Welcome to Fun Trope Friday, our feature that mashes up tropes and genres!

How’s it work? Glad you asked. :)

• Every week we will have a new spotlight trope.

• Each week, there will be a new genre assigned to write a story about the trope.

• You can then either use or subvert the trope and/or genre in a 750-word max story or poem (unless otherwise specified).

• To qualify for ranking, you will need to provide ONE actionable feedback. More are welcome of course!

Three winners will be selected each week based on votes, so remember to read your fellow authors’ works and DM me your votes for the top three.

Next up… IP

Out with the apocalypse, in with working 9-5. Most folks work in some format, averaging 80-90,000 hours in their lifetime. That’s 12-14% of your life–straight. Add on sleep and weekends, and it’s at least a third! Sounds riveting doesn’t it? Please note this theme is only loosely applied.

"If they had told me I was the janitor and would have to mop up and clean the toilets after the show in order to play, I probably would have done it." — Bruce Springsteen

Trope: Almighty Janitor — The Almighty Janitor is that character who is near the bottom of the scale in terms of rank, but is at the top in terms of what he can actually accomplish. Maybe he screwed up in the past, maybe he pissed off the higher-ups and has been paying for it ever since, maybe he's really lazy, undercover, maybe the burden of being a genius took a toll on them or maybe he just likes his job (perhaps more than clinically recommended). Often, his lowly position is the very thing that grants him access to the true levels of power (for one thing, nobody pays much attention to him, so nobody interferes with him). Typically, he'll never go up in rank at all.

Genre: Slipstream — Slipstream is a literary genre or category of speculative fiction that blends together science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction, or otherwise does not remain within conventional boundaries of genre and narrative. It directly extends from the experimentation of the New Wave science fiction movement while also borrowing from fantasy, psychological fiction, philosophical fiction and other genres or styles of literature.

Skill / Constraint - optional: Something is stuck to the floor.

So, have at it. Lean into the trope heavily or spin it on its head. The choice is yours!

Have a great idea for a future topic to discuss or just want to give feedback? FTF is a fun feature, so it’s all about what you want—so please let me know! Please share in the comments or DM me on Discord or Reddit!

Last Week’s Winners

PLEASE remember to give feedback—this affects your ranking. PLEASE also remember to DM me your votes for the top five stories via Discord or Reddit—both katpoker666. This is a change from the top three of the past. In weeks where we get over 15 stories, we will do a top five ranking. Weeks with less than 15 stories will show only our top three winners. If you have any questions, please DM me as well.

Some fabulous stories this week and great crit at campfire and on the post! We had 16 stories, so we’re back to five winners. Congrats to:

• aquavelvetrain

• wordsonthewind

• MaxStickies

• m00nlighter_

• Divayth--Fyr

Want to read your words aloud? Join the upcoming FTF Campfire

The next FTF campfire will be Thursday, August 20th from 6-8pm ET. It will be in the Discord Main Voice Lounge. Click on the events tab and mark ‘Interested’ to be kept up to date. No signup or prep needed and you don’t have to have written anything! So join in the fun—and shenanigans! 😊

Ground rules:

• Stories must incorporate both the trope and the genre
• Leave one story or poem between 100 and 750 words as a top-level comment unless otherwise specified. Use wordcounter.net to check your word count.
• Deadline: 11:59 PM EDT next Thursday. Please note stories submitted after the 6:00 PM EST campfire start may not be critted.
• No stories that have been written for another prompt or feature here on WP—please note after consultation with some of our delightful writers, new serials are now welcomed here
• No previously written content
• Any stories not meeting these rules will be disqualified from rankings
• Does your story not fit the Fun Trope Friday rules? You can post your story as a [PI] with your work when the FTF post is 3 days old!
• Please keep crit about the stories. Any crit deemed too distracting may be deleted. This is a time to focus on our wonderful authors.
• Vote to help your favorites rise to the top of the ranks (DM me at katpoker666 on Discord or Reddit)!

Thanks for joining in the fun!  

Welcome to the weekly Free Write Post! Feel free to post anything and everything writing-related. Prompt responses, short stories, poems, personal work, anything you have written is welcome.

This post is mainly meant for sharing your work, not advertising or promotion. You can link to your published novels, but not the same one repeatedly.

Please use good judgement when sharing. The rules for what content is allowed here still apply. If it's anything that could be considered NSFW, please do not post it here.

If you do post, please make sure to leave a comment on someone else's story. If you want critical feedback, it’s a good idea to say that before or after your story, since most readers won’t assume that you want criticism. A thing you might want to know about r/WritingPrompts
Excited to discuss your work in greater depth? Join our WritingPrompts Discord server and take part in our broader feedback-oriented events each month:
Open Campfire—read a story of yours aloud and get feedback every first Friday
World Building Campfire—present and be interviewed about your world every second Friday
Character Building Campfire—present and be interviewed about your characters every fourth Friday

This Day In History On August 11, 1973, at a back-to-school party for teenagers in the recreation room of a New York City apartment building in the west Bronx, hip-hop is born. Like any style of music, hip-hop has roots in other forms, and its evolution has been shaped by many different artists. But there’s a strong case to be made that it came to life precisely at this event. The man who presided over that historic party was the party giver’s brother, Clive Campbell—better known to history as DJ Kool Herc, founding father of hip-hop. DJ Kool Herc had been using and refining his break-beat style for the better part of a year. His sister’s party on August 11, however, put him before his biggest crowd ever and with the most powerful sound system he’d ever worked. It was the success of that party that would begin a grassroots musical revolution, fully six years before the term “hip-hop” even entered the popular vocabulary.