Sunday, November 22, 2009

Fifty

This is the second of three (exactly) fifty-word stories that I wrote for the Brian Dibble Shortest Story Competition. I didn't win.

I broke down in tears when I tried to write a story in only fifty words. I threw my pen across the room and swore.

"That's not a story," I said to the scribbling on my notebook. "That's a paragraph!"

I went back to working on my novel.

2 comments:

Angel Zapata said...

Cool. But from my experience, most editors are inundated with stories, especially micro flash pieces, about a writer finding difficulty in penning a flash piece. Now a novel about a writer finding difficulty penning a novel...hmmm...

Bernard said...

Thanks, Angel. The value of learning from the experience of others is hard to measure. I actually thought I had a very original idea for that piece. I'm deadly serious. In hindsight, it makes sense that thousands of writers trying to create a story in 50 words are going to express frustration in this way.