Experimental

Tolkien described his creative approach as progressing from language to story rather than the other way around, which he assumed to be the normal or usual way an author crafts a novel. Indeed, Tolkien's work teems with experimental approaches: frame stories, pseudohistorical texts (in a multitude of drafts), and repeat violations of the "rules" fiction writers generally learn about plot, character, setting, and description.

Tolkien was, in other words, an experimental writer, pushing the boundaries of literary and artistic convention. This month, we invite you to experiment with a new technique or approach to your fanworks. We’ve listed some prompts you can select from, but you’re also free to develop your own. (If you go your own way, please clearly state what your self-created prompt is in your fanwork notes!)

Note that some experimental approaches may use structures, layouts, and markup that are difficult to render using the existing fanworks submission forms. If you are taking such an approach, contact the mods if you need help getting your work onto the site as you want it.

Many thanks to Independence1776 for this month's stamps and banner!

This challenge opened in October 2023 .

Prompts

Choose your prompt from the collection below.

View Prompts

Writing

• first person point of view
• first person plural point of view
• second person point of view
• third person objective point of view
• no adjectives
• tell a story backward
• ignore time
• no climax/turning point
• no resolution
• no plot
• epistolary
• found fiction
• Y/N
• self-insert
• planner/pantser switch (if you’re usually a planner, pants it; if you’re usually a pantser, plan it!)
• true drabble
• all dialogue
• no dialogue
• formal verse (sonnet, ode, sestina, etc)
• story within a story/embedded narrative
• choose your own adventure
• surrealism
• prose poem
• spoken word
• Dadaism/anti-art
• manifesto
• creative nonfiction
• metafiction
• setting as a character
• fiction/poetry using footnotes
• fiction/poetry using hypertext or dynamic markup
• fiction/poetry using typography
• bizarro
• asemic writing
• magic realism
• intertextuality
• visual poetry
• told from the point of view of an object
• characters are unnamed
• stream of consciousness
• break the fourth wall
• tell a story through an artifact
• overdo it/underdo it (break the "rules" of how much of something is allowed in a piece of writing)
• extended metaphor

Art

• different medium
• different surface (ex: wood instead of canvas, canvas instead of paper)
• speedpaint
• stippling
• underpainting
• collage
• mixed media
• relief
• historic style
• found objects
• pop art
• intaglio
• work from a live model or reference
• en plein air
• single line drawing
• blind contour drawing
• site-specific art (such as installations, public art, etc.)
• very tiny
• very large
• Dadaism/anti-art
• scrapbook
• dreamscape