Skinny Fiction

In our universe, we are inundated with media, entertainment, frivolity and hard core news.  Many of us choose to escape from the madness of everyday life by retreating into the pages, ahem, screens of a good book.  Just like there are a myriad of foods to satisfy our every craving there's a genre and style of fiction to please just about everyone.

Gary Taaffe has helped us along by creating fiction for those of us who have ADHD and like our stories short -- and I mean really short.  Gary calls it Skinny Fiction.

Can you handle a story that's 200 words long?  What about 100 words in length?  Yeah?  Good.  Then, you'll be just as pleased with a Skinny Fic story 25 words long, right?  Cool!

You'll always be able to find interesting, unique, scary, silly, fab short shorts here on this page.  Heck, if you don't like what you see here why don't you enter your own story??

Want some good short short fodder?  Ernest Hemingway is the man's man of writers the world over.  Here's his "A Very Short Story".  At 633 words, this is waay too long.  Let's see if he's got something closer to skinny.  Hmmm...what about a six-word story?



It's been told and re-told that upon a bet Hemingway said he could write a story under 10 words in length.  He did, of course.  Maybe the bet came about at a gathering similar to this one...

Ernest Hemingway and his cat

The title:  
Classified: Baby Goods

The story:  
For sale, baby shoes, never worn.






I remember a Writer's Digest short short story contest a number of years ago.  The idea was the story had to be 100 words, or less.  So, that particular month's winning story entry?

What was that sound?

Get ready to experience short short heaven.  Come back often and invite your friends to take a minute or two (literally!) and read some contemporary modern fiction...quickly.  You'll get a charge that will brighten your day.

As they say on Star Trek -- Energize!

Skinny Fiction 10:

The Final Blow
Ending their feud, Howard buried the hatchet beside his wife.

by Jacqui Winn

Skinny Fiction 50:

Broken Doll

I broke granny’s doll. The porcelain cracked and her eye fell out.

I keep dreaming of her, stabbing my eye with shards.

Then I wake up and she is there, every night a little closer.

Last night she was on my pillow.

I don’t want to sleep tonight.

by Oscar de Muriel

NEW!!
The Maiden's Lament 
I sing into the ether, it whispers back. I scream into the whirlwind, it gives forth a name. The whole of creation is my playmate; our games are strange and wise as dreams. Nightly, I shape realities in the very palm of my hand... Why, then, am I so afraid?
by Rory Rashad

Skinny Fiction 100:

Retreat
Kelly loved Billalong Retreat, miles from anywhere, right beside Billalong River.  It was raining hard and windy.  Kelly settled with a book and Patch her terrier to wait out the storm.  Surprise came with an unexpected knock at the door.  Opening it showed no one there.  Shrugging her shoulders Kelly resettled with her book.  Another, louder knock: still no one.  Puzzled Kelly turned again to her book.  A third incessant knock took her angrily onto the veranda: This time to see the looming river water.  Grab the dog; climb the tree, thankful feelings, someone up there loves me.
by Joan Harley

Don't forget to stop by the Skinny Fiction page to submit your own story! Need a few tips on how to write a great short story?  Take Kurt Vonnegut's advice...