Last week’s challenge: “Five Random Sentences“
Below is a list of 20 subgenres.
I want you to roll a d20 twice — or click a random number generator twice between 1 and 20 — and that will give you two subgenres. (Sure, you can choose them instead, but that means YOU HATE FUN.)
Smash those two subgenres into one story.
Write that story. Around 1000 words. Post at your online space. Link back here through the comments. Due by next Friday, May 17th, at noon EST.
Here’s the list of subgenres.
- Men’s Adventure
- Splatterpunk
- Fairy Tale
- New Weird
- Space Opera
- Southern Gothic
- BDSM Erotica
- Superhero
- Sword & Sorcery
- Noir
- Dystopia
- Sci-Fi Humor or Satire
- Lovecraftian
- Haunted House
- Cyberpunk
- Steampunk
- Detective
- Post-Apocalyptic
- Weird West
- Technothriller
jreinmiller says:
Lovecraftian Men’s Adventure. Um right…
May 10, 2013 — 12:24 AM
Lee says:
Steampunk-Technothriller… What-how-who-why. Although I like the sound jreinmillers “Lovecraftian Men’s Adventure” – Drink, Brawl, Climb, Discover, Fall-Down, Go-Mad, Wait for the darkness. End. I’d read it!
May 10, 2013 — 4:01 AM
rattify says:
“Steampunk Technothriller” is obviously a Doctor Who fanfic.
May 10, 2013 — 10:37 AM
Indru says:
Fairy Tale Superhero. Here goes nothing!
May 10, 2013 — 6:21 AM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
Awesome. “Space Opera” and “Sword and Sorcery.” I love it. Sci-fi and fantasy are my two favourite sub-genres. I really like how this one turned out, even though I’ve never written anything like it before.
“The Final Push” — http://mrurbanspaceman.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/the-final-push-flash-fiction-piece/
May 10, 2013 — 7:23 AM
Axl T says:
liked it a lot, very efficient packing job
May 12, 2013 — 1:32 PM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
Thanks!
May 12, 2013 — 3:25 PM
jdsfiction says:
Nice job! That was a really fun mash-up, I enjoyed the read.
May 12, 2013 — 1:35 PM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
Cheers for the comment!
May 12, 2013 — 3:26 PM
jreinmiller says:
Great combination. I thought the descriptions in the story were great. Both fantastic and futuristic at the same time. The characters were also good and I really got the sense of a larger world around them.
May 16, 2013 — 7:14 PM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
Thank you, glad it worked for you!
May 17, 2013 — 2:22 AM
Cresta McGowan says:
Men’s Adventure in the Weird West – I’ll give a shot!
May 10, 2013 — 7:41 AM
Cresta McGowan says:
*Give “it” a shot…sheesh!
May 10, 2013 — 7:41 AM
Gargi Mehra says:
Post-Apocalyptic Superhero – good one! I might actually give it a twirl.
May 10, 2013 — 8:22 AM
James Evans says:
Oh, I like this one!!!
May 11, 2013 — 11:25 AM
Anthony Laffan says:
EVERYTIME I try to do these one of the random generated genres is BDSM Erotica. Which means I can’t write it at work and then forget about it. I’ll try to get something up…but yeah, Safe For Work it ain’t gonna be. (Got Fairy Tale BDSM Erotica >_>)
May 10, 2013 — 8:32 AM
chriswhitewrites says:
Yeah, I keep getting BDSM as well…guess the folks at random.org are trying to tell us something.
May 12, 2013 — 5:52 PM
Troy L says:
16-15? Sheesh. I haven’t done one for a while. Let’s see what comes of steampunk-cyberpunk.
May 10, 2013 — 8:50 AM
Troy L says:
This turned out really good. I give you the CyberSteam story, Master Transfer. http://wp.me/p31vkg-44 I threw a little time travel in as well. Very subtle.
May 16, 2013 — 3:09 PM
jreinmiller says:
Very interesting, and a very cool way to combine the genres. I liked the sense that we were dropped into the middle of a situation from a much larger work. Cool stuff.
May 16, 2013 — 7:20 PM
Wanderer says:
Some great world-building going on–lots of mystery and chaos that I wanted to know more about!
May 17, 2013 — 10:12 AM
Matt Gomez says:
Weird West Splatterpunk? Oh my stars and garters.
May 10, 2013 — 8:57 AM
Wanderer says:
Steampunk-Southern Gothic…this should be interesting!
May 10, 2013 — 9:28 AM
Jarrett says:
Sword and sorcery noir. Half of it is up my alley. The other half I’ve never read or written. But it has potential.
May 10, 2013 — 10:14 AM
Sam says:
Post-Apocalyptic Fairy Tale… I think this could be a fun one.
May 10, 2013 — 10:26 AM
rattify says:
Weird West Haunted House… practically writes itself!!
May 10, 2013 — 10:38 AM
Matt Billock says:
Post-Apocalyptic Southern Gothic. Gonna be strange, seeing as I don’t know anything about Southern Gothic
May 10, 2013 — 10:47 AM
Scott Zachary says:
Huh. I got “Steampunk Fairy Tale” on the first roll. The word gods must love me today. This should be fun.
May 10, 2013 — 10:56 AM
Brad Stover says:
There are a lot of genres in that list that I am not terribly familiar with or comfortable dipping my foot in, so this challenge intimidates the hell out of me. The random number generator was kind (I think), spitting out “Sword & Sorcery” and “Splatterpunk”. Seems easy enough, but I suppose I should look up “Splatterpunk” and find out what the heck it is before I start writing…
May 10, 2013 — 11:11 AM
Victoria (@vyctorian) says:
Superhero Splatterpunk … so a 90’s comic it is.
May 10, 2013 — 11:13 AM
Trine Toft Schmidt says:
Hmm superhero/haunted house… have never written any of either. This should be interesting.
May 10, 2013 — 11:42 AM
Rebekah Loper says:
BDSM Erotica & Steampunk – I CAN SO MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
There will be corsets. This is a predetermined fact.
May 10, 2013 — 11:42 AM
James B. Jones says:
Cyberpunk Detective… this’ll be a fun, interesting little challenge (I’ve never written cyberpunk)…
May 10, 2013 — 12:24 PM
Joe Petty says:
Rebekah, I got the exact same one. I’m thinking the same thing, I can’t wait to compare.
May 10, 2013 — 12:47 PM
Rebekah Loper says:
haha, that’ll be interesting!
May 10, 2013 — 1:28 PM
readingtothestarsandback says:
Dystopia and Cyberpunk. Easy!
May 10, 2013 — 2:00 PM
capnzack83 says:
Detective detective. No. The world will explode
May 10, 2013 — 2:58 PM
Paul Baughman says:
Dystopia – Steampunk.
this shall require some drinking, i mean THINKING! Thinking, not drinking. Oh what the heck, drinking it is. See y’all next week!
May 10, 2013 — 3:33 PM
sutinderbola says:
Detective Haunted House. I only did it out of curiosity but now I think I might just have to write this thing.
May 10, 2013 — 6:54 PM
Amy says:
Haunted house steampunk. Ye gods!!
May 10, 2013 — 7:51 PM
Matt Gomez says:
Here’s my Weird West Splatterpunk: “Chasing After Hell”. Enjoy! http://www.writerscarnival.ca/chasing-after-hell/
May 10, 2013 — 10:17 PM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
Good story, very gory and visual. I liked the description of the demons, they sound quite horrifying. Your characters were surprisingly well fleshed-out, for such a short piece.
May 11, 2013 — 3:46 AM
Matt Gomez says:
Thank you! The nice thing about these flash fiction challenges is it forces you to be economical, boil it down to what you absolutely need and get rid of the rest.
May 11, 2013 — 8:24 AM
Axl T says:
did it for me, great pacing in the action
May 12, 2013 — 1:35 PM
Matt Gomez says:
Thanks! Not bad for about an hour’s worth of work.
May 12, 2013 — 10:00 PM
jdsfiction says:
Nice job! A terrific bloody mess (though not bloody like they mean in England, but like real blood). 🙂
May 12, 2013 — 1:38 PM
Matt Gomez says:
I’d take either meaning, honestly. But still, thank you!
May 12, 2013 — 10:01 PM
Wanderer says:
I enjoyed this! I haven’t read much in the Weird West or Splatterpunk genres but the mash-up was great. I thought you could have gone for more splatter and gore…but then again I’ve always been interested in the blood and guts. Good description and character development!
May 13, 2013 — 11:43 AM
Matt Gomez says:
I haven’t read much splatterpunk in years (read a bit of Clive Barker back in high school/college, some Joe R. Lansdale, and I think only one Poppy Z. Brite novel), so this was a bit of a stretch for me. The Western element was a bit easier as I tend to watch and rewatch spaghetti westerns quite a bit.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
May 13, 2013 — 2:10 PM
jreinmiller says:
You really packed a lot of good stuff into the story; good descriptions, characters. action, and gore. I thought you tied the two genres together well.
May 16, 2013 — 7:27 PM
Matt Gomez says:
Thank you! Nice to know every now and again that I can hit one out of the park.
May 17, 2013 — 9:34 AM
Lala says:
Weird West Fairy Tale, hm? I can work with that.
May 10, 2013 — 10:37 PM
Dan Erickson says:
If I had time, I’d definitely go with a Weird West/Detective.
May 10, 2013 — 11:33 PM
Suzie says:
Sci-fi humour/satire and superhero? Wow, Watchmen is a might hard torch to follow…
Never mind, I still had fun writing it! http://suziehunt.co.uk/fiction/flash-fiction/man-of-the-hour
May 11, 2013 — 4:24 AM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
I love the tone of the story, your very wry descriptions of The Hawk (reminded me of the wonderfully cheesy tongue-in-cheek superhero computer game, Freedom Force) and the interactions between the PM and Chambers.The idea of people having to sell their entire countries to pay of debt is both funny and poignant. Kudos!
May 11, 2013 — 8:21 AM
jdsfiction says:
Love it, awesome job! You had some great characters in there. I agree with Spaceman, selling countries was quite funny. Thanks for the ride!
May 12, 2013 — 2:40 PM
Amy says:
Great! My fav was all the kids clinging to the superhero. Excellent!
May 14, 2013 — 2:39 PM
jreinmiller says:
There was some good stuff in there. I think the whole sci-fi debt eviction thing on its own would make a great story or even something longer.
May 16, 2013 — 7:31 PM
ryanvgr says:
Got Fairy Tale and Sci Fi humor.
It’s more of a Fable then a fairy tale, but click my name to see it.
May 11, 2013 — 5:03 AM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
Interesting take on the genres! I like the ‘lesson’ at the end. Very true!
May 11, 2013 — 8:26 AM
ryanvgr says:
Thank you for the compliment; to be perfectly honest, I was worried that the moral was a bit hackneyed.
I been wrong before tho 🙂
May 11, 2013 — 1:33 PM
jdsfiction says:
Quite charming, and I liked the flow it had. Good times.
May 12, 2013 — 2:44 PM
ryanvgr says:
That’s good to hear. Flow can be one of the hardest things to get right in any kind of fiction.
Thank you both for your compliments!
May 14, 2013 — 4:58 PM
jreinmiller says:
Short and sweet. I quite liked it.
May 16, 2013 — 7:35 PM
Rachyl says:
My noir fairy tale, fresh off the word processor:
http://latemorningtea.weebly.com/
May 11, 2013 — 3:59 PM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
A fun fairytale, grim and full of delicious apple plotting! Very entertaining tale.
May 14, 2013 — 10:31 AM
Rachyl says:
Thank you. I’m glad you liked it. 🙂
May 14, 2013 — 1:00 PM
jdsfiction says:
Fairy Tale and Post-Apocalyptic. I think this game is rigged, hehe. Love it.
May 11, 2013 — 6:49 PM
jdsfiction says:
Here it is, enjoy. 🙂
http://jdsfiction.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/flash-fiction-challenge/
May 12, 2013 — 2:54 AM
jreinmiller says:
I really liked it. Both of the genres came through strongly and the story was a fun read.
May 16, 2013 — 7:43 PM
jdsfiction says:
Thank you. 🙂 Glad you enjoyed it.
May 16, 2013 — 7:48 PM
Keith B Walters (@keithbwalters) says:
I went with ‘Noir’ and ‘Lovecraftian’ for ‘Darker still…’ http://www.keithbwalters.com/?p=2615
May 11, 2013 — 8:24 PM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
You’ve blended the genres together very well, and I really liked the quiet, muted tone of the graveyard, how casually your protagonist went about his business. My one little tiny niggling criticism is the word ‘anyways.’ I hate that word. I’d like to knife it to death in its sleep and bury it so far underground that nobody could ever bring it back as a zombie-word, to be used again (before it eats everyone’s brains). But my irrational hatred of that word aside… cool story. 😉
May 12, 2013 — 6:46 AM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
Hmm, a little more Detective Sword & Sorcery than Fairytale, I would have thought, but an interesting story nonetheless! I’ve always felt that you can’t trust a sorcerer as far as you can throw him.
May 12, 2013 — 6:55 AM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
Ignore this message, it ended up completely the wrong review in completely the wrong place. *kicks browser*
May 12, 2013 — 6:57 AM
jdsfiction says:
Good imagery. I could almost hear the lonely trumpet shadowing the ‘detective.’ Fantastic!
May 12, 2013 — 2:54 PM
S.W. Sondheimer says:
Noir and Weird West. Thus, I give you: NOIR VS WEIRD WEST!
I think my brain is melting.
http://swsondheimer.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/terribleminds-flash-fiction-challenge-noir-vs-weird-west/
May 12, 2013 — 12:17 AM
Jasmine Stanford says:
Weird West and Haunted House, I really enjoyed writing this! Hopefully you enjoy reading it. http://jasminestanford.blogspot.com/2013/05/flash-fiction-desperate-slayer.html
May 12, 2013 — 1:08 AM
Mozette says:
I did the random number generator and it came up with 9 – sword and sorcery and 16 – steampunk
http://youcantgoback-andotherimpossibilities.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/trust-no-one.html
May 12, 2013 — 1:35 AM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
Tried to reply on your site but the comments authenticator seems to just be hangin’. So here’s roughly what I remember writing: Definitely got the Sword & Sorcery vibe from this story, but I’m a little unclear on the Steampunk angle. Your characters were very well developed for such a short piece. Overall an enjoyable and entertaining read!
May 12, 2013 — 7:01 AM
Mozette says:
Damn! I hate it when things online do that! I’ll see if I can fix it – if not, I’ll complain to Google.
I don’t normally write Steampunk; so I did my best at it… and it turned into a time travel one… I think I had been watching too much of re-runs of ‘Merlin’ last night 😛
May 12, 2013 — 7:24 PM
dashcooray says:
Detective Fairy Tale?
Let us see…
May 12, 2013 — 2:15 AM
Jasmine Stanford says:
Weird West and Haunted House, I really enjoyed writing this! Hopefully you enjoy reading it.
http://jasminestanford.blogspot.com/2013/05/flash-fiction-desperate-slayer.html
May 12, 2013 — 9:10 AM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
A lovely tale, and well done on blending these two genres so well. I really enjoyed this story.
May 14, 2013 — 10:45 AM
Rachyl says:
3+10= Noir Fairy Tale: http://latemorningtea.weebly.com/index.html
May 12, 2013 — 10:00 AM
Jasmine Stanford says:
Wow, I really liked this! I am drawn to stories that use time and order to make the piece more interesting. Very nice job!
May 12, 2013 — 11:33 AM
Rachyl says:
Thank you. 🙂 I’m glad you enjoyed it. I watched Memento recently, so backwards story telling was kinda on my mind.
May 12, 2013 — 3:54 PM
Gregory says:
so I got 14 and 9 which means a Sword and Sorcery Haunted House…. I will give it a go and post back soon…..
May 12, 2013 — 1:54 PM
Johann Thorsson says:
Lovecraftian BDSM Erotica. This baby will just write itself.
May 12, 2013 — 3:13 PM
Christine Frost says:
(A) I’m so glad I still have my D&D set of dice from the early ’80s. Right in my desk drawer where I write.
(B) This is a great list of subgenres. This could exercise could turn into a hobby. 🙂
May 12, 2013 — 4:14 PM
Terri Herrington says:
Geeeeez what is Splatterpunk Lovecraftian?!? Guess I’ll give it a go, once I find out what it is…lol
May 13, 2013 — 10:31 AM