About the short ones

So every year, as previously mentioned, Boise Weekly runs a contest called Fiction 101, in which applicants submit stories of *exactly* 101 words.  I tried one year, and immediately realized what a wonderful writing exercise it is – or maybe, more accurately, what a wonderful editing exercise it is.

Try to get your story down to ~100 words and you will learn how to recognize where you were saying something important to the plot and where you were just rambling.

Accordingly, I’ve made the attempt to write a few more ~100 word stories now and then, whether there was a contest to submit them to or not.  I now plan to post some of them here, under the category “100 words”.

The one I posted just before this meta post, 101 Gumshoe, was submitted to Boise Weekly a few years ago.  While perhaps not particularly deep or insightful, it was still fun to write.

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101 Gumshoe

As she sashayed away I contemplated her … case. Hubby was worried about arson with that fire burning under his nose? Half a bottle later, I sauntered down to the warehouse – only to find his smoking ashes.

I comforted the grieving widow on his leather couch, twice. Later, I did some snooping – and thinking. Insurance fraud? It seemed too obvious, until I found the paperwork. Then something heavy found my head.

Woke up tied down, smelling smoke. This can’t be good. Hubby’s blood and hair was mixed with mine on her hammer. “Sorry detective … those weren’t the papers I hired you to find.”