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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Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Story: 174
Words: 88
Title: Synthia Makes a Mistake
Synthia was helping set up for lunch. The lab was having a get together to celebrate her successes and give her experience with social niceties. Suddenly, there was a crash as Synthia knocked over a large pitcher of water. She stopped and stared at the shards of broken glass in the pool of water on the floor.
How could this have happened, she thought, my sense of where I am in relation to nearby objects is nearly perfect. Had she made a mistake? Could she make a mistake?
Words: 88
Title: Synthia Makes a Mistake
Synthia was helping set up for lunch. The lab was having a get together to celebrate her successes and give her experience with social niceties. Suddenly, there was a crash as Synthia knocked over a large pitcher of water. She stopped and stared at the shards of broken glass in the pool of water on the floor.
How could this have happened, she thought, my sense of where I am in relation to nearby objects is nearly perfect. Had she made a mistake? Could she make a mistake?
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very interesting.
ReplyDeleteCould she make a mistake?: no
her only reference would be
if she's executed her programming correctly
machines can't self reflect, IMO