So what is a This-Is-Who-I-Am story? Simply the story presents a character who is famous and the denouement of the story is the reader discovering who it is. The same method is sometimes used in longer stories but it works brilliantly for micro-stories. The character's presentation need not be as obtuse as the example below (and the character need not be quite so famous).

If A Job's Worth Doing...

The fifth day he gets home knackered, covered in feathers and fish scales.

"Omelette for supper, darling?"

"Fine, dear. Anything but vegetable stew again."

"And apple pie."

There's something about apples but he can't remember what.

"You're working too hard, darling. Take tomorrow off."

"Impossible. Animals tomorrow. ... I know. I'll squeeze mankind in with the animals and take Sunday off."

A variation on this theme is the This-Is-Where-I-Am story, the example below adding elements of deception to keep the reader guessing. Such deception easily becomes a turn-off in longer stories.

 Standing Up To The Vandals

If Sylvester was worried, he didn't show it. His motto had always been keep a low profile yet it was he who stood up. He eyed the thugs. Four of them were built like gorillas. The fifth, no taller than Sylvester, flexed his muscular grip on the heavy wooden bar.

Sylvester spoke out clearly. "We find then guilty, my Lord."

What has become clear to me is that 60 words allows a great improvement in the quality of story compared with 50 words. Also the straightforward way to achieve what is truly a story in so few words is to tell what is effectively a joke which does present some drawbacks. Actually using a joke to create micro-stories (like the one below) is a little plagiaristic and of course if the reader has heard the joke before the story falls far short of what was intended. And is it just me or are formal jokes less common than they used to be? All this is solved by creating your own joke but that is an exceptionally hard task for mere mortals.

Helping The Police With Their Enquiries

It seemed utterly incredible. The old lady was confessing that all ten of the missing persons had been killed and eaten by her pet Alsatian. And it looked such a friendly doggy, lying in front of the fire, its tail wagging.

"Oh yes, Officer. He's the gentlest of dogs - until I say the command."

"And what command is that, Madam?"

A micro-story is so short, it can usually do little more than present a scene and add 'trajectory'. To say they can describe an 'event' is usually an exaggeration. The scene painted by a micro-story could be vividly described (something I'm rubbish at but I have a go here - a This- Is-Where-I-Am story) and these must truly lie at the interface between poetry and story.

An Explorer's Final Vision Inside

Within, a scene of magic met his eyes, a jungle of colours, every hue - some brightly woven, trailing through the labyrinth, others daubed in intricate pattern. Everywhere glistening silver winked back at him and deep beneath, brown surfaces, bashful in the harsh daylight.

This secret wonderland gave such pleasure, now doomed beyond repair, ousted by the new replacement video recorder.

Other scenes can be presented that lead the reader into an intriguing wider situation as in the following example.

Little Thief

Okay. He's telling lies. He's been up to no good. But what? He's been running. He's scared. Yes, scared I'll punish him when I find out what's happened.

Bank robbers chasing him, indeed. A likely story.

"So why would the robbers chase after you?"

"Because of the bag, Mummy."

"What bag?"

"This bag. See? It's full of all their money."

"Little Thief" was created by thinking up the first line and then thinking of a situation which would fit. It is a method which appears to work well for micro-stories. The next example had a similar development and from placing the first line it nearly wrote itself. The denouement works as a reminder to the reader of what the setting involves.

The story also demonstrates a habit I have for messing with the appearance of my micro-stories. Rather than just print them as tiny paragraphs in the centre of a sheet of A4, I often print them with a big font or use some other variation to make the story more visual. The first line of this story was originally printed in black 30 point with each line smaller and greyer. (These fonts here are all black, the smaller ones appearing greyer naturally.)

Nearlytime

They haven't long to go - too late to re-adjust heavy packs. Nervous comradly banter withers and dies as the barrage falters then lifts. Eyes fix on the parapet or the officer, whistle clenched in mouth, watching the ticking seconds.

The whistle's simple note repeats along seventeen miles of front.

Go go go.

They hadn't long to go, most of them.

Other story simply appear as fully formed ideas. The story below, also with ticking seconds, is a bit rough narrative-wise but perhaps that suits the story line.

A Tale Of Two Tickers

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Pushing hard, gasping for breath, he reaches the top and clicks the old stopwatch. Fifty-five minutes thirty-seven; a personal best.

He leans forward, hands on knees, sucking air into his heaving lungs. He feels nauseous, a dull deep pain engulfing his chest, symptoms of the massive heart attack.

A short time after first penning this piece on 60 word stories, I encountered a 60 worder which was of yet another sort. It behaved like a micro-novel with each sentence unfolding more of the story as a chapter would in a real novel. This type of story seems pretty rare and the examples which create a powerful 60-worder are rarer still. The closest I've ever come to creating such a story relies heavily on familiar subject matter presented in a quirky manner.

Unchanging Story

Jack ascended the hill accompanied by Jillian. They were poorly equipped for such a challenging climb: no map, no compass, not even anything to drink - an obvious requirement on such a hot day.

Jack's friends couldn't believe Jillian's story when she raised the alarm but she was certain. He was dead. He'd tripped, fallen to his death, kicked the bucket.

A micro-story word limit is usually exact - not one word more, not one word less. This means that words like 'nonetheless' or 'supermarket' have to be one word and not split. (It could of course be a 'market' that is 'super' but be sure that isn't a flimsy defence.) There are also a few problem cases like the preposition 'onto' which traditionally is a split word 'on to'. Hopefully judges don't get that pernickety.

A second trick which would be frowned on is using the title to help tell the story. Giving a story a title such as The Old Woman Who Confessed That Her Pet Alsatian Had Killed And Eaten All Ten Of The Missing Persons could be allowable if and only if this information is repeated within the story. It's also a rubbish title.

And then there is hyphenation. Usually a hyphenated word counts as one word. Of-course-hyphenating-a-whole-sentence-is-breaking-the-rules. Some uses of hyphenation are shown in the dictionary such as 'cross-road' and 'the cross-roads' but then there are plenty of other uses of hyphenation that are grammatically correct which may not be in a dictionary, the likes of the adjective phrase 'out-of-town'.

The decree for Poole Writers' Circle 60 Word Story Contest for 2008/9 is 'NO HYPHENATED WORDS.' Hyphened words are adjudged so rare that avoidance should be simple. (Two of the example stories above use hyphenated words. One is  easily converted - 'five minutes thirty'? The other hyphen used in 're-adjusts' is solely for clarity - the actual spelling is 'readjusts'.) Perhaps a simpler rule for the future would be 'hyphenated words count as multiple words' - we shall see.

Apostrophised contraction of formal writing (the likes of he's, she's and even them's) still give ample scope for losing an excess word or two. And of course, always remember that counting up to 60 can lead to possible mistakes. Don't rely on the computer word count  - it can let you down. (Embarrassingly, the example story on our 2005/6 contest flier had 59 words for this very reason. Click here to see the corrected story)

So to end with a fitting story, a quirky 60 word story that doesn't actually have 60 words. I don't know what the judges would make of that!

Stealing the Last Word.

He shouts to the youth. "I've called the police. We don't tolerate behaviour like that round here."

"What?" The youth stops.

"Don't come the innocent, sonny" he says waving towards the end of the last line. "There were five dozen. Now one's missing - stolen!!"

"And you think I stole it?" The youth turns away. "Granddad, I don't give a ****!"

ENDS