How to Write a Drabble

A Drabble is a micro story of exactly 100 words

As a format, it's becoming popular here on Vocal and I see more creators using it. So many, in fact, that I believe it now deserves a special tag, similar to "microfiction," to signal the readers that they are about to experience a delightfully short adventure with a well-crafted story.

I have churned out a fair number of Drabbles (I believe over 20 now) here on Vocal and a couple earned me a Top Story badge. Good Drabbles are universally liked for their engaging style and a moral lesson in a punchline. From my experience, jokes and good anecdotes make excellent Drabbles because they have exactly that - a memorable punchline.

And that's how I write my Drabbles: I start out with the punchline.

Then, I work it backwards, from the end toward the body, or "meat" of the story, and up to the beginning. Or sometimes from the end (punchline) to the beginning and then filling up the body, putting the meat on the skeleton of the story.

Why Did I Get into Drabbles?

I'd written some Drabbles before, inspired by NYC Midnight and Vocal micro challenges for book reviews. I really liked the format, for its brevity in writing and fun in reading.

At the end of last year, I got my teeth into dark Russian humor Drabbles. It was in a way a coping mechanism for me, with everything going on in the world and with the corrosive Russian influence spreading around the globe. Making these types of jokes accessible to the English-language readers to get a glimpse into the Russian mentality and national psyche was important to me.

In the process of researching and translating them, I discovered that there are two ways of writing up existing jokes into a Drabble:

1. Build a short joke up

Many of these jokes are incredibly succinct and short, so I had to add the details and observations to meet the 100-word count. Here's an example of one Drabble, where the original joke was only four lines (42 words):

At a high-end restaurant, a waiter comes up to Putin and Lavrov and asks, "Mr. President, what would you like you to eat?"

"I want your famous steak, rare."

"Excellent choice, sir. And for your vegetable?"

"He'll have steak, too, but well-done."

I had to add some details about the way the steak is done and the dynamic between Putin and his (un)civil servant Lavrov, which I think added to the story and turned from a short joke into a biting satirical Drabble. This was the result:

Here's another three-sentence gruesome joke from my Soviet childhood developed into a Drabble by adding details to create the vibe:

In an apartment building, a woman comes down the stairs and sees an old woman coming up, dragging a little girl by her foot, with the girl's head banging the stairs.

Horrified, the younger woman says, "What are you doing, babushka? She'll lose her hat!"

"Nope, I've nailed it!"

I tested that joke out on my American students first, and they laughed just like I'd laughed at it when I was a kid. So it worked well.

And for a third example, I'll give you this little exchange of 54 words:

A man answers the doorbell in his high-rise building apartment and sees his distressed neighbor.

"I locked myself out!" she says. "But I always keep my balcony unlocked..."

"Ah, OK, then go and climb over my balcony to yours."

"I can't, I'm claustrophobic!"

"What?? Where exactly will you be claustrophobic on the balcony?"

"In the coffin!"

By adding more details and definition of claustrophobia to the story, I believe I made the joke work better in English as well.

Building a joke up is the easiest way of writing Drabbles for me because I can quickly get my imagination going in the direction of adding to it. It's always easy for me to put details and fat on the story's meat. The second way is much harder.

2. Trim the long joke down

Some jokes run long and you will have to not only cut the unnecessary details, but also trim some essentials without losing the essence and still building up to the punchline. That is a lot more challenging.

As an example, I'll give you a classical one-page anecdote that involves multiple people (friends and family) coming in with the advice and peer pressure, so I had to considerably trim it down:

Note: In all of the above examples, I never put the punchline into the Drabble title. You don't want to give out the joke right away, especially because many people on Vocal do pay attention to the title. Instead, I used the lead to the punchline as a title.

Another example of fat-trimming is a long text exchange. I had to cut out a lot of stuff there because it was a real running conversation with multiple twists and puns. Some of them wouldn't translate from Russian into English well any way, even though they were quite funny in Russian.

And for the third example, the original was a really dark stoner story that ran for a full page. The challenge there was to cut it but still keep the intensity, building it up to the next level of absurdity with every step.

As a bonus, this Russian dark humor story gave me a lot of challenge to trim it down from the original, just because it was a wordy father-son exchange and I had to edit it to the bones. But it was worth it as it earned me a Top Story:

Overall, I find existing jokes to be the best source material for Drabbles. As long as you can make them your own by adding a twist or original details, they work out great.

Where Else Do I Find Inspiration for Drabbles?

You can find source material for Drabbles practically everywhere. If there's something that you'd like to share with the world but it's not long enough to write a full story of 600 words, consider penning a Drabble. Here are some of the stories I'm proud of and where they came from:

Pictures and photos. Sometimes I get a story brewing in my mind only because I came across an interesting historical photo and tried to imagine the conversation the people in the photo would have:

Or another photo, posted by an anonymous source on Facebook right after I wrote my Adam and Eve stories:

Traditional art. This Drabble came out from the observation on a famous painting at a museum.

Historical facts. Sometimes, I come across historical tidbits that are curious but not enough for a full-blown story. Here's a Drabble about the first telephones in St.Petersburgh, Russia.

Literature. This Drabble was inspired by Erich Maria Remarque's name and his famous work.

Sibling relationships. This was a joke based on true conversation of two sisters.

Real events and experiences. This was a way to work through my annoyance about something that really happened to me.

As was this Drabble, that came out of a real conversation with my aunt in Germany about atheists, cultists and godly people. I'm particularly proud of it because it also earned a TS badge.

I have some other Drabbles I haven't mentioned here, but this story is already too long. If you got to this point, I sincerely thank you.

I also just realized that this will be my 400th story published on Vocal. What a nice way to mark my presence on this platform, by sharing my experience and writing something I hope will be useful for other writers.