Make Someone Else's World Your Own

ROBOWRITER'S ASSIGNMENT - This is a genre exercise. Sort of a sideways parody. Take an existing franchise in any medium – Pirates of the Caribbean, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, Lost, The Dark Tower, etc – and write a scene that takes place in that world, but does not involve any of their main characters. The characters used should be either peripheral or completely created by you. For example, write a scene featuring janitors on the USS Enterprise or some of those nameless faces of Lost. The challenge is to use that world without calling it out specifically or depending on the audience’s familiarity with said world. The key is to tend to the scenework and not make it into a nudge-nudge-wink-wink reference-palooza.