Microfiction Monday: Fiction in 15 words or less

New series: Micro-fiction Monday

Recently, the Alliance of Independent Authors, in honour of their 10th anniversary, threw down the gauntlet and announced a Ten Word Story Competition. 

Let me say folks, ten word stories are harder than they sound! The most famous example, is Ernest Hemingway’s 6 word story (originally written on a restaurant napkin in response to a dare):

For sale, baby shoes. Never worn. 

It has a beginning, middle and end, a voice, and a whole grief stricken story in between the lines. It is a masterpiece in 6 words. 

Now, while I have no pretensions about mini masterpieces pouring out of my own pen, once I saw the announcment, I simply couldn’t say no. Writing short, and in this case, extremely short, is spectacular practice for cutting the unnecessary fluff out of one’s writing. Also, it’s fun. 

So naturally, I set about brainstorming a bunch of (very) little stories to potentially enter the competition. And I’m so glad I did, because delightfully, I was awarded one of three runner-up prizes for this little story: 

Dragon fed but need new wizard. Sorry about the castle.

In the end, this little 10 word exercise proved too much fun, so I’ve decided to start a little series here on the blog and on social media. I’ve expanded the word count to 15 words (for my sanity – I have to do this every week after all!) and will post a piece of microfiction (15 words or less) every Monday. Because I can’t help myself, I may even illustrate some of them. (If you want illustrations, drop me a comment!) 

So! Without further ado, here is this Monday’s piece of microfiction:

Plumbing Emergency. AVOID MOM. Bring gloves and an excavator.

Hungry for more ten word fiction right now? You can watch ALLI’s 10 word story competition prize-giving and reading of the other winning entries, right here.

If you’d like to hear about more microfiction, flash or any other mad challenges I get up to, click the button below and get on my email list.

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