Short 100 word stories

Illustration by Anirban Ghosh

TOWARDS FREEDOM (1st Prize)

«Jana gana mana …» The schoolboy squirmed. Another two minutes? He knew he should stand at attention. The drillmaster’s cane loomed large.»Vindhya Himachal …»He grunted in discomfort. This was unbearable. He considered making a dash; after all he was in the last row. What if the master noticed? The cane loomed again. He gritted his teeth.»Tava shubha …»This is it. He cast his eyes around.»Jaya he …»He started running.»Jaya he …»He was almost there.»Jaya he …»The chorus floated from afar. He was already in the toilet, heaving a relieved sigh.

—Subramaniam Mohan, Chennai

THE WINDOW (2nd Prize)

On a windy winter morning, a woman looked out of the window.The only thing she saw, a garden. A smile spread across her face as she spotted Maria, her daughter, in the middle of the garden enjoying the weather. It started drizzling. Maria started dancing joyfully.She tried to wave to her daughter, but her elbow was stuck, her arm hurt, her smile turned upside down. Reality came crashing down as the drizzle turned into a storm. Maria’s murdered corpse consumed her mind.On a windy winter morning, a woman looked out of the window of her jail cell.

—Saanchi Wadhwa, New Delhi

IDENTITY CRISIS (3rd Prize)

The country was on fire. Communal riots had paralyzed most of the state. Reyaz, with the help of a friend, got a fake identity card—his new name was Rakesh—and booked a ticket to Aligarh. The ticket checker on the train asked for his identification—Reyaz nervously showed the one he had recently procured. He seemed satisfied and Reyaz heaved a sigh of relief.At Aligarh there was none to fear. «Assalamu alaikum,» said Reyaz to ward off a group of enraged people. The angriest of them, with bloodshot eyes, approached Reyaz and asked for his identity card.

—Junaid H. Nahvi, New Delhi

LEERING LOTHARIO (4th Prize)

She peered over the open magazine, and there he was, still staring at her, disconcertingly. For the past 30 minutes, she’d endured his irritating attention. Time to call airport security. The burly cop strode in purposefully, with a sleek Alsatian on leash. «Sir, there’s been a complaint. I need you to come with me. Quietly, please,» he growled. The leather-jacketed man didn’t move a muscle. His hands were rock-steady on the trolley handle in front of him. The cop waited for a minute, and then reached out to handcuff the Ray-Ban-wearing guy. The hands were locked in rigor mortis.

—Ed Sudhir, Bengaluru

LOVE ACTUALLY

«Do you believe in shooting stars?» she asked.»Do you?»»There is no harm, is there?» She paused. «I’d love to sit in the balcony amidst all the flowerpots and watch the busy world go by.»He said nothing. She needed no assurance, no promise. She squawked a reply when they asked if she was ready to go back to her room. It would be another 10 minutes before the duty nurse wheeled him away.She had laughed at the last tooth he had lost. He had teased her about the silver hair at the back of her sweater.

—Maya Davi Chalissery, Thrissur, Kerala

A BROKEN PROMISE

Hearing a knock on the door,  she hustled towards it with her  little feet, her lips uncloaking the cutest smile and her voice singing, «Daddy’s home!» Her mum, glued to the news channels for the past week, approached the door hesitantly and opened it with trepidation.Two men in military uniform were standing at the doorstep. One of them handed her an envelope with a mournful expression, adding plaintively, «We’re sorry, Mrs Bhatt.»»Where’s my dad, Uncle? He promised we’ll celebrate Diwali together this time,» exclaimed the girl. They stared helplessly, with a lump in their throats and moistened eyes.

—Aditi Sharma, New Delhi

MEETING THE ONE

They met at a cafe, stealing glances at each other while the parents  spoke animatedly.They remained silent throughout, only exchanging shy smiles while ordering snacks at the counter.Returning with the food, he moved to the head of the table to get a good look at her.Noticing his manoeuvre, she smiled down at her coffee, making him beam like a proud schoolboy.When the two families parted at the end of the meeting, he rushed back to the cafe, praying that the girl, who had been at the table behind theirs all afternoon, would still be there.

—Preyanka Paswan, New Delhi

HUMANKIND

It was pouring, as I entered a  nearby porch.Out of the blue, a kid startled me from behind—I panicked and scampered away. His father asked him not to scare anyone.After some initial hiccups we became good friends. I often visited their house, ate with them.One day, while I was slurping down the milk, a man entered their portico, begging for food.The father yelled at him and pushed him out of the entrance.I was terrified, and in a jiffy, I ran away screaming, «Meow! Meow …»

—Aswin R. S., Chennai

RED SAND

Border guard Melissa Walter fumed, «Madam President’s lost it.» A new batch was arriving. The count had crossed 10,000. «As if the country doesn’t have enough mouths to feed.»Officer Gerald was off-duty, so here she was, about to ‘welcome’ refugees. The boat arrived. She pasted on her best professional smile.So many people, all skinny and gaunt. Teary, scared eyes, with a weak gait. Clinging to the elders, the children walked on.»Look!» a boy exclaimed, dropping down. «The sand is so soft here. It’s not red. Can I touch, Mama?» he pleaded.Melissa stood still, stunned into silence.

—Geetha M., Kanchipuram

WHAT, SERIOUSLY?

Varun called his friend over to his house. When he arrived, he told him he had to speak to him about a problem. They both went up to Varun’s room.»What is it?» asked the friend. «I think I am having an identity crisis,» said Varun.»What do you mean?» asked his friend.»MOOOOOO!» he bellowed like a cow.His friend stood frozen, in stunned silence. Varun burst out laughing, «I was just kidding!»»Are you sure? Because we just ran out of milk,» came the reply.

—Aditi Ashok, Chennai

THE GOODBYE

Out jogging, I saw two elderly women hugging each other and weeping inconsolably. The women had been good friends, living in adjacent apartments on the ground floor, for years.One of them was now having to shift to the fifth floor, as the house owner wished to undertake major maintenance work.Since there were no lifts in the building, she would be carried upstairs, unable to come down—ever again. Her friend, just as frail, would not be able to visit her upstairs either. Accepting the inevitability of their permanent separation, the poor dears said their final goodbyes.

—Deepak Nair, Thiruvananthapuram

ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE

As a married couple, they led a charmed life. Jantu had his own circle of friends and Tulu had hers. And every morning they exchanged and savoured their previous day’s experiences over breakfast. Jantu was not immune to the seven-year-itch, though. The days he strayed were few and far between. Faithful Tulu was quietly accommodating. On the nights he slipped, Jantu would indicate it by skipping his daily apple at breakfast.That morning, Jantu was devastated to see Tulu’s favourite pear was left untouched.

—K. L. Narayanan, Bengaluru

THE UGLY TRUTH

«Hello,» said the figure cloaked in darkness.»Who are you?» I asked.»I am that which you fear the most,» it said to me and stepped into the light.What I saw next sent me into a paroxysm of fear. There stood a creature most hideous: twisted body, gnarled fingers, with a semblance of what might have once been a face. Chillingly revealing a gaping hole where its heart should have been, spilling oily blackness.Overcome with revulsion and trembling in horror, I fell to my knees.»I am you,» said the creature.

—Vaishnavi R. Krishna, Thiruvananthapuram

MUMMIFIED

During our visit to Egypt’s Alexandria National Museum, I took my five-year-old son to the basement to see a mummy and started explaining what it was. Confused, he bolted from the room and rushed to his mother, who was busy chatting with other tourists.He told my wife breathlessly, «Mum! Dad just showed me another mummy. He is looking at her.»Surprised, my wife followed him to the basement. She sized up the situation instantly and retorted, «Oh! Mummy is a daddy.»Confused, sonny asked innocently, «If mummy is the daddy, then who is the mummy’s mummy?»

—Dhananjay Sinha, Kolkata

STREET SMART

It was 9 a.m., 26 January. The politician’s car, on the way to the flag-hoisting ceremony, stopped at a red light. A 10-year-old street vendor came running to the car and waved the tricolour, hoping that selling one more flag will help him buy some vada pav. With no intention of buying, the politician rolled down the window and smirked, «Today you are selling the national flag. On other days, I have seen you sell toys, umbrellas and kites. Is there anything you have not sold so far?»»Our country,» the boy retorted at once.

—Kalpesh Sheth, Mumbai

All entries have been edited for clarity. They were graded on grammar, language, originality, plot device and storytelling technique by RD editors, basis which the winning entries were selected. Winners will receive book prizes, courtesy HarperCollins Publishers India.

Want to try your hand at writing a 100-word story but don’t know where to begin? Here’s a quick guide to get you started 

Legend has it Hemmingway won a bet with his six-word short story: “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.” His challenge was to move his audience with a few brief words. The ones he came up with show that being a man (or woman) of few words doesn’t stop you from saying a great deal with them.

The skill is in choosing the right words and allowing them to suggest far more than they say. The human brain is a miraculous thing, with endless capacity for filling in the gaps. The challenge of writing a piece of flash fiction is to say enough to convey a story which resonates, while allowing the reader to infer further layers of meaning.

It also requires you to trust yourself as a writer and to resist the temptation to over-explain.

In flash fiction writers aim to tell an entire story in a few short paragraphs. The story should have a beginning, middle and end and often finishes with a surprise or twist, which prompts the reader to reflect further.

“Baby Shoes” illustrates how it is possible to do this with the utmost brevity. Traditional jokes follow a similar format: a man walks into a bar, he says or does a few things and then there is a punch line.

«The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words where one will do»

To boil a whole story down to a few sentences is hard, especially if you are used to writing longer stories or even full-length novels. But flash fiction is a brilliant exercise in restraint. Trying your hand at it can help even longer pieces of work become sparser and elegiac.

Thomas Jefferson famously said “the most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words where one will do.”

Writing flash fiction is a process of choosing the right words and making the ones you have chosen sing for their supper.

The following tips will help you consider how to make your 100 words speak volumes.

Think of a title

When you’ve got a limited word count, a good title can start to tell the story. “Something nasty in the woodshed” or “Skating on Thin Ice” alert the reader to a reveal or a disaster before you’ve even begun writing.

Make an immediate start

Your beginning should take the reader straight to the heart of the story, introduce the main characters, establish the setting and raise a question that will be answered by the end.

Keep it simple

Although you want to write a complete story, you do not have time for back-story or sub plots. Focus on a single scene in a particular moment of time.

Stick with a slim cast of characters

Ideally just one or two. If necessary, others can be mentioned or alluded to. Writing in the first person and the present tense also helps with economy of words.

Say it succinctly

Speech allows characters to encapsulate storylines and infer meaning you may not have time for with exposition. Do away with speech attributions too, if it’s clear who is speaking.

Make your words work

Think about how you can set the scene and convey emotion using single evocative words.

Shorten your sentences

Be creative with form. Use lists. Play with punctuation. You don’t need perfectly formed sentences. Sometimes a single word will suffice.

Take the reader on a journey

No matter how short, all stories need a sense of progression. Something must change by the end of it. The characters must have moved on from where they were at the beginning.

Introduce the unexpected

Surprise the reader. Show them something new. Give them something to take away from your story.

Edit

Once your story is written, see what you can take out without changing the sense of it. Strip out superfluous words so that what you are left with is the brilliant, evocative essence of your story.

Now you’re ready to write a 100-word story of your own! Make sure you enter our competition by submitting your story by May 1, 2022 here. 

DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES NOW EXTENDED FOR CHILDREN’S CATEGORIES—ENTER BY MAY 20, 2022

***NOW CLOSED FOR ADULT ENTRIES*** 

Lizzie Enfield is the author of five novels and one non-fiction title who also works as a creative writing tutor and mentor elizabethenfield.com

Read more: Previous 100-word story competition winners 

Read more: How to unleash your creativity

Keep up with the top stories from Reader’s Digest by subscribing to our weekly newsletter.

• 
• 
• 

© 2023 Prezi Inc.
Terms & Privacy Policy

Sometimes writing a tiny story can feel harder than writing a novel.

Let’s discuss some tips for crafting “microfiction,” then write some 100-word stories together!

During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we go over how to write 100-word stories.

Watch what we did here, or scroll down for highlights.

How to Write a 100-Word Story

• Writing a super short story (a.k.a. “micro fiction” or “flash fiction”) can be surprisingly difficult
• It may take longer to write a novel than a 100-word story, but it still takes a lot of work to produce something good, and the guidelines are very different
• So let’s go over 3 tips on how to write 100-word stories, then write some together!

#1. Before you start: pick the kind of short story you want to tell

• For novels, the vast majority follow the same structure: introduce a character, have something bad happen to them, they overcome the conflict, and happy ending
• But for super short stories, there is a LOT more variety: since the reader is spending such a short time reading it, you can get away with stranger ideas
• Here’s a sampling of some 100-word story “genres” and examples for each:
  • A snapshot (heavy on description/atmosphere)
    • http://www.100wordstory.org/aunt/ 
  • An anecdote (to make the reader think)
    • http://www.100wordstory.org/improbabilities/ 
  • An emotional piece (sad, happy, funny, surprise)
    • http://www.100wordstory.org/maze-runner/ 

#2. As you write: start your story in the middle

• For novels, you usually want to start at the beginning, introduce a character, their normal life, blah blah blah
• But for super short stories, you don’t have the luxury of that since you only have 100 words: you need to jump right into the most important part
• Here’s an example of a story that jumps right in, not even telling us what the woman is diagnosed with: http://www.100wordstory.org/drive/ 

#3. When you’re done: edit even more harshly than usual

• For novels, you have tens of thousands of words, so it’s not a big deal if a few dozen or hundred aren’t absolutely necessary
• But for super short stories, you have to make EVERY word count, cutting everything that isn’t 100% necessary
• Some easy cuts are phrases like “there are/were,” weasel words like “very, almost, just, many,” not to mention unnecessary explanations/exposition
• Here’s an example of a story that leaves a lot out, but is still perfectly understandable to the reader: http://www.100wordstory.org/after-a-heartless-winter/

After that, chat voted on some images to inspire our own 100-word stories. We wrote a snapshot, anecdote, and emotional story for each.

Here’s what we wrote:

Image #1

A snapshot (heavy on description/atmosphere)

Looking at my younger self, I feel old and crusty. My skin was smooth and bright, dewey drops of the sun itself, eclipsed only by my long, dark hair. Every picture I see myself in, I’m sleeping, tired, yawning — naps were my concerts, and my best dates were with my pillow. I was told that I was sleeping my youth away, that I’d regret it when I got older. But now, looking at that girl I used to be, I’m not jealous of her skin or hair. 

I used to sleep to dream, but now I just dream of dreaming.

An anecdote (to make the reader think)

When the mask first arrived, I refused to wear it. I didn’t want to see its gray, scarred skin covering my own, but my parents said I’d be ready one day. None of my friends wore theirs, preferring to get eye-swirls instead, so I decided the mask would stay hidden in the bathroom closet forever. 

Forever turned out to be two weeks. One morning, it felt right to put the mask on. It fit perfectly, so much that it blended and melted right into my face. I didn’t even look any different, aside from the swirls it gave to my eyes.

An emotional piece (sad, happy, funny, surprise) 

The whispers distract me as I sit at my desk. A face slowly hovering behind me, its gaseous form hissing into smoke and spiderwebs. It’s impossible to concentrate as its thin tendrils brush against my hair, poking against the back of my neck with its sharpened tips. I can’t do anything when it moves quickly, only endure, but when it stops for just a moment too long behind my ear. 

SMACK! 

I bring back my hand and look at the quivering fly, now paste in my palm, and scrape it into the trash. Finally, I can finish my math homework.

Combining Images 2 & 3

A snapshot (heavy on description/atmosphere)

The pillar of cloud grew thicker and stronger, its girth expanding to an intimidating size. The opening up above didn’t know if it could handle the monster it had expanded into, but the moisture of the rain made its penetration smooth and seamless.

Faster and faster the two clouds tumbled over each other, becoming one with the earth and sky. Their passionate yells thundered, sparks flying between them. 

Until finally, the eruption. Millions of small, white balls poured down, crashing against the ground. 

After the climax came stillness. The whirlwind of emotions faded — until the storm would brew again.

An anecdote (to make the reader think) 

This is an emergency weather broadcast. We have just received word that totally-hot-and-young couple Stacy and Trent opened their tent after two hours of fervent love-making in the woods, releasing the heat of their passion into the air. The sudden warmth mixed with the stationary cold front, creating a supertornado now ravaging the northwest. Based on both meteorological data and Stacy’s first-hand reports, while the supertornado is the largest ever recorded, it’s still only about half the size of Trent’s “lightning rod.” Early interviews with those who lost their homes have resulted mostly in smiles and high-fives for the couple. 

An emotional piece (sad, happy, funny, surprise) 

Stacy snuck into Trent’s tent when everyone else was asleep. With only the light of their phones, they smiled at each other. Finally, they were alone together. They could do what their hearts, and other parts, had been begging them to do all day.

They held each other’s hand! Finally, the aching of their fingertips was quenched with the cool feel of the other’s skin. They leaned in close, to clasp the other hand too.

A loud zip stopped their lewd activity. Bible camp counselor Mr. Yortle stood there, opening their tent, the wrath of a tornado on his face.

Be sure to check out the video for a dramatic reading of the stories!

If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.

And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.

Hope to see you next time, friend!

Featured image: Pakutaso