Short, Short Story Contest

The Dark Party Review is holding a 55-word fiction contest. Winners will be published at the site.

Details can be found here: Contest.

The contest runs until June 16.

Good luck!

 

55 words?! That's short as hell! That's only a paragraph, or something.

 

would this pass their criteria?
The Coincidence of suicide and murder

Rita began to type her suicide note, then picked up the gun, put it to her head just as the marksman took aim. He confirmed it was Rita and squeezed the trigger. A thousandth of a second later she squeezed hers.
The bullets impacted at precisely the same time.

 

oooh that sounds fun! and slightly challenging... will have to work on this... *ponders*

 

Maybe we should all give it a try. It would be really nice if someone from here won it.

 

Here's my go at it:

Ars moriendi

I stare at the soft clouds, but I know she’s left me. They comfort me with their velvet threads and ambiguous shapes that take on illusions of lost thoughts. I turn to kiss her cold lips; they’re tender and leave a mark that reflects our love: cold. Goodbye Julia, the light always beckons.

-L.A.Matthews

 

Victims of Circumstance

They drank in the same bar for two years without ever speaking to each other, but still aware of each other's presence. Both tried to catch each other's attention in small and misread ways, too afraid of bold gestures to say "hi". Then one moved out of town and the other stayed. These things happen.

 

Nice!

 

It is short as hell. That's the challenge. Some of the stuff written here is pretty you good. You should enter it.

Send the submissions (with a short bio) to darkpartyreview@gmail.com

What's there to lose?

 

Yeah, I'll enter, sure.

 

I already sent mine. I'm quite happy with it, now I re-read it. I just kinda tossed it out so it hardly feels like I wrote it, like when you write something down when you're drunk and the next morning you realise how different you are when your inhibitions aren't telling you off for being weird/silly. Not that I think mine is weird or silly. But I like how you can read it and it be about anyone at all. There's no genders or anything there. I figure you just end up superimposing your own experiences onto it.

 

Yeah too Right Self Control I hope you win it! its a good story !

 

Hmm now I seen SC's standard I have to either improve mine or write another

 

The artist

The painters arthritic hands killed the skills of his soul. Once a fine portraitist, now the figurative was dead and he was still a pavement poster bum. Angrily he threw his paints at the canvas, drank the vodka and spat it on the shit he saw. It was the making of his first million – frustration

 

Good work, people. I'm still working on mine. It's harder than it seems (writing the story that is).

 

I experienced this when I took the exam for those aspiring to become a writer in the school newspaper... write the shortest short story (plot, setting, characters... etc. all elements must be included) I don't think they became fans of my short, short story.

 

If it helps, think traditionally. Take all the elements of a normal story, and try to fit them in there; character, beginning middle and end, structure etc. You can afford to be a bit more conventional with them, because you're already working in a very unconventional way.

Also you can enter more than once, so don't worry if it's not perfect.

So, for example:

"The old man lived in the forest. He barely moved. When he died, no-one noticed."

Beginning, middle, end, character, plot, setting. I'm pretty sure all "proper" stories can be reduced to this kind of minimal synopsis, and then presumably reconstructed anew from it.

"A little girl wanted to see her grandmother in the woods. On the way she met a wolf, who tried to eat her, then ate her grandmother and pretended to be her. The little girl was not fooled, and because of this the wolf died." Little Red Riding Hood

"God made the Earth and everything on it. When people displeased Him, He sent His son to put things right. The people killed His son, but the sacrifice was later recognised." The Bible

"The dead came back to life. They started hanging out with each other. Then... I dunno, did anyone ever get that far?" Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton.

 

nice wrting guys

 

OK here goes. I think I've written something like this before. If I have, then this is part 2:

"In the beginning there was absolutely nothing, which was followed by a distinctive something, before reaching an abrupt, although rather conclusive end."

 

Call it "The Universe 2: This Time, It's Parallel!"