Rob's Surf Report

Genre Haiku Challenge: Science Fiction

Haikus
Traditional structure, brilliant prose. (Photo credit: hadsie)

Okay, so here’s the deal: I want to lay down a challenge for anyone who’s got a mind to put down just a few words. I’ve been writing a haiku a day for a few months now, and I’ve discovered something interesting; for a short form of seventeen-ish syllables (depending on how you choose to write one) it acts a lot like real writing: sometimes it just comes to you complete, and sometimes I spend a couple hours finding one. It can take time to make one that makes me happy! And yesterday I wrote something that intrigued me: you see, a traditional haiku is about nature. But what if you write a haiku about something that isn’t nature? I’m sure that’s not a new thing, but you can start dropping these haiku into slots like checkers into a Connect 4™ grid in terms of their genre . . .

Genre?

Surfer Rob’s Genre Haiku Challenge

Is there an echo in here?

Each month I lay down a genre. Bloggers all over the world are welcome to haiku and link up their genre-fied haikus. It’s that simple. You have all month to do it, and you can do it as much as you want. When a new one goes up, pingbacks will be closed on the previous month. Here are the rules – because everything works according to rules, right?

  1. Structure: Traditional haiku is a three-line structure with five syllables on the first line, seven syllables on the second, and five on the third, for a total of fourteen syllables. They tend not to rhyme. While I prefer to write mine within that structure, nobody is thus constrained. If you want to write haiku with a different structure, go for it, but keep it short and sweet.
  2. Genre: Stick to the genre – that’s the point! The entire genre is up for grabs, and this is where the magic of haiku shines because you can focus on something really small or something really big, but you only have so much prosaic space to do that.
  3. Name: Do me a favor and name it in the post title; I like the way that looks in the pingback stream.
  4. Tag: Everybody’s tagging their posts, right? Tag this one #RSRgenrehaiku for sure, in addition to the rest of your favorite tags.

Comments will be closed, but pingbacks and tracebacks will be enabled. If you have any feedback on this challenge, feel free to hit me up by hitting an email link or sending me a note – robssurfreport at gmail dot com.

What do you win? Traffic. Visitors and views. My love and admiration. It’s totally worth it, you’ll see.

Genre Haiku Challenge 2013.11: Science Fiction

Famous Science Fiction, 1967
(Photo credit: jovike)

I love it: science fiction. Now we can have science fiction haiku too (If it’s not totally new, I’m sorry to disappoint you but please don’t lambaste me with your scorn.)

Let’s talk about spaceships, genetic monsters, time travel and manipulation, eugenics, aliens, super powers, artificial intelligence, robots . . . genetically-enhanced super-powered time-traveling robots with spaceships that battle aliens.* Whatever lives in the science fiction universe, it’s haiku fodder.

I’ll get you started with the first entry. Go, my lovelies – haiku!!

* Just kidding. If you actually fit all that into a haiku, you’re totally my hero.

21 comments

  2. […] 2013 Nicola Kirk Leave a comment A totally creative challenge is proposed by Rob Ross over at Rob’s Surf Report about writing Haiku with a science fiction bent. He pointed out that Haiku is generally considered […]

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