This is a continuation of my previous post about#28Letters, a Writing Challenge by #8Circles Creative Community which calls for writing a 100 word story (or a drabble) of any genre.
A bit of knowledge-sharing before I post my Day 2 story:
Like I’ve said, a Drabble, also called Micro Fiction, is a short work of fiction/prose/poetry with only 100 words. Typically, fictional works are identified by length of written words:
- Flash Fiction – 100-1000 words
- Short Story – 1,000-7,500 words
- Novelette – 7,500-20,000 words
- Novella – 20,000-50,000 words
- Novel – 50,000-110,000 words
- Epic, also called Super Novel – over 110,000 words [from Writing World]
There’s also what is called Twabbles now, stories written in Twitter. You write a story making use of the maximum amount of characters in the famous social networking service. A 240-character tale!
Do you know of any other fictional work based on word length? Comment below and share what you know. Sharing is caring!
But regardless of word length, these works of fiction should have the same attributes: they must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So, for a drabble, imagine how hard it is to write a story comprising only of exactly 100 words (title is excluded in the count) which tells a complete story–not a vignette, not an excerpt.
A drabble is like any story, it should have a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning sets up the story, the middle is the meat (the progression of the story) and the end provides the conclusion. Many of the best drabbles have a twist in the tale — the start and middle will take you in an expected direction and then the end turns that around.
https://drablr.com/how-to-write-a-drabble
The goal for writing a drabble is to exercise brevity, to test the author’s ability to weave a full, interesting and meaningful tale with a concise number of words. It helps develop a writer’s skills on the economical use of words. It also develops a writer’s craft through practice in a fun, challenging way.
Here’s my Day 2 story for #28Letters February 2019 Writing Challenge:
She hesitates, licks her brittle lip with her blackened tongue.
“Go on, do it.”
“But what if…?”
“I’m always here for you.”
“You can’t walk fast like before.”
He shows off his toothless grin.
“I can roll.”
“And lose you too?”
“You won’t.”
Nodding, she lifts her rotting forefinger, scratching the skin under her eye. It wobbles in its socket, pops out, dropping to the blood-splattered ground.
He dives, his decomposing body preventing its further escape. She kneels, gropes for her only eye and puts it back in its place.
“Told you I’d catch it. I always do.”
What do you think of my Day 2 Drabble? Is it funny, scary, or gory?
To read my Day 1 story for #28Letters, click HERE.
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