Words & Genres for May 2017 Battles

/ Rachael Ritchey

 

Here are the THEME WORDS and suggested genres for May!

May 2nd

  • THEME WORD: Headphones
  • GENRE: Fantasy
    • Fantasy – fiction with strange or otherworldly settings or characters; fiction which invites suspension of reality
    • Please visit the BATTLE GENRE page for a full list of subcategories.
    • Challenge yourself! Try something new. 🙂
    • This Week’s Suggestion: Magical realism  – story where magical or unreal elements play a natural part in an otherwise realistic environment

May 9th

  • THEME WORD: Splash
  • GENRE: Suspense/Thriller
    • Suspense/thriller – fiction about harm about to befall a person or group and the attempts made to evade the harm
      • A subcategory option: Horror – fiction in which events evoke a feeling of dread and sometimes fear in both the characters and the reader (no graphic content, please)

May 16th

  • THEME WORD: Disobedience
  • GENRE: FREE CHOICE
    • For ideas, visit the BATTLE GENRE page for a full list of subcategories.
    • Challenge yourself! Try something new. 🙂

May 23th

  • THEME WORD: Restraint
  • GENRE: Historical Fiction
    • Historical fiction – story with fictional characters and events in a historical setting
      • Suggested Subcategory: Western is a subcategory option for this genre.

May 30th

  • THEME WORD: Ruse
  • GENRE: Science Fiction
    • Science fiction – story based on impact of actual, imagined, or potential science, usually set in the future or on other planets
    • Suggested challenge: Make up your own planet and physical rules. Put your MC in the middle of terrible trouble.

Write a(n approximately) 1000 word or less story using this theme word and genre. And post it to your blog on Tuesday with a link (use this short link if that helps: SHORT LINK HERE) back to this post!

Click Here for the instructions/rules of the battle.

IN THE MEANTIME, don’t miss out on the current battle by clicking here:

Battle Entries

8 thoughts on “Words & Genres for May 2017 Battles”

  1. Query – with the genres being *suggested* now, rather than mandatory, wouldn’t that make the Free Choice on May 16th a little moot? Theoretically, they’re all pretty much Free Choice, now (though I’ll still be sticking to the suggestions, for added challenge and fun)

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    • Haha, you caught that. Darn. I was hoping everyone would just rationalize it away. lol just kidding. I was actually just being lazy because I was trying to set up the rest of the posts for the year to autopost on the appropriate days and didn’t want to go back and fix that little detail. You are so right. It is quite moot. Battles didn’t used to have a required genre and I keep experimenting with what works best. While I like having the added challenge, I know that it dissuades a lot of people from participating because not everyone likes to write outside their favored genre. Sooooo, now we’re going to have that as a suggestion only. I could go and suggest genres on the ones that say free choice. Do you think it’s necessary and less superfluous to put genre suggestions in those ‘free choice’ ones? 🙂 BTW – it means a lot to me that you interact here! I love it.

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