The Diurnal Drabble Dare
Get ready for a casual writing challenge that celebrates consistent writing habits and the beauty of tiny stories.
Welcome to The Diurnal Drabble Dare, a year-long challenge where you’ll create tiny little stories, honing your writing skills and potentially making some new connections with other writers along the way.
If you’re not familiar with drabbles, you can check out a post I’ve written about the topic. Read that and then come back here.
Intrigued? Let’s get started!
Here’s how it’s going to work:
First, subscribe to The Diurnal Drabble Dare so you’ll get the notifications.
Each week, I’m going to dare you to write one drabble (100-word story) every day. I’ll provide seven simple prompts. Write your drabble and make sure it’s exactly 100 words. If you post it somewhere, please leave a link in the comments! I’ll link to your drabbles in the next week’s post so everyone can see your fun little stories. If you don’t want to share, that’s perfectly okay, too. You might want to save your drabbles and submit them to contests or magazines. I’ll be sharing one of my own drabbles in each weekly post.
FAQs:
Q: Do I have to commit to writing a drabble a day for the whole year?
A: No! I can’t even guarantee that I’ll be able to manage it (but I’m going to try). You can join for a week, a month, a season… or you can just write a drabble whenever you feel like it. The point is to challenge yourself and have fun.
Q: Do I have to use the provided prompts?
A: Nope! You can if you want to, but it’s not a requirement. If you have lots of ideas already, use some of those instead!
Q: Can I use AI to write my drabble?
A: The whole point is to have fun and challenge yourself. Offloading the fun and challenge onto a machine is counterproductive.
Q: How do I know if I’ve got exactly 100 words?
A: Most word-processing apps have a word-counting function. Be careful, though; some will count weird things like em dashes or other punctuation as words. If in doubt, count by hand. (It’s only 100 words, right?) That said, I’ve found Scrivener to be pretty accurate when it comes to word count. You can also use something like WordCounter.
Q: Will you post my drabble on your page?
A: No, but I will link to it. The drabbles you write belong to you; I’m not claiming any rights. (Please don’t post your actual drabbles in the comments. They might not get seen there. Just links, please!)
Q: Does my drabble have to be on Substack for you to link to it?
A: No, but it does need to be in a publicly accessible place (i.e., not behind a paywall somewhere). It could be on your blog, website, or social media. If the link works for the public, I’ll add it!
Q: What do I win if I write 365 drabbles?
A: Bragging rights. And you’ll probably have improved your self-editing skills quite a bit, too! That’s a win in my book.
If you have any other questions, ask them in the comments and I’ll try to respond ASAP.
The Diurnal Drabble Dare officially starts on January 1, 2025. Mark your calendar and get ready to write some drabbles!