Category Archives: News

News about the site.

NEWS: Submissions Page Clarified

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There has been a little bit of confusion over the copyright system as explained on the Submissions page. I’ve clarified some of the language a bit and tried to make the system a bit more transparent.

Essentially, any story you submit to the site, whether via email or in a comment, becomes the property of www.FiftyWordStories.com. If that story gets posted to the site, it is copyrighted by the site under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license. This means that anyone is free to repost the story elsewhere, so long as they give credit to Fifty-Word Stories and to the original author.

However, the story is still the property of Fifty-Word Stories, which means that if you submit a story and don’t put any extra limits on its use then I have the option of using it in a retail compilation or a calendar or however else. (If you don’t want me to use your story that way, then please say so when you submit it. I will definitely accommodate any requests of this nature.)

Also, the site’s ownership of submitted stories is non-exclusive. That means that you are free to repost your submitted stories elsewhere, so long as those other locations do not claim exclusive rights and recognize that Fifty-Word Stories has the right to use the story, as well.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this process! I’m definitely not out to steal anyone’s work, and I don’t want to confuse anyone about how I intend to use submissions.

Thanks,

Tim

NEWS: NameYourTale Posts My Story

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I met up with Nick from www.NameYourTale.com via Twitter and really liked the new microfiction website he and some friends started up. The concept of their site is to take story titles submitted by readers and write 100-word stories based on those titles.

It’s a really cool idea, and you should head over there, read the stories, check out the illustrations that go along with some of them, and submit some titles of your own!

You should especially go over there and read and comment on the story I wrote, which was based on the title “Wrathberries“. It’s wonderful, and I’m not just saying that because I’m the one who wrote it. Ok, fine, that is why I’m saying it. But still.

NEWS: FiftyWordStories.com Changes Gears

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It’s been a lot of fun writing stories with exactly fifty words, but new frontiers of microfiction are calling. Upon seeing the success of a site like www.sixwordstories.net, I’ve realized that the important part of the term “microfiction” is the prefix “micro”. What people really want are short stories, the shorter the better!

So from today forward, this site will begin posting stories even shorter than fifty words.

The first of these stories will go up shortly. It will consisty of exactly ten words. Where will things go from there? I’m not sure yet, but I know we’re going to test the very limits of this genre known as “microfiction”.

NEWS: SixWordStories.net

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If you’re a fan of microfiction, then you’ll know that part of the challenge is telling a story in such a small space. If you really want to challenge yourself, you reduce the number of words available to you.

Enter www.SixWordStories.net. This website, run by Pete Berg, is dedicated to probably the shortest format of fiction I’ve ever encountered–stories told in exactly six words. You thought fifty words was hard? Try reducing your word quota by 88%! (Yes, I did the math on that. On a calculator.)

Pete and the site staff write some stories themselves, take reader submissions, and also share six-word stories they’ve found out in the Great Wide Internet, written by famous authors like Cory Doctorow, Orson Scott Card, and Ursula K. Le Guin. This includes the most famous, and probably first, six-word story, by Ernest Hemingway:

“For sale: baby shoes. Never used.”

There are some great stories on the site, so for some more microfictiony goodness, head over to www.SixWordStories.com now!

NEWS: Stories Start Today!

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Today, www.fiftywordstories.com officially starts updating with one new fifty-word story every single day!

The first story is scheduled to go up in the next fifteen minutes.

Are You Ready For This!?

Tell your friends!

NEWS: Fifty Word Stories dot com

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FiftyWordStories.com is a project I’m starting as an alternative to Project 365, because I’m a writer, not a photographer.

My goal is to post one new, original 50-word story every day for a year. I won’t necessarily be writing one story every day–some days I’ll write more than one, and some days I won’t write any–but I’ll make sure one gets posted to the site each day.

Start reading here!

I’m not the first person to have this idea. For some other fifty-word stories, check out these sites:
http://fiftywords.com/
http://www.tangents.co.uk/50words/

There’s some stuff on those sites worth reading, but I think I can do it better and more consistently. We’ll find out one way or another over the next year or so!