Small Stories

Introduction

A while back Vocal dropped its limits on certain communities for certain challenges. While part of me was against this being permanent, I have come around to the thought that this could be beneficial at times for creators, including myself.

When I started on Vocal normal stores and articles required six hundred words to ensure a good experience for the reader. Poetry was only a hundred words because poems can be short. I used to get round this by adding an introduction to my poetry to ensure that the hundred word minimum was met.

I will just list some of the challenges that brought these changes in, and the pros and cons that I saw in what happened.

The first one was for a haiku inspired by a mountain. A haiku consists of seventeen syllables and I have managed to write a two-word "haiku" (actually it was Senryū like almost every Vocal "haiku" entry due to the fact they did not properly specify what haiku is) but this meant that that the poetry lower limit was gone.

One of my problems with this was the sheer number of stories posted by individuals, it really affected me mentally. I can deal with a few stories but when it hits seventy or eighty on the same subject by the same person I find it impossible to deal with.

I am not criticising the creators here but I found it difficult. The good thing is that it was quick and easy to write and publish a tiny story and if you were in the throes of writers' block this would be an great entry to get you going. Since the challenges are closed I see very little "haiku" or Senryū.

There were a few "haiku" challenges, and all created entries but I am not sure how many were read. My stories are almost always on disparate subjects but I have thirty-three with less than three reads, and I feel if I entered a lot of short-form stories I would have a lot with zero reads.

The thing with limericks is that they are usually humorous (I'm thinking of Edward Lear here), though I and a few people attempted serious limericks.

This was another short-form challenge that allowed people to create stories without a big word target.

These sorts of challenges can be really helpful to people because many will look and think "I can do that".

I have ditched the "Great [American ] Novel" challenge and a few attempts at "Tales Retold" have ended up in the digital bin.

We then had the "Microfiction Magic" challenge. This was prose but had to be fifty to a hundred words. Actually limiting yourself is a great exercise because you must focus on what your subject is and you cannot stray from that otherwise you break the rules of this particular microfiction.

The other thing is you don't have to find six hundred words, so there is less chance of things falling by the wayside when you are sticking to a hundred words.

The "Micro-Heist" Challenge required exactly two hundred words, no more, no less, so was an exercise in discipline, but again that would not be too difficult for any writer even if they were in an inspirational ditch.

The current "Critique" Challenge requires a review of something in just fifty words. Again this is an exercise in discipline but would be good if you had writers' block because to will be writing your thoughts on something that already exists.

Conclusion

I hope this has given you a few ideas, especially if you are afflicted with writer's block. I find Vocal Challenges wonderful as prompts to write stories, whether the challenges are open or closed.

Thank you for your time