A drabble is an extremely short work of fiction of exactly one hundred words in length, although the term is often erroneously used to indicate a short story of fewer than 1000 words. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in an extremely confined space.

The concept is said to have originated in UK science fiction fandom in the 1980s; the 100-word format was established by the Birmingham University SF Society, taking a term from Monty Python's 1971 Big Red Book. In the book, "Drabble" was described as a word game where the first participant to write a novel was the winner. In order to make the game possible in the real world, it was agreed that 100 words would suffice. In drabble contests, participants are given a theme and a certain amount of time to write. Drabble contests, and drabbles in general, are popular in science fiction fandom and in fan fiction. Beccon Publications published three volumes, "The Drabble Project" (1988) and "Drabble II: Double Century" (1990), both edited by Rob Meades and David Wake, and "Drabble Who" (1993), edited by David J. Howe and David Wake. It was popularized online at 100Words.com.

"Drabble" is also sometimes used colloquially to refer to any short piece of literature, usually fan fiction, where brevity is its outstanding feature. Some stories, called "drabbles" by their authors or readers, total as many as 1,000 words in length. However, such a story should be labeled by the more accurate description of "flashfic", "shortfic," or "ficlet," in addition to the older "short-short story".

The particular language used may greatly affect the ease or difficulty of writing a drabble. For example, the Finnish two-word sentence "Heittäytyisinköhän seikkailuun?" translates into English as "What if I should throw myself into an adventure?", a sentence of nine words. This density of meaning makes Finnish a much easier language in which to write a drabble than English. Even easier languages include those with extreme polysynthesis, such as Cherokee, where an entire English sentence can often be expressed in a single word.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈhundred/

hundred

1. (cardinal) hundred

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• StoryBites
  storybites.com
  Provides reader based reviews of classic and modern short stories.
• Forming Connections and Awakening Visions
  scholar.lib.vt.edu
  A guide to using short story collections in the classroom, by Teri S. Lesesne.
• Annenberg Media Exhibits: Literature
  learner.org
  Interactive exhibit that takes visitors on a literary journey through the classic short story.