How Strange Are You Willing to Get?
Fictions Newsletter #2 & September Prompt Entries
September is just over halfway done. How did that happen? Fall is in the air, and all things spooky are looming on October’s gloomy horizon. As soon as I smell the leaves dying here in Manitoba, my thoughts take on a macabre shade. In the best way, of course. All I want is to read weird stories and huddle under the blankets with an unsettling book, shivering with delight.
The next season of Stranger Things won’t be out till next year, but that’s all the more reason why it’s time for you to tell YOUR stranger story.
Here’s our September Prompt:
Craft a story including two elements taken from the Stranger Things mythos:
- It must be set in the year 1983
- It must include a radio
These are intended to be open prompts. Although the year is 1983, you might create an alternate history, like Alan Moore did in The Watchmen. Or you might take it one step further like Sliders and set it in an alternate dimension. You could take a famous event from 1983 and rewrite it — the way The Umbrella Academy did with the assassination of J.F.K.
If you want to try to capture the essence of 1983 in the style of That 70s Show, that’s cool too.
Get the idea?
Similarly, the sky is the limit when it comes to how, when, and where you feature the radio. Major question item? Love it!! Playing background music to a sexy scene? Prrrrrrfect.
Feel the muse nibbling on your toes yet?
If you aren’t yet a writer for Fictions, please take a look at our Submission Guidelines and send your draft to fictionsatmedium@gmail.com.
Be sure to tag it WritingStrangerStories so we can sort it properly!
Yes, these are pretty damn strange
We’ve had some pretty spectacular responses to our prompt thus far across a smattering of genres. Within hours of its announcement, Paul Combs sent in a jaw-dropping ghost story called “When The Lights Go Out”. Do not read this in the dark. I had to slither off the couch afterwards, I was so spooked.
Only a day or two went by before one of our newest and most prolific writers, Lisa Gerard Braun, upped the ante by bringing Sting to the party in “He Crumbled More When She Sent the Police”. What I’ve learned is that I will never, ever cross Lisa.
I couldn’t let such a spectacular prompt go unanswered, so “Not All Reruns Play Out The Same Way” was my science fiction take on it.
The ever-delightful Aimée Gramblin got pretty spooky in this thriller, also inspired by The Police: whatever you do, “Don’t Tell Sela ‘It’s All in Her Head’”.
Then the incredible Simon Dillon went back to an actual event for “Apocalypse 1983” and wrote a masterpiece of an alternative history version. No big deal.
Mary DeVries is one of the most original fiction writers I’ve encountered here on Medium. She’s always got a fresh take on science fiction, which I recently learned comes from a love of the genre as a child. Her passion shows in this bizarre love story about mixed tapes.
So many stories left to be told! So many genres left untapped! Maybe you tell the tale of a lonesome cowboy, out on the range of his 1983’s ranch. Perhaps your hero lives in Atlantis, carefully biding her time to emerge from the ocean depths, like an even stranger adaptation of The Abyss.
Imagine this: an ageing vamp who loves to punk out in 1983 New York. Wait, where was Spike in 1983?
I’m looking at you, Eric Pierce, Otis Adams, Arpad Nagy, Lindsay Rae Brown, John Bullock, Corrie Alexander, JLRose, Jennifer Brewer, Jessie Waddell, Maria Shimizu Christensen, Adam Hrankowski, ADHD, Patrick Metzger, Paul Mansfield, Ali, Samantha Lazar, Mark Tulin
