55 Fiction

Ever since I was younger I believed to be a writer I needed to write some long story like War and Peace by Tolstoy or Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky (I remember picking up and flicking through Crime and Punishment and it was nearly 800 pages long – now I’d read a book that long without flinching – it’s the language that puts me off). I know (now) that there are many more authors out there but somehow these held something for me when I went to the library with my Dad.

We’d look through the books – I’d find what I wanted then I waited while Dad found books. He likes H.G.Wells and other science fiction writers but he also likes writers like Fleming (who wrote the James Bond stories and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) when I wandered round the library the adult books look so much bigger and chunkier than what I was reading. I’d try and read Austen or someone like that but the language was too complicated and often (and still does) baffled me into submission so I’d put the book back. I’d read fiction like Buffy stories that were extentions of the TV show and other recommended books like these.

More recently I tried writing. I’ve been in NaNoWriMo two years now and both years I’ve got nowhere near completion – however now I’ve realised it’s not neccersarily about how much I can write – what if I can portray my story in the least words needed. I signed up for a swap on Swap-Bot last week and it’s called “55 Fiction Exchange“. The idea is that you write a story that has a total of 55 words or less. Yes 55 words! Thats like nothing!

So the rules for “55 fiction” are as follows:

• Fifty-five words or less (A non-negotiable rule)
• A setting,
• One or more characters,
• Some conflict, and
• A resolution. (Not limited to moral of the story)