It’s that time again for the challenge I love so much —
You take two pre-existing pop culture properties, randomly mash them up, and then write a piece of fiction inspired by and utilizing that mash-up. You’re not writing fan-fiction in those worlds — you’re capturing the essence of them for a new story. (So it’s like, when you pitch an original novel to an editor and you say, IT’S LIKE DANCES WITH WOLVES MEETS BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. And they’re like, what? And then you both laugh uncomfortably.)
Here, we’re gonna do a horror-flavored edition
One table is PURE HORROR.
The second table is not at all horror.
You will mix these up for maximum awesome.
Roll a d20 or use a random number generator once on each table.
Then, write a story — we’ll say up to 3000 – 5000 words in length — and post it at your blog and give us a link back here so we can all read it and go ooh and ahh.
(I know, technically not a flash fiction challenge. DON’T SASS ME.)
Given that this challenge is a bit longer, we’ll make it two weeks for your timeframe, which will finish this out right on October 30th, the day before HALLOWEEN.
*crash of thunder*
*cackling ravens*
*Jack-o-Lantern smokes a cigarette and leers at you*
Go forth and write.
The Horror Table
- The Exorcist
- The Walking Dead
- Interview With A Vampire
- Frankenstein
- The Babadook
- Poltergeist
- Gremlins
- It
- Rosemary’s Baby
- It Follows
- Hellraiser
- Psycho
- Evil Dead
- The Shining
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- The Descent
- The Thing
- Nightmare On Elm Street
- The Ring
- Carrie
The Not Horror Table
- Harry Potter
- House of Cards
- Back to the Future
- The Marvel Universe
- Mad Men
- Scooby Doo
- Scandal
- Planet of the Apes
- Transformers
- Sex and the City
- The Muppets
- Die Hard
- Star Trek
- Pitch Perfect
- 50 Shades of Grey
- Fast and the Furious
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Casablanca
- Doctor Who
- The Martian
Carlos Matthews Hernandez says:
Sex and the City meets Psycho.
http://carlosmatthewshernandez.com/dream-book/x-meets-y-horror-edition
October 26, 2015 — 4:41 PM
yellehughes says:
Nice!
October 26, 2015 — 5:10 PM
SamKD says:
Indeed. Well done.
October 27, 2015 — 12:37 PM
Y. C. Harrison says:
Darlene is triumphant! The dress, not so much… Really liked the setup and the fact that Darlene despite it all, prevails. Also got chuckle out of the line, “She seems awfully thin (…)”
October 28, 2015 — 1:02 AM
Laura Wilson-Anderson says:
🙂 That was really good.
October 28, 2015 — 1:46 AM
Carlos Matthews Hernandez says:
Thanks! I still need to read a couple others that were posted.
October 27, 2015 — 4:14 PM
Laura Wilson-Anderson says:
Carrie Meets The Transformers in Everardus the Caring. 🙂 Had a lot of fun with it!
http://www.rovingweaver.com/2015/10/everardus-caring.html
October 27, 2015 — 9:36 PM
Y. C. Harrison says:
I would have been happy with a prom being set on fire but with this story I gets lots of extra helpings of fires and explosions which keeps me more than happy. Hopefully Everardus enjoys his new home… A great romp and an impressive amount of world building compressed into less than 5000 words.
October 28, 2015 — 1:53 AM
Laura Wilson-Anderson says:
Thank you! 🙂
October 28, 2015 — 2:01 AM
Y. C. Harrison says:
I would have been happy with a prom being set on fire but with this story I gets lots of extra helpings of fires and explosions which keeps me more than happy. Hopefully Everardus enjoys his new home… A great romp and an impressive amount of world building compressed into less than 5000 words.
October 28, 2015 — 1:53 AM
Pavowski says:
I took pretty much all the time, but here’s my offering for “Casablanca” meets “The Ring.”
“The Depths of My Affection” is here: http://accidentallyinspired.com/2015/10/29/the-depths-of-my-affection/
October 29, 2015 — 1:57 PM
Y. C. Harrison says:
That was great! Tough combination to pull off which you did really well. A deftly spun story with well crafted characters that engaged me from beginning to end. Loved the vivid descriptions. I’m going to remember the phrase, ‘limp windsails’ for a while. 🙂
October 30, 2015 — 10:53 PM
Pavowski says:
Glad you liked it! Worked a lot longer on this one than I usually do on a “flash” (though at 3000 words, this is hardly a flash, lol)
November 1, 2015 — 9:27 AM
Alice E Keyes says:
http://aliceekeyes.blogspot.com/ For Casablanca meets The Walking Dead.
This is an odd tale that I came up with.
October 29, 2015 — 3:46 PM
Y. C. Harrison says:
Reading your intro it seems like you weren’t very confident about the story. Writers get enough rejection in their lives without beating themselves up as well so try not to be so hard on yourself. 🙂 I think you developed a fully realized world and I was intrigued by Bean and how he’s learned to cope (or not cope) in a world full of zombies. I like the idea of music being a way to scare off zombies. I’m a rabid (ha ha) Walking Dead fan so I definitely would have liked to see more gore but writing vivid descriptions of viscera is definitely not for everyone. I think you have some ideas in the story that you can expand into a YA novella or even a novel.
October 30, 2015 — 11:28 PM
Alice E Keyes says:
Thanks for reading, commenting, and encouragement. I keep wanting to write gore but then the passive part of me takes over. I have killed of characters.
November 17, 2015 — 9:37 AM
PJ Carambia says:
I ended up with A Nightmare on Elm Street and 50 Shades of Grey. I’ve never written anything like this before so I hope it’s not too bad.
https://crazyphils.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/flash-fiction-challenge-its-x-meets-y-the-horror-edition-a-nightmare-on-elm-street-meets-50-shades-of-grey/
October 29, 2015 — 7:47 PM
Y. C. Harrison says:
I don’t envy anyone that has to write a flash fiction with a pairing of those two particular franchises, ha ha. I’m hoping your slight dig at vampires in the story is also a shout-out about Fifty Shades original incarnation as a Twilight fic. Poor Sarah. At least she died – ahem – happy.
October 30, 2015 — 11:44 PM
Rebecca Douglass says:
I sort of muffed the horror part of this. I’m not much of a horror person. So though this story might be Frankenstein meets the Muppet Show, I think I came down a bit more on the Muppet side. Or maybe it was my headache meds. In any case:
http://www.ninjalibrarian.com/2015/10/friday-flash-at-long-dogie-saloon.html
October 29, 2015 — 10:15 PM
Y. C. Harrison says:
That was so cute! I didn’t mind the lack of horror and I loved the idea that they’re initially concerned with the fact that their visitor isn’t human, hee hee…
October 30, 2015 — 11:53 PM
Jemima Pett says:
I’m not a horror watcher, or even a Halloween fan, but having got The Muppets out of List two, I teamed it with the Rocky Horror Show to give you… Out of the Frying Pan.
http://jemimapett.com/blog/2015/10/30/friday-flash-fiction-and-trick-or-treat-giveaway-preview/
October 30, 2015 — 5:21 AM
Y. C. Harrison says:
I hate spiders so that was my little bit of horror, right there! 🙂
October 31, 2015 — 12:31 AM
Matthew X. Gomez says:
Running right against the deadline here: Frankenstein meets Shawshank Redemption.
https://mxgomez.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/dark-work-a-chuck-wendig-challenge/
October 30, 2015 — 9:29 AM
Y. C. Harrison says:
Well, the Warden in this story is definitely several rungs below merely cooking the books. He definitely got what he deserved in the true spirit of the Frankenstein story. The ending of the story was bittersweet for Victor (or at least that’s how I interpreted it) and I do like a less than tidy ending. 🙂
October 31, 2015 — 12:46 AM
entrebat says:
I do not know why that was so hard!
Masks
Sex in the City meets Babadook
October 30, 2015 — 2:41 PM
Y. C. Harrison says:
I was hoping Chloe would take off her Manolo Blahniks (or her Jimmy Choos) and smash the mirror and her laptop (while screaming in terror) because I think that would have been characteristic of Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City. Having said that, I did like how she (without giving anything away in the comments), terminated her friendship with the rest of the gang. And there’s something truly scary about Scrivener being hijacked… 🙂
November 2, 2015 — 11:21 PM
Henry says:
I’m a bit late, I know, but better late than never? Psycho and The Muppets ended up in strange places.
http://fistfulofwits.com/2015/10/30/flash-fiction-hot-mess/
October 30, 2015 — 6:56 PM
Y. C. Harrison says:
Liked the Wild West feel of the story. Lenora is a cool female action hero. 🙂
November 2, 2015 — 11:42 PM
graphx023 says:
I really enjoyed this writing challenge. Here is my setup. I went with The Exorcist and The Marvel Universe (X-Men). My first draft of the story ran just shy of 8000 words due to me spending the first half writing about the setting. I cut the story down about 2000 words, unfortunately, 1000 words over the assignment criteria. I didn’t get a chance to doing any edits as I wanted to post the story by the deadline (I’m posting at 11:40 pm on October 30, 2015). Here is a rough draft of my story:
https://graphx023.wordpress.com/2015/10/31/flash-fiction-its-x-meets-y-horror-edition/
I’ll update the blog post and see if I can get the story down to 5000 word and finish up editing.
Please anyone comment good, bad, or ugly. This is my second challenge and it has been a blast.
Oh, and if anyone wants to read the longer version you can find it here:
https://graphx023.wordpress.com/2015/10/31/flash-fiction-its-x-meet-y-the-horror-edition-ver-2/
Tony
October 31, 2015 — 2:46 AM
Enock Markinga says:
Muppet down… bucket list to go
June 22, 2016 — 8:39 AM