Up to the Challenge: Telling a Story in 50 Words. In 101 Words. In 250 Words.

My writing journey to date consists of stories written for my own eyes, a form of intimate self-expression, joy, and self-care. The new chapter of life I am exploring now: to become a published author, is marked by wholesale edits of current work, participation in various author workshops, and the practice of submitting short story fiction to online journals. I'm having a blast!

The wholesale edits I mentioned above invariably involve editing for conciseness. What better practice for honing those skills than writing a complete story in 50 words? 101 words? Or, perhaps in other short increments? To my surprise, I have a found a few online journals who publish nothing but these micro stories. As a writer who loves a good multi-parenthetical sentence, I assure you that the challenge is real! My writing prompts for these stories usually involve a single word or a concept expressed briefly in another way.

https://fiftywordstories.com/about/

For example, the other day my teenaged daughter suggested I write a tear-jerker. She suggested something as gutting as writing about a dog dying. The 101-word story I wrote in the span of the next 10 minutes tells of the "death" of a dog's mechanical best friend (not the dog itself). I look forward to that story being published in 2023, if the journal editors will accept it. That 101-word story underwent extensive edit. I believe that if unchecked, writers will never stop editing.

I will continue to build my skills at telling stories concisely through these challenges. Yesterday, I asked my mother and siblings for single word prompts to use for my next micro stories. Look for my future published micro stories involving the following words or themes: ruminates, walking, hurt, indignation, and goals.