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I need to apologize. Until I actually posted my entry in the double dip contest, I hadn't really registered just how short it was. Its basically little more than a drabble. I really hope enough people enter the contest that I wont have to worry about winning with such a tiny piece.
I have another piece I'm working on that might be acceptable for the "music" part of the contest, but no guarantees I'll have it ready before the contest closes.
Again, I'm sorry.
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Don't.
If I wanted to make long stories a necessity I would have said so in the announcement. You did fine hon. Honestly, super-short stories are far more uncommon on the site than longer pieces, so feel proud, because you've entered a very select club!
Also, remember this: most of my "Drabble Theatre" work doesn't actually qualify as Drabbles because I wrote them on a PSP, and rarely had the memory allocation to reach 100 words. As a result, I've got a whole slew of stories on the site that are shorter than yours; heck, one I recall off the top of my head only coming in at 77 words total.
Don't apologize. A story should never be short, any more than it should be long: a story should always be precisely the length it needs to be.
Melanie E.
I have a whole section of stories on my author's page
dedicated to "Dorothy's Drabbles". ( https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/23642/dorothys-drabbles ). It has 31 stories, and doesnt include the stories I have written that are more than 100 words but less than 500 ...
The length was perfect
There was a movie made around the 1930s or 1940s where a reporter (or editor, I forget which) enrolled in a college course because he was investigating whether or not the professor was as good as people said. She handed out an assignment to write a a 400 word obituary. He turned in one that was about 250 words.
He said that was all that was needed to keep it poignant but to still include all of the relevant facts. Not only would more words be a waste of space but it water down the story so it was less memorable.
Your story is the same. It was long enough to make us really feel for the story, but didn't include unnecessary padding to bulk it out. I love your story. I don't see how being longer could make it better.
short
a story should be like a skirt... short enough to be interesting, long enough to cover the subject
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