This week’s genre is Eco-Fiction. This is a broad genre that treats both the natural world and ecological issues as more than just a setting. It makes them integral to the story, highlighting the careful balance between living things and their environment. It’s also often a genre that showcases the cost of hubris.

You can blend this concept with sci-fi, with horror, or with other genres as well. I encourage you to take the prompt and make it your own!

Element 1: Setting

Your setting this week is The Putrid Delta. This is the location of an ecological disaster. For years, a government research facility was dumping toxic chemicals into this river, thinking it would be swept out to sea and that their sins would be forgotten. But nature never forgets.

Instead, the chemicals built up at this delta, where the river meets the ocean. The local wildlife began to mutate in horrific ways. Humans who tried to swim or fish here experienced horrific symptoms. Before long, the government had to step in and admit what they had done.

It was too little, too late. A dam was built to stop the chemicals from flowing into the ocean. A massive quarantine wall was erected around the perimeter of the delta. The public was forbidden from entering for their own safety.

Government vehicles still come and go all the time, but no one knows what’s going on in there. Is the damage really contained? Or, did they find something born from their sin within those waters? The answer to those questions is up to you, my friends.

Element 2: Character(s)

Your character this week is The Bookworm. This is someone who has been following the events surrounding the Putrid Delta for most of their life. One of their role models is a scientist who managed to break into the area and transmit a short video back detailing what they found.

In the video, they showed footage of a new life form. Something that defies description. The video ended before they could finish their thought, and they were never seen again. The Bookworm was hooked. They started reading every book they could get their hands on about this topic.

They devoured every research paper the scientist had written before their untimely disappearance. They started to feel a connection to this person, and the seed of an idea started to grow in their mind: what if the scientist is still there?

They couldn’t shake the idea. They had to know the truth, and if this scientist is still alive, they had to save them.

Element 3: Conflict

Your conflict this week is Knowledge Versus Experience. Should you choose to use this conflict, you must explore the difference between reading about something and actually doing it.

Our Bookworm character is incredibly knowledgeable about the Putrid Delta and the events that have transpired, but is knowledge enough for them to successfully complete their mission? That’s the true question.

And of course, what happens when the truth defies all the knowledge you’ve obtained thus far? What happens then? You will need to reconcile this as well, should you choose to leverage this elements in your story or poem.

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