This morning I learned about a “Hackathon” short story contest by Owl Canyon (details here) and the premise is unlike any other writing contest I’ve ever seen: they provide the first paragraph and the last, and it’s your task to complete the story with exactly eighteen intermediate paragraphs of at least fifty words each.
Naturally, I’m gonna try my hand at it–and because they also allow multiple submissions, I thought it would provide an excellent opportunity to do something daring.
I’m going to write multiple stories–and each of them will have a different genre.
So, to get started, I thought I’d take some time to dive deep into the writing “prompts” and brainstorm some ways I can tackle it from such different perspectives.
Here’s the paragraph to start the story:
It was an odd sized casket, too small for a man, too big for a child. A flag was draped over it, a smallish one. It was carried by four men in uniform, though it was hard to tell for sure from a distance what uniform it was, or even if they were all men. There wasn’t room for the usual six pallbearers due to the small size of the casket since it would have made for a comical service to have all six jammed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, crowding around an under-sized coffin. So the extra pallbearers were in the ranks of many others in uniform standing beside a small open grave. The officiant wore a robe instead of a uniform and must have said something because there was a long silence, then a burst of laughter.
It’s a powerful opening and poses a number of questions: Who are these people? Who–or what–is in the casket? What was said and why did it lead to laughter? There’s also a dearth of environmental descriptions: the season, the time of day, even the broader landscape upon which this scene occurs are all open to interpretation.
The opening also suggests a few possible themes. Death and dying are, perhaps, the most obvious, but the tone coupled with its focus on the sizes of things with the inclusion of potentially comical imagery and laughter can also suggest comedy and satire. I’m curious to know how long it had taken this single paragraph to be created.
In any case, each story’s final and twentieth paragraph must be this:
The grave wasn’t ready until sunset, so the whole event was rushed and disorganized, except for the very last part. The grave was a massive affair, more of a crater than a grave, and it took until dark to roll the casket down to the bottom. If any prayers were said, they couldn’t be heard over the dull thudding of the clods raining down on the casket far below. It was an odd sized casket, too big for a man, too small for a dream, but just right for a dynasty.
This ending elicits a grand sense of framing, repeating the first line almost verbatim with a slight variation: now it’s too big for a man (in the opening it had been too small) and there’s a suggestion that the casket carries some sort of dynasty, though one could see it as the death of one reign or the start of another. The paragraph also locks in some details that’ll provide intriguing constraints for creativity: The event (the burial? or something else?) ends at sunset, which suggests a short time interval between the opening and closing unless they happen to be there longer than a single day.
Again, the word choice can suggest both death and satire as possible themes.
Either way, there’s a plethora of threads left open for interpretation–and that’s precisely where creativity must take root to pass the torch from beginning to ending.
I’m debating with myself just how many versions I want to write, though it’s worth pointing out that just because I write them doesn’t mean I’ll find them all worthy of submission to the contest. One can hope that his writing is so exceptional that every attempt at a single exercise produces something publishable, but such is only hubris.
The frame I intend to shift between attempts is the genre. I imagine I’ll try something more “literary” and then progress into more classic genre fiction: fantasy, science fiction, and horror, which tend to be the three genres I enjoy reading and writing the most.
So what, pray tell, distinguishes stories in these genres so significantly that they can simultaneously exist in a state of superposition, beginning and ending all the same?
I think the biggest factor will be the plot: A literary story will likely be reflective, digging deeper into the emotions and histories of the characters in the scene. Fantasy stories, broadly, tend to have a theme in reminiscing about the past and better days, the golden age of heroes, if you will. Science fiction is nearly its antithesis: rather than looking backward for reprieve, we are instead compelled to look forward for redemption. The former certainly alludes to a more pastoral theme, but both could be taken to be dystopian in some regard. Finally, horror takes all of that and throws it out the window–the options abound, from body horror to true terror. I suspect the contents of the casket will be most important in horror, of all the genres.
Next, setting is certain to ground each plots in its own distinct world. A literary setting, presumably existing in a world very much like our own without the supernatural or edge-of-tomorrow technology; I might throw in a cell phone or headlights gleaming on gravestones, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Literary fiction tends to embrace the ordinary and revel in its simplistic beauty. Who needs magic when the world itself is wondrous?
So, for a literary story, they must by default be in any cemetery; a reader should instantly be able to envision their local graveyard to set the scene.
In fantasy, however, well, the bounds are endless. It could be a European-style sword-and-sorcery story in which the cemetery looks remarkably recognizable; perhaps, though, it takes place in the realm of fairies and the ground is dimpled with mushrooms and colorful forest creatures flit between the pallbearers’ legs. Perhaps they are ghosts or spirits of another sort, and the earth blurs at their boundaries. Or maybe it’s urban fantasy, set against the skyline of a large metropolis and the crowd carries the body of a werewolf slain by vampires and the significance of sunset is their transformation.
For something along the lines of science fiction, it’s worth discussing the when of the story: a near-future setting is quite distinct from a faraway planet. Perhaps burials now happen on asteroids or comets. Maybe the figures aren’t human. Perhaps they are but what’s inside the casket is not. Maybe things look nearly identical to what we’ve got on earth but elements phase in and out of focus because the world is only a hologram.
Horror could incorporate any of these moments, but common tropes would likely take it in two distinct directions: The first might draw out darkness and fire and brimstone; rotting hands reach up from ancient graves, hoards of bats fly overhead, the moon hovers on the horizon waiting to bathe the world in its sinister silver glow. Or none of this. Everything is so precisely perfect that the horror doesn’t come from external factors, but something within: Maybe the narrator is watching his own funeral, bargaining with the devil to whom he sold his soul that the terms and conditions were not achieved and he does, in fact, deserve to live on forever in heaven. Or the narrator cannot recall who’s in the casket, and only snippets of memory paint a picture so unnerving and provocative that a reader can do nothing else but feel their skin crawl.
I think a unique point of differentiation will be the uniforms and the small flag, since none of them are described at any great length. A standard reading of military garb and a folded United States flag would seem fitting for a literary approach, or perhaps they’re in police officer uniforms, or janitorial uniforms, or hazmat suits. To make it fantasy, however, they’ll likely be adorned with family crests and perhaps have upon them some armor as well. For sci-fi, the uniforms might range from beefed up versions of today’s uniforms or they might be more akin to space suits. In horror, one could easily imagine black robes with inverted crosses and other sigils embroidered in crimson thread.
So here I feel is a good stopping point for my brainstorming. I’ll play around with the stories, see how it goes, and hopefully have a lot of fun at the same time.
Far into the future (after December when the contest winners are announced), I’ll share at least one of the stories I write around this prompt, maybe alongside a reflection upon how it differed or stayed true to the suggestions I’ve outlined above.
I’m excited for this, and I hope you are too–either as a reader or a follow contestant.
Silent Soliloquy 