hint fiction (n) : a story of 25 words or less that suggests a larger, more complex story
I’ve just written my entries for a competition of hint fiction at http://www.robertswartwood.com/?page_id=8. I don’t expect that any of my entries will be chosen over the many others for the forthcoming anthology of hint fiction, but I’ve enjoyed the experience of composing them. I enjoyed pondering over each word, wondering whether it best suits its purpose, whether its meaning is exactly the one I want in this particular place.
When you’re allowed no more than twenty-five words, you have to use the best ones you can find. In a novel of fifty thousand words or more, you try to do the same, but there’s a limit to the amount of time you can spend getting it just right. Writing a novel is more of a balancing act.
When you talk, you have practically no time to choose your words. And that leads to embarrassment, if you’re me. It leads to wishing you’d expressed something in a different way or wishing you hadn’t said it at all. And that, in turn, leads to refraining from talking. If you’re me.
Miriam Drori, Author 