Welcome to the first weekly challenge for June, where the theme is Unoriginal.
As we said in the Monthly Theme announcement, the goal is to get you to overcome our fears of being unoriginal, of accidentally borrowing, by downright stealing and making our own.
June is a month for collaborating, so you quiet creative lurkers, we're going to rattle the tree and shake you loose.
This week your challenge, your adventure, is to journey out in the cosmos of your childhood and steal a world you most loved.
Bring it back to us without its heroes and heroines, to use as an Empty World; we can fill with adventures by our lost wanderers looking for meaning.
Take a famous world, describe it to us, in your own words (no copy and paste — the lawsuits would be legendary) without the original plot or main characters, to create an Empty World for your fellow writers to borrow in Week 2.
Think of Gotham City without the Dark Knight or anyone else of note, or The Shire without any of the famous hobbitses.
- Describe it to us as Paul Mansfield did with Monaxia, if you mention a threat keep it vague, you can't say Lord Sauron.
- Or as Smillew Rahcuef did with his quirky Pianoland.
Hide the name and any obvious clues; let's see if we can even guess its true nature. Fellow writers, add your guesses in the comments.
Challenge Requirements
Your story must:
- Steal a world, a favourite setting, from a famous story or author.
- In a non-spoiler fashion, link out from your bio to the world you've stolen, for those who can't guess but must know.
- Describe it in exactly 300 words long, excluding the title, subtitle, and post-story bio/links. (We use Medium's word count feature.)
- Be fictional, even if it includes factual information or concerns.
- Use "Stolen World" and "Empty World" as two of your five tags.
It may seem difficult, but it's purposeful and what is purposeful is manageable.