Twitter Micro-Fiction

Twitter gives authors a means to share micro-fiction constrained by the 140-character limit, an exercise in conciseness. Fiction across Twitter appears as poetry, serials, and single micro-fiction tales including a few six-word stories. Tweet the Meat offers a dollar—generous considering the word count—for publishing horror micro-fiction.

My goal is to tweet a few micro-fiction stories each week. They mix with other posts, so here are a few of my attempts including two of exactly 140 characters:

“Gliding on toes, she danced along the path. A werewolf crept, waited. He asked about her day. Smiling, she offered wine and went on her way.” Posted June 10th, 2009.


Night wore a dress of darkness gliding over the land. Ushering Sleep and Death, she chased after Dusk, shadow in hand. Posted June 18th, 2009.


As Luna met Sol for midday tea, Dawn hugged Dusk in the shadow-night. The tea too brief, Dawn found her arms empty on the far side of Night. Posted June 19th, 2009.


For other micro-fiction, see the following authors: @arjunbasu, @twae sometimes incorporates physics, @midnightstories posts precisely at midnight central time, @trapphic has a web page on micro-fiction, @mythmashed tells a story one tweet at a time, and @VeryShortStory.

Publishers:  @tweetthemeat, @Nanoism, @Outshine, and @thaumatrope.

Many more authors reside on Twitter. Find others by checking out following and favorite lists of those listed above. Some mix stories with other posts, but several have a dedicated feed for stories.

Try a 140-character story in the comments or tweet.

  • Ben White

    Nice post. It’s interesting: at the beginning of the year, I was able to read every twitter-story by every account I could find. I’m sure there were others out there, but they were difficult to locate, and I really believe there were only a handful. Now, it’s impossible. The movementu2014or at least the hobbyu2014is accessible enough that there are dozens of regular writers and hundreds of occasional posters. And there are more every day. rnrnAs a writer, it’s a useful and engaging tool. It does good things to distill ideas down to their very essence, to write all of the interesting ideas down in a productive way instead of scribbling them in a notebook or forgetting them altogether. Keep at it.

  • http://www.dracotorre.com/blog/ David G Shrock

    Thanks, Ben. Once I feel I’ve obtained some mastery over Twitter stories, I’m interested to see how the experience carries over into my other writtng.

  • bdwhite

    Nice post. It's interesting: at the beginning of the year, I was able to read every twitter-story by every account I could find. I'm sure there were others out there, but they were difficult to locate, and I really believe there were only a handful. Now, it's impossible. The movement—or at least the hobby—is accessible enough that there are dozens of regular writers and hundreds of occasional posters. And there are more every day.

    As a writer, it's a useful and engaging tool. It does good things to distill ideas down to their very essence, to write all of the interesting ideas down in a productive way instead of scribbling them in a notebook or forgetting them altogether. Keep at it.

  • http://www.dracotorre.com/blog/ David G Shrock

    Thanks, Ben. Once I feel I've obtained some mastery over Twitter stories, I'm interested to see how the experience carries over into my other writtng.