What is a micro story?

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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Monday, July 26, 2010

Story: 229
Words: 93

Title: Synthia and Mitochondria

Synthia knew the quantum machine she needed. It must interface with the mitochondria of Slug’s wetnet-in fact, with his whole biological system. She know that mitochondria were the answer. It had been discovered that they have a structure that interfaces at the quantum level with an interdimensional plane that was outside of ordinary experience. If she could communicate with the plane then she might be able to instruct Slug’s mitochondria to enhance his native ability to pilot the Kröger. But she did have mitochondria in her systems. She would have to invent them.

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