New Contest!
What is a Drabble? How to enter the Contest? Seeking Volunteers
What is a Drabble?
By Gertrude Daly
Short stories can be categorized in a variety of ways, including by length. A "drabble" is a 100-word short story. Some people insist that a drabble must be exactly 100 words long. Others accept roughly 100 words (I.e. 90-110 words).
A good drabble tells a complete story. But the word count leaves no space for ideas that stray from the main narrative. A drabble requires a writer to be concise and focused. You will have to cut not just words, but simplify your ideas.
You will often find as you begin writing, your story ends up being more than 100 words (and you still haven’t finished the draft). Should you forgo the word count requirement, for the sake of the story? Occasionally…But, writing to a specific word count is a skill. And one every writer needs to learn. I encourage you to continue working on your drabble and refining it again and again until you get to 100 words.
By practicing drabbles, writers learn to choose precise words, focus on the core narrative, and craft clear, impactful stories. These skills will translate to works of other lengths.
Some tips for writing a story using only 100 words:
Keep your story simple.
Limit the number of characters.
Focus on a moment in time, or a few seconds
Begins in the middle of the action, “in media res”
Use adjectives or a thesaurus to help you say more in less words.
Here are drabbles written by Gertrude Daly.
Under the Gaze
Sweat dripped stinging Princess Claire’s eyes. Yet, her gaze remained fixed on the synchronized movements and fierce chanting of the ceremonial dancers. The platform’s overhang offered shade, but not for those seated in the front row—her row—where the sun bore down mercilessly. Princess Claire’s throat felt parched, her head light with the creeping haze of dehydration, yet she held her smile firm. The dozens of cameras were angled not at the ceremony, but on her reaction. News of her husband’s affair had broken as their plane touched down, perfectly timed to exploit the media frenzy around their visit.
A Decasecond to Nought
A decasecond was all Hera had to decide. She looked back at Kyuu, trapped beneath a fallen beam.
The red light of Airlock #87 blinked, illuminating the futility. There was not enough time to save him.
Behind them, alarms screamed. Ahead, escape pod NoVI waited.
“Go,” he gasped.
Her hand hovered over the release. A choice—life or love.
Five seconds. She kissed his forehead.
Three. She turned to go.
One. The door sealed. The pod launched into space as the station exploded, reduced to nought.
Cracks in the Platter
“I told you—” Jillian started, but her husband’s look said he wasn’t interested in being lectured. Moments ago, the platter rested on the crooked side shelf of their second-hand grill. Now, the hot dogs and veggie burgers sat in the dirt.
Tyler picked up the cooked food, and placed it back on the flimsy plastic platter, which was now cracked.
The summer sun beat down. It was their first barbecue in their first home. A housewarming. A mess.
“Do we have more?” Tyler asked.
“No,” Jillian replied.
“No?”
“I thought saving to fix this dump was more important than leftovers.”
2025 Drabble Contest By Writing Quests
By Gertrude Daly
Writers, here’s your chance to shine. We are very pleased to announce that Writing Quests is holding its first short story contest.
Writing Quests is an association of writing groups and writers from around the world. One of our goals is to promote creativity and help motivate writers, through events like Novel Quest. We hope this short story contest will spark your imagination, inspire new ideas, and offer a fun challenge to tell a complete story within tight limits.
You do not need to be a member of Writing Quests or its affiliates to participate. So, feel free to share this contest with your friends!
The Challenge
Write a drabble (100 word short story).
The Theme
Stories should be inspired by Édouard Manet’s 1878 painting The Café-Concert.
Deadline
August 31st, 2025, Midnight CDT
The Prize
The three winning stories will be published on the Writing Quests website, Newsletter and social media. You also get bragging rights!
Writing Quest’s Social Media
How to Enter
Submit your drabble via the Google Form below by midnight (BDT) on August 31st. Full details and rules can be found on the Google Form.
How to volunteer/contribute
We have three different ways to get involved:
Quest Guides- The people who host the Writing Quests are called Quest Guides. They help creatives through the process of setting goals, prepping for the quests, and providing encouragement during the event. Click on Get Involved> The Framework to get started.
Participants- Anyone can participate, even if you are not a writer. Visit our website to find a participating group near you.
Volunteers- Writing Quests is an all-volunteer organization. If you want to volunteer, please email info@writingquests.org and let us know your experience and if applicable, what you want to help with.
Call out for Volunteers
By Tim Yao
Writing Quests is an open project to create and share the necessary software (via Apache Software License) or other assets/designs/write-ups (via Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share-Alike 4.0 License) needed to host motivational writing challenges. We are seeking volunteers to help with the Questy development. In particular, it would be helpful to find individuals with skills/experience/interest in
php/Symphony dev
React
web UI and UX
We are on a journey to create a flexible writing progress tracker (Questy that will have some nice features, including:
supporting common Quests (defined writing challenges)
supporting individual projects of different formats (novels, series, plays, short stories, etc)
supporting some community communication capabilities, beginning with buddies
supporting community/buddy progress tracking graphs (similar to what NaNo Faces provided when it was active).
You can read more about the project at GitHub (especially see our plans on our wiki). If interested, please fill out this form.
Upcoming Events
We have two major events this year.
In April, we had Spring Into A Story, which is a choose-your-own-adventure style challenge. You get to set your own goals. Every year this is the perfect opportunity to work on shorter works, edit a work in progress, or even start a new project. Join one of our Regions and get support from other writers.
Our second event is Novel Quest, which occurs in November. This is our big event where writers around the world attempt to write 50,000 words in only a month. That being said, you can also set your own goals, but this challenge is all about pushing yourself.
One of the ways we are building a community is through Virtual Write-In events, which, during the off-season, are once a month, and during November, are a twice-weekly event. We stream live on Youtube with Hosts Ansley Ashe and Coral Sands. Stop by our next live show, which is this Sunday, July 20th, at 11 am central.
Subscribe
Visit our website: www.writingquests.org
Find us on the social medias:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WritingQuests
Twitter www.x.com/writingquests
Pinterest www.pinterest.com/WritingQuests/
Instagram www.instagram.com/writingquests
Facebook Group www.facebook.com/groups/writingquests