55 Fiction Contest
by Molly-Ann Leikin

I saw this in the newspaper, and thought it would be fun. It really was. I tied it, I loved it, so I thought I'd share it with you.

"It's not easy to tell a story in 55 words or less, but it must be fun because in the past years, wannabee authors of all ages and talents have accepted the challenge. After several years of different contest ideas, from writing the beginning of a story to writing the end of one, the literary quickie has been revived.

"The idea for the 55-word story came from Steve Moss of San Luis Obispo's New Times, who launched the first "Fifty-Five Fiction" contest in 1987 and ended up turning it into a book, "The World's Shortest Stories," published by New Times Press in Philadelphia, which will publish a new book in the spring of 2000 titled "The World's Shortest Stories of Love and Death,", also generated by Moss, with publisher John Daniel of Santa Barbara.

"Writing a story the length of a paragraph isn't as easy as it sounds. This is 'storytelling at is very leanest, where each word is chosen with utmost care on its way to achieving its fullest effect,' Moss writes.

"Here are the rules:

For the purposes of "55 Fiction", a story contains four elements:

Setting
Character or characters
Conflict
Resolution

"Stories can run the gamut of subject matter, but they must be fiction and can't exceed 55 words. 56 doesn't cut it.

"Hyphenated words are not counted as one word. For example, "yellow-bellied sapsucker" would be three words.

"Story title isn't included in the word count.

"Contractions, initials and anacronymns count as single words.

"Numerals, such as 55, count as one word.

"Any punctuation is allowed and it doesn't count as words.

I thought this would be a good exercise for songwriters, especially lyricists, because when writing words to songs, we do "oohnch" over every syllable to make it just right, don't we.

So how about it? Try writing a 55 word story. Follow all the rules. And have fun. I think you'll surprise yourself with how well you do. Send me your stories. We'll have our own contest. The winner and two runners-up will win prizes. Fifty-five dollars off a private consultation with me. The deadline is June 1, 1999. No extensions, okay?

Write well!

© 1999 Molly-Ann Leikin

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