Write a story that formally utilizes a mathematical sequence; e.g., the Fibonacci sequence could determine the number of words in each paragraph, or start with a number and work backwards. Make sure the formula is made clear, either within the story, or before or after it.

Posted in Fiction on Feb 17, 2023

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✍️ 19 stories

“Square the Circle” by Greg Pearson

Submitted to Contest #186

Square the Circle “Impossible!” She paused for breath. “Irrational!” Not the vibe I wanted. Though I was pretty sure she was overreacting, mucho. Typical Julie. A dyed-in-the-wool true-blue glass-half-empty negative Nellie. (Note to self: Avoid clichés.) But what if? What if she was right? Julie’s the best baker in the metro area. Which is why I could not ignore her doomsaying. The job was big—huge, actually—no question. The timeline super aggressive, especially for Square the Circle. Four hundred pies. Two days. Engage beast mode. Per t...

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“Punch with Math” by Keith Maynard Jr

Submitted to Contest #186

How are you doing today? You’re good, that’s good to hear. Let’s see, what should I talk about today? I know, how about I tell you about a legendary boxer? He was a man who had a weird rule to his boxing. Truly he was idiotic, still like many I was mesmerized. Why you ask – that’s simple. He was never the champ but… he was the people’s favorite. Funny right? Still, his rule fascinated us. Illogical as they may be, it's what made him who he was. Hmm, you want to hear about the rule? Well, all right – where should I start? ...

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“Delta equals n times brackets…” by Alex Marmalade

Submitted to Contest #186

Yes. The truth. Are you sure? Sure about hearing it? Because there are some things. Once you have heard those things. You can never unhear what you heard. There is no “undo” button for those revelations. There is only the Maginot line of blissful ignorance. A line that demarcates the only two states of being. The life before you hear what I will share with you. And then right now, when I tell you about summing arithmetic sequences. Adding the first 50 integers in a sequence to figure out the total. "Delta equals n times brackets n plus one c...

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“Trapped In A Box” by Michael Jaymes

Submitted to Contest #186

This short story follows the square number series. A square number is a number of the form n × n (n squared, or n to the power of 2) where n is any integer. I will be using square numbers for the word count. So paragraph 1 will have 1 word, paragraph 2 will have 4 words, paragraph 3 will have 9 words, etc. I will follow this series up to paragraph 15, and then make my way back down to 1, for a total of 29 paragraphs. The longest paragraph will be paragraph 15 with 225 words. The total word count will be 2,255. Trapped… Trapped in a b...

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Write a story that formally utilizes a mathematical sequence; e.g., the Fibonacci sequence could determine the number of words in each paragraph, or start with a number and work backwards. Make sure the formula is made clear, either within the story, or before or after it.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 19 stories

“Square the Circle” by Greg Pearson

“Punch with Math” by Keith Maynard Jr

“Delta equals n times brackets…” by Alex Marmalade

“Trapped In A Box” by Michael Jaymes

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story in which each paragraph begins or ends (or both!) with the same sentence.

Write a story of fragments. Many options here: no verbs, sentence fragments, short sections, nothing but objects, etc. The fragments should relate to one another obliquely, hesitantly, subtly, ambiguously, preposterously, marvelously.

Write a story within a story within a story within a ...

Write a story entirely of dialogue. Nothing but dialogue. No attributives (he said, she said, etc.). No descriptions of scenes or gestures or movements (unless these things are presented in the dialogue). Just words between quotation marks. Pure, beautiful, untainted dialogue.

Contest #186

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

481

Contest entries

142

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

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