7.9 KiB
[Biweekly Challenge] Plane of Garbage
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Author: u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4jzc06/biweekly_challenge_plane_of_garbage/
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Score: 23
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Created: 2016-05-18T22:25:17
Post:
Last Time
Last time, the prompt was "Romance". The winner was /u/RationalityRules with their story, Suddenly Much To Do. Go read it now! Congratulations to /u/RationalityRules!
This Time
This time we're going to do something a little bit different. The challenge is this:
There exists magic which can create objects ex nihilo. Over time, this has led to a build up of garbage, as wizards create a set of chairs for a dinner party then never use them again, or discard their leftover magically-created food. A counterpart spell was created which vanishes unwanted things. Your story should involve the discovery, exploration, or exploitation of the Plane of Garbage some centuries later. (The nature of magic and specifics of the plane are left as an exercise to the writer; remember that prompts are to inspire, not to limit.)
The winner will be decided Wednesday, June 1st. You have until then to post your reply and start accumulating upvotes. It is strongly suggested that you get your entry in as quickly as possible once this thread goes up; this is part of the reason that prompts are given in advance. Like reading? It's suggested that you come back to the thread after a few days have passed to see what's popped up. The reddit "save" button is handy for this.
Rules
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300 word minimum, no maximum. Post as a link to Google Docs, pastebin, Dropbox, etc. This is mandatory.
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No plagiarism, but you're welcome to recycle and revamp your own ideas you've used in the past.
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Think before you downvote.
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Winner will be determined by "best" sorting.
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Winner gets reddit gold, special winner flair, and bragging rights. Five-time winners get even more special winner flair, and their choice of prompt if they want it.
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All top-level replies to this thread should be submissions. Non-submissions (including questions, comments, etc.) belong in the companion thread, and will be aggressively removed from here.
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Top-level replies must be a link to Google Docs, a PDF, your personal website, etc. It is suggested that you include a word count and a title when you're linking to somewhere else.
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In the interest of keeping the playing field level, please refrain from cross-posting to other places until after the winner has been decided.
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No idea what rational fiction is? Read the wiki!
Meta
If you think you have a good prompt for a challenge, add it to the list (remember that a good prompt is not a recipe). Also, if you want a quick index of past challenges, I've posted them on the wiki.
Next Time
Next time, we'll be doing /u/ZeroNihilist's choice, "Power Failure". The phlebotinum stops working, the lights go out, or the magic fades away. You're welcome to go large-scale (an entire society is threatened by the failure of a previously reliable technology) or small-scale (a street-level superhero loses her power). I think this is a great chance to explore worst case scenario planning. It's also pretty great for fanfiction, given how many fictional worlds heavily depend on their magic.
Next challenge's thread will go up on 6/1. Please private message me with any questions or comments, as the beloved meta thread is now archived. The companion thread is here.
Comments:
u/FlaskBear [+9] (7 hours later)
Property of Professor Pock (693 words)
u/DCarrier [+2] (14 days later)
He should have had his automata teleport back immediately. As it is, he'll always be wondering whether Mr. Discovery just hadn't found what he was looking for or whether he couldn't make it back. If he tested Mr. Discovery first, he'd know.
u/_brightwing [+1] Feathered menace (5 years later)
May I request that you upload it again? The link seems dead now..
u/FlaskBear [+1] (5 years later)
Sorry I'm only just seeing this now, but here you go.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+7] Fruit flies like a banana (7 days later)
Thrown Away But Not Forgotten, 3999 words. A little rough, but if I didn't post it now, I wasn't ever going to post it. m-space borrowed from here.
u/fish312 [+1] humanifest destiny (5 years later)
Five years later and I just realised you entered your own contest. Sneaky!
u/space_fountain [+4] (10 days later)
The Abnormality, 40310 words. Like some of the other people here have said a bit rough, but I put enough work into it that I wanted to share.
Tell me what you think, because the only reason I'm doing this is to become a better writer.
u/serendipitybot [+5] (3 days later)
This submission has been randomly featured in /r/serendipity, a bot-driven subreddit discovery engine. More here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Serendipity/comments/4kg6l2/biweekly_challenge_plane_of_garbage_xpost_from/
u/alexanderwales [+15] Time flies like an arrow (3 days later)
/u/serendipitybot, I love you, so I'm going to let this stay, but you're disqualified from winning the competition due to a failure to comply with the rules.
u/Gh0st1y [+3] (3 days later)
Loool that's how I got here.. Is this related to HPMOR? It is /r/rational, which makes me think yes, then it's about magic... Ahh the serendipity
u/alexanderwales [+4] Time flies like an arrow (3 days later)
Yup, this subreddit assumed its current form about three years ago when HPMOR was on hiatus and people were looking for something to fill the gap. Most of the early population were immigrants from /r/HPMOR.
u/Gh0st1y [+5] (3 days later)
Word, I'll stick around then.
u/Pluvialis [+1] Second Age Sauron (14 days later)
about three years ago
u/TennisMaster2 [+7] (3 days later)
The things you'll find in the Plane of Garbage....
u/Faust91x [+2] Iteration X (5 days later)
Where no man has gone before (3,502 words)
Exploring the depths of the forgotten realms, a re imagining of history. Not quite satisfied with it but still, hope you like it!
u/rhaps0dy4 [+2] (7 days later)
Good story! Do the three planes of ExNihilo map metaphorically to something?
Correction: "imagined a know on his mind" -> "a knot on his mind", or even maybe "in" his mind?
u/Faust91x [+1] Iteration X (8 days later)
Yeah I was thinking of a deep labyrinth with several levels when writing the story.
Also thanks for the correction! Will modify.
u/Bezbozny [+2] (11 days later)
Law of Vanishing Returns, 1900 words +A/N. In which the logical conclusion is taken.
u/None [+1] (9 days later)
[removed]