The Truth about Drabbles

[louiselux]

I want to know what you all think about drabbles. For me, the best drabbles have an impact that is inversely proportional to their size-- they hit the reader round the face with the all the force of a large well-swung haddock. That's what I aspire to, anyway, one day. I also tend to think that to do that they require a lot of time and effort.
[Poll #385199]

Comments

[cicerothewriter.livejournal.com]

My advice would not fit in the comment box, so I decided to put it here (I hope you don't mind *g*).

I tend to not worry about the length so much. If I start to write a drabble, and find out that my idea is too long, then that just means that I'm writing a story, which is just as good. If I run out of idea at about 100 words, then I go back and tweak the phrases, words, etc. If I don't think that the drabble has a point or is very interesting, then it is either trashed or (more likely since I never throw anything away) I will keep it until it can be continued. I tend to prefer drabbles that don't hang about in the nothingness - although in all fairness I've probably written some drabbles that have no context. To solve that, I usually explain the context in the author's notes.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Context is a tricky thing - I always feel that having context in the notes means that the drabble has beaten me. If I have to do that I tend not to post the drabble, but, like you, leave it until I can think of a way to fix it.