250 words

[devonin]

So I think that the lit forum needs a few more threads that aren’t just one person posting a story and everyone else commenting on them. To that end, I’m making this thread, which I hope will be the first of several like it. This particular thread is a writing challenge thread. What that means is that every post in this thread (indeed, both submissions -and- comments on submissions) must obey the directive which is the point of the thread. The restriction on posts here is that they must all be exactly two hundred and fifty words long. It doesn’t matter whether you’re posting original content or discussing someone else’s they all have to be exactly 250 words. While I guess I can’t really blame people if they occasionally have to resort to a “The End” or something to shore up the word count, you should really try to avoid it. The purpose of putting strict limits on writing is that it forces you to really develop an extensive vocabulary so that you can be as verbose or succinct as the occasion calls for without having to struggle to fit everything into the length you want to work with.

So go forth, write, and very carefully count your words, because if you come in under or over the limit, we reserve the right to give you precisely 250 worded mockery.

And yes, this post is also 250 words, because I’m sure all of you went and checked to be sure.