Okay, guys.

We need to have some more traffic in here. Entrants who want to enter have a 200-word limit, hence, why this is a short short-story contest. The genre is person's choice. If possible, I would like a panel of three willing judges who each gives a critique of the short stories, giving them a score between 1-10.

If anyone has any feedback on how to further spice this up, please don't hesitate to post here.

~Bonanza

My question is... how can you write a decent 200 word story? It'd be like Spot but with more words.

Well, my initial focus on the SHORT short story concept was a "reader's attention span."

I find myself looking at walls of text, and just skimming, rather than reading through them. Anything else, Syn?

I too find that a wall of text is just to much of an investment to make unless I'm already deeply invested in the discussion of the thread.

I find that people who treat literature like forum discussions disgust me.

An Englishman and a Russian woman met in Capri and lived a brief and intense moment of love. Soon the Englishman returned to London and the woman to the Great Plains. They decided to keep up their love playing an extended chess match. From time to time, there would arrive from Russia a letter with a play and, soon after, to Russia would come a letter in counter, with the numbers of play from London. Meanwhile the Englishman married and had three children. His once-lover also lived through a happy matrimony. The chess match prolonged itself for twenty years still, with letters being swapped every five or six months. One day the Englishman received a knight move so cunning that he lost his Queen. He understood, in that moment, that the play had been made by someone else, to let him know that the woman had died.




148 words.

Come on guys, it is a 5-minute effort.

He was a transfer student, from far away, he’d say. He was clever, though, and had a toned body and a smooth tongue. So before long she was his, and they were always together. Every day, they’d walk over the bridge and she’d ask where he was from. She’d wonder what he did there, and why he carried a cellphone with him that was always turned off. And he wouldn’t answer any of these questions. And she’d wonder why he didn’t asnwer, and she’d become sad and lonely, and he’d comfort her. Until one day, as he was distracted on the bridge, she grabbed his cellphone and turned it on. There were hundreds of unanswered calls, one from less than an hour ago, from a very curious number. Suddenly the phone rang. He turned in terror to see her lifting the phone to her ear. He ran and took it from her, and took her own phone, which had just started ringing (it was a weird number) and tossed both over the bridge. But it was too late. She was pale, and without a word she grappled him and hurled both their bodies over the bridge, into the river below.

200 words

Barry never socialized. He spent the majority of his days serving smoothies and fruit cocktails at the local diner. He wished he could find a better job, but considering the state of the economy, he was lucky to even be working at all. Suddenly, an earthquake disrupted the diner. Many of Barry’s appliances scooted from his working station, breaking in the process. Moments later, he found himself in a fairly dark room, the only source of light coming mere feet away. As the light took more form, Barry noticed that the light came from a giant floating head, entrapped within a blue cylinder. Soon, Barry found himself next to a robot, capable of speaking human language. Most intriguingly, four other individuals, patrons that Barry served various entities to, stood beside him, all facing the giant head. Little did they know that each person, carrying a contrasting personality, had been chosen to save the economy.

154 words.

Harold was a duck. It wasn't his fault though. It was the immutable force of some other worldly being that made him that way. He swam in his lake and ate his pond weeds, but always dreamed of something bigger, something more than himself. Once, as he slept in his nest at night he dreamed that he was an acrobat, flying high above the center ring. He traveled to the circus and tried to get a job as an acrobat, but the ringmaster said that he had wings and it would not be impressive if he flew through the air somersaulting and what-not. So he went home. Then he dreamed that he was a surgeon, and that he saved many lives. So the next day he went to a medical school to lean to be a doctor, but they would not admit him- not because he was a drake, no; it was because he had no High school diploma, let alone hands. It seemed to Harold that his dreams would never come to fruition. Harold had other dreams and tried to pursue them, but in the end, he came to peace with the fact he was just a duck.

199 words!

“There used to be tree house here.”
It has been only half an hour since the sky turned pink. It was such an odd color for the sky; but not as odd as the talking moose. Feeling inside a familiar fairy tale, Harrison decided not to follow it, for no good thing would come out by following a talking moose while the sky was pink. The urge, however, was too great. He had to find a logical meaning to this. “Follow your instincts.” the moose told him. “Not everything is what it seems, but you have a good eye. Look around you, and you’ll see things differently. Not everyone is capable of doing so. Find the differences, and you’ll find a way home.” And then the moose flew away. Harrison walked back home, waiting to wake up, only to find that his tree house was gone. And then it hit him. Pink sky, a winged moose, the pineapple tree, the three wheeled car, the squared ball, and now the tree house. It wasn’t a dream. It was his favorite game. He had found the seven differences. Why? The flying moose counted for two since moose are not supposed to talk.

200 words

The door shut. Little Johnny ran to the window ready to jump. Mr. Monster broke down the door, certain he would be able to gobble Little Johnny up.

"Oh no, please, do not eat me for I wish to not be digested by you!" screamed Little Johnny.

"Too bad, you shall be digested by me and I will tell my friends about it afterwards." Mr. Monster replied.

Little Johnny jumped and ended up breaking both of his legs. He screamed in absolute agony. The pain was too much for our hero.

"My legs are broken and there is no possible way I can walk!" Little Johnny yelled.

"Yes, you cannot walk now. You are helpless and now I will take the opportunity to eat you!" Mr. Monster said.

Little Johnny was now dragged across town screaming in pain as Mr. Monster ignored his pleas for help. He would sometimes stop to beat him until the insufferable screaming stopped. Mr. Monster arrived with Little Johnny in his grip at an old abandoned home outside of town. It was a confusing mess of smells and ruins.

Mr. Monster turned on the stove, getting ready to cook our hero alive. What is he to do?

"How will you escape now, Johnny?" Mr. Monster asked.

Suddenly, Johnny had a BRILLIANT idea.

"This story has exceeded the 200 word limit. You lose!" Johnny replied.

228. I R Winner.