I was first introduced to this idea on Jeffrey Callison's Sacramento NPR radio interview show called Insight. He interviewed Jason Sinclair Long about his blog "Flash Fiction 365". You can hear the interview here.
The challenge is to write a micro-story each day. The length of the story is determined by throwing a pair of dice, preferably of different colors. One color represents the tens digit and the other the ones digit. So the story can be from 11 to 66 words. Of course some lengths are left out using this method. You could also use one die and throw it twice. Or use a die with 8 sides. Or you can do what I did and create a random number generator in Excel. This method doesn't miss any of the numbers. Mine will return a random number between 11 and 99. I am happy to share the formula if you email me.
The title is not part of the word count. Most word processors have a word count function that is very useful. You can start with a title or add it later or you can have someone suggest a title. Even though the original idea is to write a story, I plan to include poetry and perhaps essay.
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Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Story: 50
Words: 58
Title: The Flag
She watched through the window as the parade went by her house. Memories of sitting on the curb as a child, thrilled by the colors and sounds, filled her awareness. She remembered how proud she had felt when the flag had gone by and everyone stood up and saluted or put their hand over their heart in respect.
Comment: This story starts a series of stories that do not use the verb “to be”. The subject of the stories will not necessarily relate to one another. The idea comes from the work of Alfred Korzybski in his book Science and Sanity. In the book he presents the idea that the verb “to be” implies an identification between the word before and the word after the verb. For example, if I say, “I am male,” this implies that I express the gender male and nothing else. Humanness, a specific height, a nationality, etc don’t map the one-on-one correspondence the identification implies. He recommends not using the verb “to be” and refers to it’s us as unsane. Over the years I have played with this idea and used it to write business letters with much success. It’s amazing how often this identification can get us in trouble in the business world. Try it, you might just get hooked. Let me know in a comment to one of the stories about your experiences. And, just to experience the difficulty in rewriting a sentence, try rewriting “I am male” without using the verb “to be.” By the way, I have not used the dreaded verb in this comment. So, read each story carefully and see if you can catch me.
Words: 58
Title: The Flag
She watched through the window as the parade went by her house. Memories of sitting on the curb as a child, thrilled by the colors and sounds, filled her awareness. She remembered how proud she had felt when the flag had gone by and everyone stood up and saluted or put their hand over their heart in respect.
Comment: This story starts a series of stories that do not use the verb “to be”. The subject of the stories will not necessarily relate to one another. The idea comes from the work of Alfred Korzybski in his book Science and Sanity. In the book he presents the idea that the verb “to be” implies an identification between the word before and the word after the verb. For example, if I say, “I am male,” this implies that I express the gender male and nothing else. Humanness, a specific height, a nationality, etc don’t map the one-on-one correspondence the identification implies. He recommends not using the verb “to be” and refers to it’s us as unsane. Over the years I have played with this idea and used it to write business letters with much success. It’s amazing how often this identification can get us in trouble in the business world. Try it, you might just get hooked. Let me know in a comment to one of the stories about your experiences. And, just to experience the difficulty in rewriting a sentence, try rewriting “I am male” without using the verb “to be.” By the way, I have not used the dreaded verb in this comment. So, read each story carefully and see if you can catch me.
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