I've been having a lot of fun lately working on 50 word retellings of fairy tales. After doing 8 or 10, I'm graduating up to 75.
I decided after staring at the bloated, 11,000 word draft of my last completed/revised short story that I was never going to learn how to cut down from too many words, and I would be better served trying to learn to write my way up - what can I do with 50 words, then 75, then ... etc. In only, what, a year? I might have made it up to a proper short story length of 2,000 or so.
So far the best one, I think, was The Twelve Brothers.
( The Twelve Brothers (in 50 words) )
I tried to go straight from 50 to 100, but it was honestly too hard. 100 words seemed like so many, there were a dizzying number of options about what to do with all those words.
I decided after staring at the bloated, 11,000 word draft of my last completed/revised short story that I was never going to learn how to cut down from too many words, and I would be better served trying to learn to write my way up - what can I do with 50 words, then 75, then ... etc. In only, what, a year? I might have made it up to a proper short story length of 2,000 or so.
So far the best one, I think, was The Twelve Brothers.
( The Twelve Brothers (in 50 words) )
I tried to go straight from 50 to 100, but it was honestly too hard. 100 words seemed like so many, there were a dizzying number of options about what to do with all those words.