Member-only story
A Short Short Story Challenge
The other day, JF Danskin tagged me in a challenge. The challenge was to write a short story… but a certain type of short story whose name I dare not speak. So I’ll allow JF to do it instead.
“While a 50-word story seems to be a pretty popular format, I haven’t seen nearly so many people recommending the 100-word story, also known as the drabble….
A drabble is:
- Short enough to be written and edited in one sitting.
- Long enough to have the three main parts of story structure: beginning, middle and end.
- At the lower end of flash fiction (which typically ranges up to 1000 or 1500 words) in terms of length.”
So without further ado, here’s my attempt at uh…
“I can’t write a drabble.”
“Why’s that?”
“I just don’t like the word.”
“drabble?”
“That’s it — don’t say it again!”
“Sure, but it’s still due next Monday.”
“Damnit to h — ”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Look, you don’t have to call it a drabble.”
“You said it!”
“Sorry.”
“You can just call it your short story and it can be a secret between us that you write drabb — short stories. Deal?”
“Okay, yeah, fine…” said Brendan as he began making his way toward the door. He emerged from the office ecstatic — a short story writer of sorts.
