Micro-fiction

Rules, expository details, and starters

Basics

Micro-fiction - n. extremely short stories that contain all elements of a larger work

Components:• Plot• Characters• Setting• Conflict• No longer than 55 words

What makes a word…

• If it is in the dictionary• A hyphenated word does not count as a single word unless the parts cannot stand without the hyphen (i.e. re-entry = 1 word coffee-stained = 2 words)

• Word contractions are one word• Initials count as words since they stand for other things but standardized abbreviations (NASA etc.) count as only one word

• The title does not go toward word count but it must be limited to seven words

• While this is not a poem the layout of your words can help

Early Beginnings

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

- Ernest HemmingwayOthers:

Commas, see, add, like, nada, okay?- Gregory Maguire

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time

- Alan Moore

An example

Nervous

I didn’t really want to, but if I didn’t I would feel dumb. Suddenly I was mouth to mouth with this guy I’d had my eye on for the past year. I wasn’t really sure what to do so I just breathed really deep. I guess I did it right because I saved his life.

Amy McCarthy 7th grade Conestoga Middle School

Another example

SinPreacher John leers at me, proffering

the writhing reptile. “It’s god’s test boy” he murmurs, shaking the snake. Reluctantly I hold out my hands. My eyes lock on Pastor John’s as the fangs sink into my forearm.

“God knows your sins!” he screeches, and the congregation panics. I smile grimly. His daughter was worth it.

Zoe Carpenter, 11th grade Catlin Gabel School

Expository Details

“The glove compartment isn’t accurately named, and everybody knows it. So I’m proposing a swift orderly change.”

Based on the lines above, what do you think this selection will be about?

The Lyrics

The glove compartment isn't accurately named and everybody knows it.

So I'm proposing a swift orderly change.

’Cause behind its door there's nothing to keep my fingers warm.

And all I find are souvenirs from better times, before the gleam of your taillights fading east to find yourself a better life.

The Lyrics

I was searching for some legal document as the rain beat down on the hood, when I stumbled upon pictures I tried to forget.

And that's how this idea was drilled into my head.

‘Cause it's too important to stay the way it's been.

There's no blame for how our love did slowly fade, and now that it's gone, it's like it wasn't there at all.

And here I rest where disappointment and regret collide, lying awake at night.

The Lyrics

There's no blame for how our love did slowly fade.

And now that it's gone, it's like it wasn't there at all.

And here I rest where disappointment and regret collide, lying awake at night (up all night) when I'm lying awake at night.

So…

Is this really a song about glove compartments?

Why is the narrator talking about a glove compartment?

What is the problem that the narrator is trying to deal with?

Expository details should show or tell the reader what is going on?

For consideration

View some of the following images and think about whether or not they relate to themes in the Telemachia.

If a topic idea comes to mind you should…