Customer Reviews

World's Shortest Stories: Murder. Love. Horror. Suspense. All This And Much More...

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Can you write a short story in only 55 words? Sure. Making it a GOOD ultra-short story is the challenge. And "The World's Shortest Stories" is an amusing light read, with many so-so stories, some duds, and some little hidden gems that might make you smile.

The majority of the stories are made up mostly of dialogue, with a twist (like piranhas or bigamy) at the end. Each one takes about ten seconds maximum to read. There's love (a werewolf has a tendency to kill his girlfriends on the full moon), murder (a sex kitten turns out to be a hit woman), terrible puns ("Abra-cadaver!") and sex ("Brenda promised the horizontal hokey-pokey if he wore a chicken suit and spoke French").

Some of the short stories feel unfinished, as if the author had a good idea but couldn't follow it through. And others are downright dour, rarely managing to get any sort of emotion from the reader; an exception was "It Was a Year Ago," a gut-wrencher about drunk driving. But more often it's maudlin, emotionless vignettes like "Photographer's Regrets."

But perhaps two-thirds of the humorous stories manage to evoke a smile or little laugh, like "Harry's Love," about a man's adoration for his curvacious, golden, sensuous... trumpet. And a few of them give twists that will get a grin out of you, like "Dragon Tale," about a peculiar tattoo. Not to mention the vampire support meeting.

"The World's Shortest Stories" has quite a few duds sprinkled through the hits, but it's still an amusing -- and very short -- book of even shorter stories.

I teach 7th and 8th grade, many second language and non-standard english students. The 55 word stories provide an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the reading/thinking skills of inferencing, drawing conclusions and also a springboard for introducing and explaining the background of euphemisms and common sayings and figures of speech that are not familiar to second language readers.

I read this book last summer and some of the stories are still lurking in my head... quite an amazing feat for tales only 55 words long! Each story (with few exceptions) made me feel as if I had just read a novel. This book is essential to any story-lover's library.

I am amazed at how truly entertaining these stories can be in such a short space of time. The tricky endings on some came as such a surprise, that I found myself rewinding the tape to listen to them again. A clever writing style that shows that less is often more. Funny, creepy, romantic. Very well done.

Steve Moss posed a challenge to writers -- compose a short story consisting of only 55 words. Did the writers succeed? I've included five examples for you to judge yourself:

Example # 1 -- BEDTIME STORY by Jeffrey Whitmore

"Careful, honey, it's loaded," he said, re-entering the bedroom.
Her back rested against the headboard. "This for your wife?"
"No. Too chancy. I'm hiring a professional."
"How about me?"
He smirked. "Cute. But who'd be dumb enough to hire a lady hit man?"
She wet her lips, sighting along the barrel.
"Your wife."

Example # 2 -- THE ONCE AND FUTURE BEACH by Edward E. Goto

"Oh, mama," Larry said. "Look at that babe."
"Perfectly shaped breasts," said Jim.
"And what a tan!"
"God, I love girls in bikinis."
A bronzed college boy lying nearby whispered, "Jerry, listen to those fat old guys."
"Yeah...guess they've got nothing better to do than -- oh, mama, Tim, would you look at that babe."

Example # 3 -- WHAT THE DEVIL WANTED by Brian Newell

The two boys stood watching Satan walk away, the power of his hypnotic eyes still in their minds.
"Geez, what'd he want from you?"
"My soul. How 'bout you?"
"A quarter to call home."
"Oh. Wanna go get something to eat?"
"Yeah, but I can't. Now I'm out of money."
"No problem. I've got plenty."

Example # 4 -- HEADED FOR TROUBLE by Dick Skeen

The scantily clad hitchhiker knew she was in trouble the moment she stepped into the car.
The driver gazed disapprovingly at her costume. "Looking for some fun?"
"No...I'm just going to the beach."
"Think so? Well, I've got other plans for you, sweetie, and they don't include beaches."
"Guess I'm grounded, huh Mom?"

Example # 5 -- SOLITAIRE by Marilee Swircszer

Encased by the laundry room walls, she stuffed load after load into the insatiable washer, begrudging every minute lost. Sodden diapers, mismatched booties, Batman pajamas, pink leotards, grass-stained soccer shirts, knee-socks, pinafores, jeans, sweaters, skirts, trousers.
Now, finally, she washes one small load a week, and wonders why the days are so long.


As someone who struggles writing your typical length short story, I was very impressed how these writers were able to capture character, plot and setting in only 55 words. These stories read almost like riddles that make you do a double-take...and then smile.
With that said, though, I almost rated this book 3 stars because too many of the stories were really corny and caused me to roll my eyes. And others were confusing and I didn't get them.
However, I decided to rate this 4 stars instead as a way to congratulate those writers who did pull off this assignment with creativity and playfulness.

As a collection based solely around word-count, we need to think about the direct effect word-count has on flow, tone/voice, and the way the reader takes the story in. The number "28" counts as one word when written as a numeral, but counts as two when written out as "twenty-eight." They mean the same thing, but the spelled-out version is much more mature, and carries more weight because it takes up more space on the page and is read as opposed to recalled. Contractions, too, are obvious ways to gain an extra word. "He won't go," is three words. "He will not go," is four. Again, they mean the same thing, but the former is conversational and the latter is more stated and hefty, taking up more room on the page as well as simply being the opposite of conversational. The editor of the book suggests not shortchanging yourself when writing with a word-limit, to be frugal with the words. He fails to mention there's a difference between economy of language and economy of voice. "Don't shortchange either one," is probably better advice.

People read a story differently when they see the end, just as they do a paragraph or a sentence. Seeing the end from the very beginning clicks something in the brain, though I'm not sure what. A natural sense of cadence, I guess. Everything can arrive and leave in a single breath, a single page. I'm attracted to minimalistic writing that floats around 700-words because of this lean towards the understated and the line between implication and assumption. It's something I think Carver does perfectly most of the time and Hemingway does perfectly some of the time (his stories reek of machismo. I'm too tender for that bull****). Chekhov just confuses me with his brevity, though I've only read his early stories, which seem to be a lot lighter (the dialogue is kind of terrible, too. But, it was the late 19th century). And even when Bukowski was rambling, he was rambling in a quick manner.

These stories are far less than 700 words, and while I definitely think a compelling, well-written narrative can be formed in fewer words, less than a dozen of the stories in this collection are worth reading. This is microfiction for dilettantes: adjectives stomp around and fluff-up what needs to be lean, single-sentence paragraphs try to squeeze depth out of vapid quirks and/or twist endings, melodramatics (a gun, a knife, a murder, etc) replace structure. None of these stories are well-written enough to earn foregoing a wind-up and a wind-down, and in doing so, they almost always end up making a gimmick out of a form that is, essentially, already a gimmick itself.

As for this collection, I still believe in the power that a 55-word story can wield, but this isn't the anthology that proves it. You're better off with the collection Jerome Stern edited (Micro Fiction: An Anthology of Really Short Stories) or, for more bizarre fare, Donald Barthelme's 40 Stories or the shorter selections from Woody Allen's books. The Stern collection sets a 500-word limit (a lot of the stories are closer to 300 words) while Barthelme and Allen are more all-over the place in regards to word-count. Sure, they're not "the world's shortest stories," but a short-short story that's brilliant is always going to be better than the shortest story that's mediocre. This isn't a race. This is art.

This book contains incredibly complete and haunting 55-word stories (this review is 55 words). Horror. Romance. Mystery. Crime. Many have trick endings. You'll read this wonderful book repeatedly. I've always wanted to write a 55-word story about a hideous monster who devours people who write too many reviews for Amazon but no one would believe

Suzanne Toren, Kathy Garver, and the King at this stuff...Frank Muller. You couldn't ask for a better group of readers for this project. This recording is a collection of "fifty-five fiction" stories. "Fifty-five fiction" stories are short stories that must be told in fifty-five words or less. Like this review was. Get it today.

Alright you prolific writers - try and get your story and plot down to 55 words - definitely a challenge for myself who enjoys tons of adverbs and adjectives. The stories are smooth, clean, precise, and leaves some of the fill-ins to the readers. As the title clarifies, the stories run the range from murder, love, horror and suspense, and everything in between. I was able to hear that the organization is keeping the process going, even after Steve Moss' early passing. This little set of stories would be good general plotlines for your next novel, or for having English students read the stories, and try to figure out what is happening, or what the story really meant. I liked this book and the concept.

The stories in this collection are subject to the most stringent of restrictions, they are exactly 55 words long. All were written in response to a challenge and of course these are the gems culled from the submissions. While the stories are complete in concept, in general understanding requires that the reader mentally fill in some of the context or reach a conclusion.
That is one of the best characteristics of these stories; the reader is not told anything extraneous or given any explicit detail. I enjoyed reading the stories and appreciate the skill needed to write them. The challenge of writing within the limit of 55 words is an excellent exercise in compressing your prose and improving your skills as a writer.