Recipe for a 250-Word Story

The secret recipe for an enticing story is the same, no matter the word count. But if you can cook up a concise and coherent story in only 250 words, those skills will help you tackle bigger and more complex creations.

You might be wondering, “When would I ever need to make a story that short?” There are a number of online venues that publish flash fiction (typically under 1,500 words) and microfiction (typically under 300 words), such as Brevity, Wigleaf, and Daily Science Fiction. NYC Midnight also hosts a Microfiction Challenge for 250-word and 100-word stories.

Plus, it can just be a fun exercise to write a complete story in under an hour!

Below is my personal recipe for writing microfiction, along with a story I wrote using those steps. You might find variations that work better for your tastes. This post was inspired by my collaboration video on Joe Webb’s YouTube channel, where we both wrote a story using the same prompt.

Ingredients:

+ A genre and/or prompt constraint (e.g., write a ghost story featuring the action of “singing” and the word “hourglass”)