Writing Prompt: Limited Space!

So, my professor and I were talking about some stories I wrote and I told her that I started them with the intention of writing one ten page short story every day for five days!

(She looked at me like I was crazy…maybe I was)

But! I realized that there was a lot to learn from limiting myself to a length of short story! I am actually an over-writer (some may not find this surprising if they’ve read my other posts), but I’m not an over-writer in the way you think. My problem is that every idea has the ability to become a novel in my mind, every short story a saga, every poem an epic. My brain was always thinking in LOOOOOOOOOONG form. So how do we fix this?

We add limits!

This writing exercise will take a little more time than my other ones, so you might need to do it in chunks!

The Sentence!

Start with a single sentence story! One of my favorites is “Let’s make it so she can’t escape.” by Sinaa Ahmad from Let’s Play Dead. I found this while looking at an article from the Paris Review, which you can find here: A Story in One Sentence. And I found the sentence so chilling and interesting, but at the same time complete!

For this part of the prompt, write a single sentence story! Post it in the comments below!

The Flash Piece!

For this section write out that sentence-long story into a piece under 1000 words!

The Ten Pager!

Finally, in this last step, you’re going to write out your story into a ten page short story! Think about what needs to happen in those ten pages, how it needs to be completed, what plot points need to come across, and write it all out in the best prose you can!

I loved the idea for this writing exercise because it helped me so much to get out of my desire to constantly write long form. Novels are amazing, but learning to craft the short story is a challenge in itself that we should all aspire to!

As always, happy writing!