Tag: Bradbury Challenge

One of the fun things about this reading challenge, there is always at least one good rabbit hole to jump down every week. This week’s rabbit hole is sponsored by the words “Flash” and “Fiction.”

The Writers Digest has become my carry-everywhere magazine. Anytime I think I may find myself away from home and stuck in a holding pattern, I bring along an issue of Writers Digest to read. Between that and searching about for various threads I chase about writing I’ve been running across a few terms I’ve sort of understood from context but never really paid much attention to. However, as I continue with my Ray Bradbury challenge, the different forms of writing keep vying for my attention and most of them seem to fall under the heading of “Flash Fiction.” So, I thought it was time to disambiguate some of my newfound vocabulary. I wanted to make sure I didn’t Dribble when I should have Drabbled and I thought I should make sure I never Suddenly Flashed a Nano Postcard story when all I needed was just a bit of Twitterature…

One of the more curious forms of short fiction I encountered was the Six Word Story. Often attributed to Ernest Hemmingway (but generally considered implausible) was a complete story, told with only six words.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

I’ll give you a moment to let that one sink in.

The idea of course, and this is true of all forms of flash fiction, is to produce the most impact with as few words as possible. In the case of the Six Word Story, it is even more interesting because each of the six words are entirely innocuous and are even presented in a way commonly and uninterestingly used. It’s not until the reader takes those six particular words, arranged in that particular order, and starts adding their own story around them does a story even emerge.

As you can probably guess, the Six Word Story is not the only form of Flash Fiction. With some help from Professor Google, I came up with this short key to fiction writing types:

Story Type	Word Count
Six Word Story	6 (exactly)
Twitterature	< 280 characters
Dribble	50 (exactly)
Nanofiction	50 – 100
Drabble	100 (exactly)
Postcard Fiction	25 – 250 (500)
Microfiction	100 – 300/400 (500)
Sudden Fiction	750 – 1,000
Flash Fiction	< 1,000 (1,500)
Short Story	1,000 – 7,000 (10,000)
Short Publication	< 4,000 (6,000)
Long Publication	< 10,000 (15,000)
Novelette	7,000 – 17,500 (20,000)
Novella	17,500 – 40,000 (50,000)
Novel	40,000 – 120,000

The exact numbers and groupings vary, but seemed fairly consistent in my, admittedly brief, searching.

With that, I will close out Week 004 of my reading and writing challenge with my report card and my very first, Six Word Story (offered here in its entirety)…

Concert 6pm. Lead Singer auditions 4pm.

My Week 004 Report Card:

Poetry (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

• Rain in Summer
• To A Child
• The Occultation of Orion
• The Bridge
• To the Driving Cloud
• The Day is Done
• Afternoon in February

Essays (Wendell Berry)

• Discipline and Hope (part 10)
• Discipline and Hope (part 11)
• In Defense of Literacy
• The Making of a Marginal Farm
• The Unsettling of America
• The Ecological Crisis as a Crisis of Character
• The Ecological Crisis as a Crisis of Agriculture

Short Stories (O. Henry)

• A Municipal Report
• A Fog in Santone
• Friends in San Rosario
• Round the Circle
• Hearts and Hands
• The Lonesome Road
• The Pimienta Pancakes

Week 003 continues what seems to be a trend. Wendell Berry continues to expand my vocabulary while O. Henry all but bludgeons me with a dictionary. I am considering adding Chambers 20th Century Dictionary new Edition 1983 to my list of weekly readings since I spend so much time in it.

Week two actually ended about a week ago, which perhaps demonstrates that I still struggle to stay on course. The problem seems, at least at this early stage, is that resolutions have a nature of being infectious. Not necessarily to other people, though that may be happening as well, but rather to myself. After all, what could possibly better than actually committing to, starting and continuing to engage in a new resolution? Why, two resolutions of course! And what better than two? Obviously, three.

Not surprisingly, my first week of the Bradbury Challenge (more specifically, the 3/1/52 version of this challenge) went a little rough.

I made a few tactical decisions I knew would complicate it. First, I started during the holiday season which came with multiple layers on its own. Besides the usual holiday festivities, my middle son was home from college, which meant fetching him, unpacking, then packing and taking him back. We also decided on a family vacation away from home. In the end, the primary reason for jumping right in was to just arbitrarily dismiss all excuses not to.

As 2025 comes to a close, and 2026 stands ready to shine down upon us, I find myself thinking of the year to come. I have thoughts of the year that was to be certain, but for the past few days, the future has been dancing about my head in a game of cerebral hide and seek. In a montage of what was, what could have been and what may yet be, a resolution of New Year worthiness crystalized in my mind.