I’m not fabulous with the design portion of things, but the functionality would be pretty simple to get sorted.

    Reply

  5. Wow. Got 9 (Weird West), 4 (Assassin!) and 18 (Some kind of Werecreature/Shapeshifter). Just perfect. Wont be able to get started with this until this weekend (at work now), but I already feel ideas growing.

    Reply

  12. What were the odds? I just got all 14s. Magic Realism, Revenge, A Gourmet Meal.

    I shall have to think on this, but we’re moving so…

    Last time it never got posted as it turned into something a lot longer than flash that I intend to submit to paying markets.

    Reply

  19. Great. Another Flash Fiction test to fail miserably. Oh well, practice, practice, practice. Yeah, and 6 (Superhero), 8 (Sins of the Father!) and 9 (A Hologram).

    Sidenote: for those interested in a Random Generator, I threw one up over on Abulafia Wiki. You can find it here: http://tinyurl.com/8go5xvh

    All the above ‘Aspects’ are included. Just refresh the page for a new prompt.

    Reply

  31. Got “Superhero,” “Revenge!” and “An Ancient Sword.” And now all I can really think of is Batman somehow obtaining and using Excalibur. Or time-travelling.
    Either way, I think I should get writing.

    Reply

  34. I got Dieselpunk, Get the Band Back Together, and Black Hole. This sounds interesting! …now if I can just get a handle on what exactly makes something Dieselpunk.

    Reply

  41. In a stark example of “some people will do anything other than write” …. I’ve developed a WordPress Plugin that lets the blogger configure lists (like the three at the top), groups of lists (like the grouping of three at the top) and then randomly select an item from each list in the group inside blog posts.

    I’ve installed it on my wordpress at: http://stephenemm.co.uk/?p=297

    The blog post has pictures of how it works.

    Any wordpress bloggers who want a copy of the plugin can have one.

    Reply

  44. I get the feeling that I am going to be writing short stories from this list for a while. Just for fun! I’ll have mine up for the challenge within the week. Loving these games of aspects!

    Reply
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