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Used to hate on writing prompts with strict word counts
I spent $50 on a micro-fiction workshop last year thinking it would be a waste. Three hours of trying to tell a full story in exactly 100 words really taught me how to cut fluff from my drafts. Has anyone else found constraints actually help their writing?
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emery_lopez27d ago
Friend of mine tried a flash fiction challenge where every story had to be exactly 50 words. She was so frustrated the first week she almost quit. Then she sent me this little story about a dog waiting at a bus stop for its owner who died years ago. It was just a few sentences but it hit me harder than most novels I read that year. She said the limit forced her to pick only the most important details and cut everything else. Kept doing it for months and her regular writing got way tighter too. Those strict word counts really teach you what matters in a story.
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daniel_lane3027d ago
And that's exactly what makes it work, having to strip everything down to the bare bones like that forces you to find the emotional core of whatever you're trying to say. I've noticed the same thing with my own writing after that workshop, suddenly I could spot a useless adjective from a mile away and my dialogue got way more natural too. It's like your brain learns to value every single word you put on the page instead of just filling space to hit a certain length.
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