Mini Challenge: Day Three

It’s day three of the mini writing challenge, and today we’re going to try a little bit of genre bending. The idea is to mix things up a bit and try something completely new, preferably outside your comfort zone. It’s just for a page or two, so set aside your internal editor and any doubts you might have, and just go for it. No telling yourself you can’t write in a particular style; this isn’t necessarily for submission or publication, just a chance to stretch your writing muscles a bit.

You can handle this prompt one of two ways. Read through each and pick whichever works best for you.

Version one: Simply take a new genre or sub-genre for a test drive. Do you write contemporary stories? Try writing the opening to an historical. Give fantasy or science fiction a go. Set up the opening to a thriller or a whodunnit. If you normally lean toward fantasy, give something a straight-up, realistic treatment. Approach fiction with a nonfiction voice, frame it as a (fictional) memoir or diary of an adventure. Try a different setting or approach on for size.

Version two: Try a little hybridization. Take an existing story — either your own or someone else’s — and rework it within the scope of a different genre or sub-genre. How about Horatio Hornblower in space? A Jane Austen novel with a steampunk twist? Try approaching the political, economic, and social machinations of Dune through a series of newspaper reports, in the style of someone reporting a war, coup, or revolution. Can you turn Milton’s Paradise Lost into a young adult novel?

Don’t forget that this is just a prompt, so you don’t need to plot out the entire story unless you want to keep going. Just try a page or two to see how you might approach it. Take the idea and play. Happy writing!