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 Literatureportal | ||||||
A drabble is a short work of fiction of precisely one hundred words in length. [1] [2] [3] [4] The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in a confined space.
The concept is said to have originated in UK science fiction fandom in the 1980s; the 100-word format was established by the Birmingham University SF Society, taking a term from Monty Python's 1971 Big Red Book . [1] [4] In the book, "Drabble" was described as a word game where the first participant to write a novel was the winner. In order to make the game possible in the real world, it was agreed that 100 words would suffice. French writer Félix Fénéon may be considered as a precursor with his nouvelles en trois lignes (three lines short stories), inspired by new items.
In drabble contests, participants are given a theme and a certain amount of time to write. (For example, Wilfrid Laurier University conducted a "100 Words Centennial Drabble Contest" in commemoration of its 100th anniversary in 2011, in which contestants were asked to write about "inspiration, leadership or purpose". [1] [5] ) Drabble contests, and drabbles in general, are popular in science fiction fandom and in fan fiction. Beccon Publications published three volumes, The Drabble Project (1988) and Drabble II: Double Century (1990), both edited by Rob Meades and David Wake, and Drabble Who (1993), edited by David J. Howe and David Wake.
Published science fiction writers who have written drabbles include Brian Aldiss and Gene Wolfe (both of whom contributed to The Drabble Project), [4] Lois McMaster Bujold (whose novel Cryoburn finishes with a sequence of five drabbles, each told from the point of view of a different character), [6] [7] and Jake Bible (whose novel Dead Mech was written entirely in drabble format). [8]
100 Word Story is an online literary journal that was co-founded in 2011 by Grant Faulkner and Lynn Mundell. [9] It publishes stories that are exactly 100 words long.
The web has also enabled a rapid spread of the genre, with publishers such as The Third Word Press using the web to collect drabble stories. [10]
A similar concept is 55 Fiction, which is a form of microfiction that refers to the works of fiction that are either limited to a maximum of 55 words or have a requirement of exactly 55 words. [11] The origin of 55 Fiction can be traced to a short story writing contest organized by New Times, an independent alternative weekly in San Luis Obispo, California, in 1987. [12] The idea was proposed by New Times founder and publisher Steve Moss. [13]
A literary work will be considered 55 Fiction[ citation needed ] if it has:
The title of the story is not part of the overall word count, but cannot exceed seven words.
Lois McMaster Bujold is an American speculative fiction writer. She is an acclaimed writer, having won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record. Her novella The Mountains of Mourning won both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award. In the fantasy genre, The Curse of Chalion won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the 2002 World Fantasy Award for best novel, and both her fourth Hugo Award and second Nebula Award were for Paladin of Souls. In 2011 she was awarded the Skylark Award. She has won two Hugo Awards for Best Series, in 2017 for the Vorkosigan Saga and in 2018 for the World of the Five Gods. The Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 36th SFWA Grand Master in 2019.
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word novella derives from the Italian novella meaning a short story related to true facts.
Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer.
Ethan of Athos is a 1986 science fiction novel by American author Lois McMaster Bujold. The title character is Dr. Ethan Urquhart, Chief of Biology at the Sevarin District Reproduction Centre on the planet Athos, who is sent to find out what happened to a shipment of vital ovarian tissue cultures. Set in the fictional universe of Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, the novel mentions but does not feature her usual protagonist Miles Vorkosigan. To date, Bujold has never revisited the settings of Athos or Kline Station in her many subsequent novels, but the events of Ethan of Athos are later referred to indirectly in the novels Borders of Infinity (1989) and Cetaganda (1995).
Flash fiction is a brief fictional narrative that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story ; the "dribble" ; the "drabble" ; "sudden fiction" ; "flash fiction" ; and "microstory".
The 62nd World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as Noreascon 4, was held on 2–6 September 2004 at the Hynes Convention Center, Sheraton Boston Hotel and Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Katharine Weber is an American novelist and nonfiction writer. She has taught fiction and nonfiction writing at Yale University, Goucher College, the Paris Writers Workshop and elsewhere. She held the Visiting Richard L. Thomas Chair in Creative Writing at Kenyon College from 2012 to 2019.
NESFA Press is the publishing arm of the New England Science Fiction Association, Inc. The NESFA Press primarily produces three types of books:
A minisaga, mini saga or mini-saga is a short story based on a long story. It should contain exactly 50 words, plus a title of up to 15 characters. However, the title requirement is not always enforced and sometimes eliminated altogether. Minisagas are alternately known as microstories, ultra-shorts stories, or fifty-word stories.
SFera is a science fiction society from Zagreb, Croatia. It was founded in 1976, thus marking the beginnings of organised science fiction fandom in the region.
Hannu Rajaniemi is a Finnish American author of science fiction and fantasy, who writes in both English and Finnish. He lives in Oakland, California, and was a founding director of a commercial research organisation ThinkTank Maths.
A Civil Campaign: A Comedy of Biology and Manners is a science fiction novel by American writer Lois McMaster Bujold, first published in September 1999. It is a part of the Vorkosigan Saga, and is the thirteenth full-length novel in publication order. It is included in the 2008 omnibus Miles in Love. The title is an homage to the Georgette Heyer novel A Civil Contract and, like Heyer's historical romances, the novel focuses on romance, comedy, and courtship. It is dedicated to "Jane, Charlotte, Georgette, and Dorothy", novelists Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Georgette Heyer, and Dorothy L. Sayers.
Jessica Marie FreyFRY is a Canadian science fiction and fantasy author. While she is best known for her debut novel Triptych, Frey's work encompasses poetry, academic and magazine articles, screenplays, and short stories. Frey calls herself a "professional geek".
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen is a science fiction novel by American writer Lois McMaster Bujold. It is an installment in Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. Bujold has described it as "not a war story. It is about grownups."
Grant Faulkner is an American writer, the former executive director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), the co-founder of the online literary journal 100 Word Story, and the co-host of the podcast Write-minded.
This is the complete list of works by American science fiction and fantasy author Lois McMaster Bujold.
Michael Stephen Botur is a New Zealand author described as "one of the most original story writers of his generation in New Zealand." As a journalist, he has published longform news articles in VICE World News, NZ Listener, New Zealand Herald, Herald on Sunday, Sunday Star-Times, The Spinoff, Mana and North & South. His short fiction and poetry has been published in most New Zealand literary journals including Landfall, Poetry New Zealand and Newsroom. In 2023 he founded the mentoring service Creative Writing Northland.
100 Word Story is a literary magazine that was founded in 2011 by writers Grant Faulkner and Lynn Mundell in Berkeley, California. It publishes stories and essays that are exactly 100 words in length ; each piece is published with an accompanying photo.
World of the Five Gods is a fantasy series by American writer Lois McMaster Bujold. It was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2018. It consists of four novels and eleven novellas, with six of the novellas included in the award. Three novels and two of the novellas were nominees for or winners of major awards.
Nebula Awards Showcase #55: Outstanding Science Fiction and Fantasy is an anthology of science fiction and fantasy short works edited by American writer Catherynne M. Valente. It was first published in paperback and ebook by SFWA, Inc. in August 2021.