Hi everyone,
I think this is the right place to post this and as a newcomer, if I might be so bold, I'd like to share something which I enjoy immensely with you. 55 Fiction. If you've heard of it, don't bother reading on. If you haven't, read on!
55 Fiction was started about 16 years ago (I think) by a couple of journalists, Steve Moss and John M. Daniel in a Californian newspaper as an annual writing competition. The whole thing became so popular that the best stories are published in compilation books of "The World's Shortest Stories".
Did I hear you say, it's impossible to write a complete story in 55 words or less? Not so. Here are a couple of stories as a sampler:
THE RAREST OF ALL
"Forty-two million exactly."
Sir Michael took the check and gingerly handed over the ancient vase.
"You've finally won, Langston. You now have the only two left in the world."
"Yes, but what I really wanted," Langston replied, smashing the vase into a thousand pieces on the floor, "was the only one in the world."
John Geraci
55 WORDS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
Using a free newspaper to keep warm I noticed a story contest. Entered and won.
The
New Yorker republished my story. I got a book contract from Knopf, Pulitzer, Spielberg deal, yadda, yadda.
I bought the Waldorf Astoria and housed the homeless.
I give them free newspapers to keep warm.
Hey, it worked for me.
Katherine Wilde
(Hope John Geraci and Katherine Wilde won't mind me reproducing their stories here - it's for a good cause)
Ruggie might get an idea for setting homework out of this one! I tried it with some of my students once and got some good stories. They couldn't believe it when I asked them to write a composition of 55 words maximum instead of 150 - 200 words!!
If anyone is seriously interested in submitting something to the editors (Steve Moss and John M. Daniel) they should check up on the competition rules which can be found through the net search.
Happy reading!
See ya!
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