The Rube Goldberg Story Contest

[RapeU]

Rube Goldberg was an author widely known for comic strips and animated films that had complicated gadgets performing simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. The writing contest for the month of October, should you choose to accept the challenge, is to write a story with a Rube Goldberg theme.

Perhaps the best example of a Rube Goldberg machine is Ok Go's music video This Too Shall Pass.



Here we have likely over 100 simple gadgets involved all so that the band can get blasted with paint at the end when it would have just been easier to have someone push the button and splatter the band with paint (though it would be less entertaining.)

You are not limited to writing about a gadget with multiple parts and steps that in the end does something simple. The Rube Goldberg theme can apply to one or more character actions. For example, a character could make a 10 part plan to rape his sister when it would have just been easier to just go into her room and rape her there.

The Rube Goldberg theme could apply to unplanned events as well. A great example of Rube Goldberg "unplanned events" is within the original Home Alone movie.



Kate flies from Chicago to Paris. After she realized they left their son at home she goes to Dallas then to Scranton then accepts a ride from Polka musicians in a van to go to Chicago when it would have just been easier to wait in Paris and go on the flight to Chicago after Christmas with the rest of the family.

So essentially, the theme of your story should be centered around multiple events which by themselves are simple. Yet when they are all combined together it’s a complex or complicated situation when it would have just been easier to _________ (fill in the blank).

You have the whole month of October plus a few days extra since I’m posting this a few days early in case I'm busy midweek. As for word count, let’s do it a little differently and set a minimum word count of 5,000 words with no upper word limit. Thus, you can either write a medium or a long story for this contest.

Rube Goldberg Contest

• Theme: Rube Goldberg
• Language: English
• Length: Medium or long (5,000 plus words with no upper limit)
• Required Tags: Eng, Finished, Medium/Long, (NonCon or Con), RubeGoldberg
• Deadline: November 1 2025, 00:00 CEST
• Voting Window: To be determined based on number of entries.
  
  Rewards
  • The winner's story will be pinned for a week to the top of the Public Stories board.
  • The winner will receive a special title of their choice (unless they are part of the moderation team).
  • 25 reputation points for the winner, 10 for the runner-up.
  If you want to enter your story, please post it in the public stories board and reply to this thread with a link to your story. Also, the subject line of your story should reference the contest in the following way:
  
  • Title of your story - Rube Goldberg
  You may remove that reference once the contest is over. Also, please include a link to the contest thread before the beginning of your story and tell your readers that the story participates in the contest.