300 Short Stories

[JS Wiig]

What this is intended for: support and accountability for myself and anyone else who wants to participate.

What this is not intended for: a competition or contest or a place to post stories. If you have a story you would like feedback on I would encourage using the Critiques forum.

What it is:

I love to write and would read and write everyday all day if I had the time. Yes yes I know you make the time work kids blah blah blah. I love the Challenges here for giving me a reason to regularly write, so I wanted to give myself something to write about on any given day in manageable bites.

So the idea here is to generate a writing prompt in the form of a title and write a one page (~250 word) story from that title, for a total of 300 short stories.

I’ve been getting my titles from the Reedsy blog title generator:

Book Title Generator • The Ultimate Bank of 10,000 Titles

I’ve been alternating each story title between SciFi and Fantasy, but of course any genre will do.

What’s the endgame:

Have 300 short stories of approximately one page each. During the course of writing, if there is something you’d like to work on then focus on that aspect. For example if you need some dialog practice, then make the stories dialog heavy. Don’t worry about anything as the idea is not for these stories to see the light of another readers eyes, but to hone our own skills.

You should also get pretty good at turning ideas quickly, and at the end have several seeds available for cultivating into workable shorts all the way up to full length novels or series.

So anyone else wanna give this a go? Should be fun!

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

I'm in, not sure exactly what's involved (not your fault); lead the way and I'll def jump in -fair play

 

[JS Wiig]

…not sure exactly what's involved…

I think for starters mostly updating on progress, certain things you’re focusing on, interesting titles and story ideas, noticeable improvements in your writing. Things of that nature.

As for the actual writing, just generate a title and write a page story as often as feasible and or desired. First to 300 wins!…oh wait…

 

[JS Wiig]

Completed three stories this week. 1% of the way there!

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

Aha, gotchya -I thought we were writing/ posting them here as a sort of tag team thing. Well done. I won't be able to reach 300, but will try to jump in if I get some done.
Best of luck

 

[worldofmutes]

That’s a really interesting idea.
Would get me into the habit of writing more often… don’t think I could do it but I’ll give it a go. Will report back after I fail.

Update: Want to work on my vocabulary.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Sounds good. But why not post some of the stories here? Just for fun - not as a competition.

 

[sule]

After today's story, I'm at four. I've been digging through poems for titles and inspiration, and it's working out so far.

 

[JS Wiig]

Latest title:

The Blade in the Storm

How cliche!

 

[sule]

I didn't halfway do justice to yesterday's title ("Mystery of the Three-Inch Tourist"), but I'm at twelve stories now!

 

[JS Wiig]

@sule that’s definitely an interesting title! Twelve sounds solid. I’ve already hit a snag, but then again I’ve always been a distance runner and not much of a sprinter.

 

[Iwroteathing]

This challenge is a great idea. A great artist doesnt just conjure up a Mona Lisa, they have mountains of sketchbooks and doodles, scraps that may rarely be seen by others, but truly valued by the artist. A nice way too of practicing the art of chopping the fat out of your work, and leaving only the lean, succulent words to make the most of that page. I imagine it will be hard to commit to 300 pages of approx 250 words, so you have my support and hope you can make it the full journey.

What % are you currently at?

 

[JS Wiig]

This challenge is a great idea. A great artist doesnt just conjure up a Mona Lisa, they have mountains of sketchbooks and doodles, scraps that may rarely be seen by others, but truly valued by the artist.

Thanks that’s a great way of putting it!

What % are you currently at?

1.67%, roughly.

 

[sule]

I don't know if anyone else will find this useful, but this lecture by Mary Robinette Kowal helped me a lot in understanding how to write short stories.

She also provides a "formula" for constructing flash fiction stories of around 250 words.
You can watch the full video for a better explanation, but the TL;DR is:

• Limit it to two characters and one location.
• Opening: 2 to 3 sentences. Meet the characters, make promises, establish genre and setting.
• Introduce the conflict in the next 2 sentences--what the character wants and what is stopping them.
• Identify the MICE quotient of the conflict, have them try new things that fail. (Try/fail cycle). 4 or 5 sentences.
• Resolve the conflict with a Try/Succeed. 4 or 5 sentences.
• Ending (3 sentences). Close the MICE thread, show how things have changed for the character.

 

[sule]

I fell off the wagon for a bit, but I reached 30 stories this week so I thought it might be a good time to check in. How's everyone else doing?

 

[JS Wiig]

Well…

I pretty much fell off the wagon and got run over forwards, then backwards as it reversed to see what it hit, then forwards again as it sped off over the horizon.

 

[sule]

That's sad to hear, especially because your idea has helped me make sure I get some writing done every day (give or take a month). I try not to worry about writing anything "good" (and, honestly, I'm not writing great stuff) and, when I can get in that mindset, it's been so freeing. I just pick a title, sit down for 20-30 minutes with some music playing, and free write a brief story.

Of course, the month I missed was because I couldn't convince myself it was worth the time, but since getting back into it I've been doing all right. Your prompt has helped me immensely, and I'm grateful for it.

 

[JS Wiig]

@sule thank you, that is very kind and I am happy to hear you are realizing a positive benefit in your writing.

I’m in no way throwing in the towel here. I’m working on establishing a 2000 word per week schedule on a novel, and once I get that going here in the next few weeks I will add in a day a week to write one of these shorts.

 

[JS Wiig]

I actually got a handful of shorties written in November. My (significantly truncated) version of NaNoWriMo.

 

[OuttaInc]

Just found this thread today while searching the word accountability.

I’m just curious how you’re doing on your targets?

I do something similar but with short synopses. And Iistead of title prompts I use Story Cubes or StoryWorld cards. Some ideas are duds but many are fantastic and ones I never would’ve come up with if I had just waited for inspiration to strike.