Trapped

Writing a Short Story in 50 Words or Less

Trapped

He's trapped in a place where only he dares to go.
Others would run screaming if they saw what hides there.
He isn't afraid, and will face it alone if he must.
Although soothing at times, he will not succumb to the darkness.
He is determined to see the day.

A story needs a beginning, middle, and an end. What that consists of is up to the writer of the story. Hemingway once wrote a story that consisted of only 6 words. The story reads like an ad, but is indeed considered a story. A very short story can be intriguing and puzzling. The reader, using his or her imagination, may try to fill in the gaps where the thousands of words, from a traditional short story, have been excluded. Other readers may instantly put a picture to the words in the short story and see it as complete. We have all heard the saying, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". This is true in writing as well as reading. What the writer is thinking about when writing, may be very different than what the reader interprets it.

I am introducing a series of short stories on people you may, or may not know, and ideas for the short stories taken from articles you may or may not have read. Each of these short stories will consist of less than 50 words. I thought it would be fun to add a few twists here and there, and see if you can figure out who, what, or where I was thinking about when I wrote the story. I find it very interesting that depending on where a person is in their life, and what is going on with a person at any given moment greatly impacts how they would interpret something they have just seen or read.

Although the ideas for these short stories may have come from factual events, places, people or things, my stories are intended to be fictional and in no way are meant to be considered my interpretation of another writers work. It is only an idea gleaned from a word or sentence that I have read, a place or picture I have seen, or may just come from the dark recesses of my brain where only the cobwebs thrive. I hope to take these things, turn them over a few times, and push them in another direction.