A Question for the Contest Entrants.

I wrote specifically with the limit in mind. With the type of stories I like to do it was crucial to find a concept that would fit in the space allotted. Rarely do I write in first person, but that choice allowed me to achieve the desired result. Had the story been 3rd person, it probably would have taken more words to achieve the same feeling.

With 'Sp. for Beginners' I just wrote till I'd got to about 450, then realised I'd have to change my plan for the way it went from there (which was only vague anyway), so it ended much sooner than intended but evolved somehow, plot-wise, to fit the limit. The other one needed pruning down from about 650, I think, which as Linda says is an interesting exercise: at school they made us do endless 'precis' - boring but good for your brain (despite all appearances to the contrary!).

I would venture to suggest (he said long-windedly) that we could all probably improve any piece by going back and pruning, say, 10% of the words - it helps cut out extraneous moments or details, the key question being, I suppose, 'Does this add anything?' Well ... for those of us who like to waffle anyway, on which subject, have you heard about ... ... *drones off to look for Tolstoy and Gibbon*

I new what I wanted to say, and how I wanted it. I wrote it down and low and behold, it was less than 400 words. Job done.

I wrote it in my mind, with the limit in mind. Then put it down on paper (err, on-screen) with the limit still in mind. The first draft was somewhat over--maybe 50-75 words --and I rewrote it from there to cut it back. I did like the discipline (pun intended) of having to write so economically.

When thought of it I knew I needed a situation where most of the story was self explanatory - so I started with a woman rubbing her bum as she stood in the corner. Normally I would focus on how she got there, but with only 500 words I focused on what she was thinking as she stood there.

Goodgulf

I took the opposite tack - a story where virtually nothing was explained, leaving the reader to figure it out. If I didn't have enough words to explain much, the premise of the story would be the reader's discovery.

My problem for 40 years in academia was writing to briefly, others would write 50 page articles and I would write 3 page blurbs, I really never got the hang of writing longer pieces. The result: the shortest entry in the contest.

I also have a background in academic writing, leaving me a bunch of bad habits to unlearn before I could write a spanking story short enough to be read in one sitting. The lowest I have been able to manage so far is a couple 1000-word stories. Very keen to figure out how to write a truly short story, I read every entry in this contest comparing the different techniques.

Given that none of my top picks were among the winners, I suppose I still have a lot to learn.

On another subject:
Perhaps it just me, but I am a little hung up on the difference between a story and a scene.

A spanking scene can be a very enjoyable thing to read; but a scene isn't a story. To me the challenge was to cram a complete story into those 500 words. It's the folks who wrote a real story that earned the highest scores from me.

Guy

I wrote to a guesstimate of 500words, found it was about 560, and then ruthlessly removed all extraneous and unecessary verbiage. I like to be descriptive and go off on tangents so it wasn't easy.

I smiled when read ,The English Master's, comments about school: one of our masters when he wanted to mark work used to make us" write notes, then short notes, then shorter notes, until you get down to a few words or one line."
He too said it was good for the intellect and would stand us in good stead for the rest of our lives.

Just to think that if he hadn't made it so hideously boring I might have done history, and I think may have been happier!

Guy, I am in complete agreement on the scene/story dichotomy. By my definition, a scene is a description of a spanking incident---there is no point other than the incident itself. A story, on the other hand, has a point other than the spanking incident which may appear in it. It is harder to write a story in 500 words that also has an incident in it, but I find it easier to cut writers some slack when 500 words is all you've got.