Competition: Space Opera of the Absurd

Context

In postwar France, a number of playwrights wrote and staged a number of avant-garde plays that express what happens when existence lacks ultimate meaning, communication breaks down, and we confront, in the words of Albert Camus, "la tendre indifférance du monde", the tender indifference of the world. Taken together, these plays form the Theatre of the Absurd.

You may have read or seen one of these plays; it's not unusual to see Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot or Eugène Ionesco's Bald Soprano in high school curricula or survey-level university syllabi, and many works of the movement are still produced around the world today.

Competition

This series of fiction competitions takes inspiration from the Theatre of the Absurd. The prompts won't require you to push the boundaries of form or confront deep philosophical questions, though you are certainly welcome to. Instead, each competition will offer scenarios based on a specific absurdist play. You'll have one week each to write a short fiction (maximum 2,000 words) about how your character acts in that situation and how it comes to a conclusion, if indeed it does come to a conclusion.

Rules & Scoring

• Each week there will be a new prompt that shows up when you subscribe to the appropriate competition. There will be a total of four competitions and prompts.
• Fictions must be 500 words minimum to qualify for participation and placement. Each fiction may not exceed a 2,000 word maximum.
• Submissions must be PDF or DOCX file formats. Links to Google Docs or other platforms that can be edited after the fact will be disqualified.
• Fictions will be evaluated according to the standard fiction rubric.
• Each first place win earns 5 points in the container competition, second place earns 4 points, third place earns 3 points, and participation earns 1 point. Ties will be broken by number of placements, followed by number of participations.