Fiction: The 55-Word Story Challenge

Something fun that you should give a try.

A while ago when my husband was teaching English, he gave his students a class assignment to write a short story, a very short story, of exactly 55 words.

I thought it sounded like fun so I did five of them myself. It’s an interesting challenge making it exactly 55 words. You have to choose every word carefully and frugally.

I tend to gyrate toward horror, science fiction, and weirdness in my writing, and that comes across in these. Here for your reading pleasure I present — 55 word fictions.

It was Christmas again and the kids reluctantly checked their stockings. Bells jingled merrily outside. They dove back under the covers, trembling. Santa was bringing them a new friend. Screaming, banging, cursing, nothing could make them peek. It was naughty to see Santa and they all knew what he did to bad boys and girls.

While antique shopping, Ralph found an interesting little timepiece shaped like an eyeball. Before he could ask the price, the proprietor took it, slipped off his eyepatch, and popped it into the empty socket. “Thank you for finding that for me,” he said with a wink. “Though it makes me a little clock-eyed I suppose.”

Martin dreaded the party. There would be food to give him heartburn and conversation to make him drowsy. Stella opened the door wearing only high heels. Naked people filled the room behind her. “Martin! Just in time for the orgy!” He walked in gaping, thinking he should have taken a closer look at that invitation.

Aliens poured out of the saucer in the town square. Weapons humming, they were going to exterminate the worthless humans and take this Earth for themselves. Sheriff Nelson was the first to encounter them. He heard something crunch when the ship and the entire invading army were flattened under the front tire of his car.

Sara felt goosebumps on her arms as she walked down the church aisle. Someone was having a midweek practice on the organ. “Excuse me,” she asked the priest, “who is playing that hauntingly gorgeous music?” He looked around and cleared his throat, “Hauntingly is right. That stupid ghost hasn’t stopped banging the keyboard since April.”

Give it a try for yourself for fun. Post as a medium story, or share them in the responses to this one. Anything goes as far as the genre or topic.

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