BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Sixty word fiction

 
 
The Puck
23:53 / 27.02.04
in one of my mums magazines (take a chat, or womens bleed, or whatever)
there is a weekly competition for storys that have exactly sixty words. it thought this would be be an intresting excersise for those inclined towards the way of the word

the format is pretty much straight prose, and the writing nearly always has a conclusion, the good thing is if your published there is a £25 payment.

so post your favourites, and the really intersting and well written ones we can keep, and the plainer ones that housewifes would enjoy we send off and perhaps split the lucre with Tom for the keep of the board
 
 
Cat Chant
09:06 / 29.02.04
It's Chat. The stories usually have a twist - like, you think the woman is murdering her husband but actually it turns out in the last five words that she's chopping up lamb hearts for dinner or something.

In terms of effort-for-money ratio, I would recommend Boot Sale Tales in Take a Break, whereby you get fifty quid for sending in a photo of an item plus a story about how you got it at a boot sale, with an interesting hook: f'rex:

I was given a dinner service when i got married but my daughter broke the soup tureen. imagine my surprise when I found one at a boot sale for 50p, just in time for my ruby anniversary!

or;

My son had to have a pirate costume for school and I couldn't afford materials, so I went to a boot sale and cobbled this one together out of bits & pieces I bought for 10p

or;

I bought these trousers for 50p and when I got them home they had a fiver in the pocket!

or;

I was just handing over this attractive lamp to the stallholder when I realized she was my old schoolfriend Mary who I hadn't seen in twenty years! I went to the boot sale for lamps and returned with a long-lost friend!

Two hundred quid, please.
 
 
Cat Chant
12:39 / 14.03.04
Okay, this is the best sixty-word Chat story ever. I am completely and utterly delighted by it and wish to offer my heart to its author, Eunice Holden of Todmorden (if you lived in Yorkshire, you would know why Todmorden is funny).

The man was in a bad mood when he held up the garage. He wanted money, and under no circumstances was he going to leave until the cashier gave it to him. Customers stopped and stared as the irate man showed the toyshop assistant the cracked floor of the toy garage he'd purchased earlier.

Do you see? Held up the garage!! Oh, God, I love it so much.
 
  
Add Your Reply