On Blogging | Author Skills | Fiction | Writing Prompts

What Exactly Is a Drabble?

A fiction form that’s ideal for Medium

Greetings, authors!

Don’t you want to be able to write a bunch of short but punchy stories… and do so much quicker than a traditional short story?

Enter: the drabble. An ultra-short but fully-told story.

For a few marvellous examples, I shared some great drabbles in the story below, including interlinked sets by some of my favorite authors:

The rules

So, what exactly is a drabble?

A drabble is a fiction form. It’s at the shorter end of flash fiction, to say the least. It is defined by its word count — each drabble should have only 100 words, no more, no less (usually, this limit includes the title).

It should nevertheless be a complete story, with a beginning, middle, and end.

Tips

Writing a drabble is a challenge. Clearly, there is only so much that can be fit into that word count. All the same, they can be satisfying to write!

A key choice is to get the scope right. You can’t have a lot of action and events, or loads of characters. It’s more of a snapshot; a microcosm.

In addition, you need to be sparing with words, and find ways to minimise the word count for every single sentence or phrase. There’s a lot of editing and rephrasing needed! Some options include:

• Rewording sentences to be briefer. For example, “The man walked away” might become “He departed.” Or, “Katie handed over the money,” turns into: “Katie paid.”
• Using ellipsis, with the end of a phrase/sentence implied. “But…”
• Cutting speech tags such as ‘he said’, and instead making it clear who is speaking by locating speech next to actions. For example: Jack handed over the gun. “Agreed.”

Perspective

I wrote ‘A drabble challenge for authors’ mainly as a bit of fun. I had seen 10-word and 50-word challenges here on Medium, so it seemed worth throwing this option into the mix!

Since then, though, I’ve really taken to writing drabbles. They are a great way of getting to the heart of a story, and I honestly feel that the editing they require is a good exercise.

The form forces you to be judicious with your word choices!

Drabbles are a really quick way to rack up chapters of my ongoing ‘Choose your own…’ fiction stories, too. Check out this example:

And writing challenges become extra challenging (and, therefore, extra fun) when we add this extremely stingy word limit. Check out three of my example responses here:

Overall, I have found writing drabbles on Medium a lot of fun. I’ve also really enjoyed reading the ones written by other Medium authors such as Jay C Wells, FJCMontenegro, Cathylouise, Amanda Laughtland, Kathy K, Jonathon Sawyer, Bradan Writes Stories and Sweet Chaos (and probably more — sorry if I forgot someone!).

Their work has shown the huge potential of this tiny format.

So, why not have a try yourself?

Psst… before you go, you can find my fiction and poetry here, as well as my articles about creativity writing and author skills right here. Or simplify things by getting my posts direct to your inbox. Do that here! 🧠 Thank you! 🌟

Check out more drabbles in their own dedicated section at The Fiction Writer’s Den here. If you like the idea, why not submit one to us?