55 Fiction is the name of this writing game, a tiny literary genre with a proud tradition stretching back a full eight years to a time when finding good copy to fill our arts and entertainment publication, New Times, was tough to do. Out of this necessity rose 55 Fiction. We tell them to remember that we're talking about fiction , not essays or poems or errant thoughts. A lot of people have a hard time getting that straight, no doubt because they have a hard time believing that writing something so short is really possible. They usually end up with only part of a story, often with their character stranded in a situation going nowhere.
Characters can have infinite variations.
People, animals, clouds, microbes. By conflict, we merely mean that in the course of the story, something has to happen. The lovers argue. The deer flees. The astronauts wait in anticipation.