Drabbles

A Story told in Two Words

If you have been a regular of this blog, you would know exactly what a drabble is. Wikipedia defines a drabble as "an extremely short work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length", and goes on to specify that "the purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in an extremely confined space."

The term apparently comes from Monty Python's 1971 Big Red Book, where "Drabble" was a word game where the first participant to write a novel wins. In order to make the game possible in the real world, it was agreed that 100 words would suffice to tell a story.

Purists have questioned it. According to them, a story can be called a story only if it has detailed plots, meaningful character development, and an easily identifiable beginning, middle and end. I am no expert on what constitutes or doesn't constitute a story, but take a look at this one-

High school sweethearts, we drifted apart. Corporate lawyers need trophy wives, not gynecologist-wives on call twenty-four hours. Neither noticed when we stopped exchanging X-mas cards. Keeping in touch was tough before e-mail.

You found me on Facebook. I accepted your friend request. We had grown as people, but the old spark was still alive. You wrangled a trip to the Continent, I drove down to Paris. We were lovers again, though never to be re-united.

Your wife is Catholic, she will not let you go. My husband has Alzheimer's, I cannot leave him. Only in Paris can we be Us.

Plot? I can think of dozens of published books where the plot is not very much more complicated than this.

Character sketch

Characters? The drabble may not go into the nuances of the personality of the characters, but there is enough in the sketch for us to fill in the details.

Beginning, Middle and End? Maybe not. The middle ages have merely been indicated, but is that central to the story? Had, for instance, Eric Segal had written the story, over half the book would have been devoted to the lives that the main characters led when they were separated from each other. A literary writer may have written it from the standpoint of the lady dealing with her husband's Alzheimer's. Chick lit would have contrived a happy ending somehow. But, no matter how you choose to deal with the topic, the story told in 100 words, does tell a story.

Or take a look at this one-

I found out all about her. She had grown up in this village. Left in disgrace after being impregnated by an infidel. She returned with her gypsy lover– she flaunted him.

She was everything I hated. I denounced her from the pulpit. Predicted eternal hell for her offspring.

She said love was not a sin, hate was. She remained unrepentant; she continued to attend my church.

She asked for me before she died.

"Father", she confessed. "You are my first-born child."

She died. I have to go on living. How?

People who live in glass houses... should not throw stones.

I had just finished reading Joanne Harris' Chocolat when I wrote this, and everytime I read the drabble, I am taken back to the other book. The details are merely indicated, but any reader can fill them in. It can easily be expanded into an entire novel, without needing to add anything.

A hundred words can never convey as much as a 75,000 word novel, not is it expected to. One is an oil painting, the other is a pencil sketch- the two cannot be compared.

Write EVERYDAY

Why go into all this? Because I do think that writing a drabble is one of the best writing exercises there can be. Any writer will tell you that the key to writing is to write everyday. But there are days when real life catches up with you to such an extent, you just cannot find the time to write. Drabbles are ideal for those days.

You can think about the drabble while your hands are otherwise employed. You can play it out in your mind, to determine what is absolutely essential and what can be taken out. The physical act of writing down the drabble need not take more than 15 minutes. Add another 15 minutes to edit, add, chop, and change to make it 100 words, and you have a drabble. While a self-imposed discipline of 1,000 words a day may take you closer to having the first draft of your manuscript in three months, writing a drabble a day gives you as much writing practice as writing ten times as many words.

Try it. It can be addictive.


And to get you started, do check out some of the drabbles on our home website- the Burrow