The following are samples of mini stories by our members,

most consisting of no more than 100 words.  Like to try your hand?

Just click on a title to see how we've done it ....

And these are opening paragraphs of two novels:

Relativity  by Paul

 ...The previous night, at the pre-flight party, she felt sure she'd seen the interesting looking guy before.  Curiosity was enough to get them introduced and mutual attraction ensured they fixed a date for another meeting. The next day she was sitting in the pilot's chair of the world's first faster-than-light spacecraft.  She stared at the instrument panel; hadn't that just lit up? Suddenly it did illuminate, now it was time, the first time?
Ignoring the perspiration she reached out to press the button that would engage the drive.  There was a bright light, and she returned the previous night...

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Water by Freda

The water in the lake held an irresistible fascination for Helena. At the age of two she derived a bizarre satisfaction from poking sticks at her reflected image on the water's edge. As a rebellious teenager, she hurled stones across the surface causing angry ripples. In love at twenty, she saw dancing sparkles mirrored in her eyes. Throughout middle age her likeness appeared to be progressively distorted in the waters, muddied by stirred up emotional confusion. Later, out of touch with reality and failing to recognise the face she once knew, she waded in, hypnotised by the water's alluring spell.

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Remember  by Jim

Bitter was the night, black and cold, when death’s frost struck and all the cars skidded one into another.  Twisted metal, shattered glass, blood and screams.  Bitter and drunken brawling marked the occasion.  Thirteen men died in that, three women and a child.  All for the sake of a beer!  Mark this down in your calendar, so that this date may never be forgotten.  One silly drunk driver drove us all to death or despair, ambulances and hospital beds.  Don’t ever forget it; don’t ever forget - the ides of January, the fourteenth, or was it the fifteenth?  I can’t be sure.

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Talking Turkey  by Pat

"What do you think, Betty?"
"Weight gain is supposed to be our natural primitive response to primeval starvation fears."
“It’s bad for the legs; the joints disintegrate first they say.”
“No matter how much I run around just can’t shift this fat.”
“Bernard says it’s genetic.”
"What does he know about anything?"
"Maisie said weight gain is due to food additives."
"Nothing's safe nowadays; look at all the hormones flying around, stuffed into everything."
"Dunno why I'm fed up, are the others complaining?"
"Can't think why they should, it's Christmas after all!"
"I've always disliked your sense of humour, Betty."

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The Present  by Polly

"You've come home, have you? Left that tart then?" snarled Mrs Hopkins.
"I have concluded the affair my dear", replied her husband.
"Don't you my dear me; coming home stinking of her cheap scent", screeched his wife.
"I always return to your charms my love", her husband smarmed. "I have brought you a gift." "What do I want with your presents?" she snarled.
"But I chose it specially for you, my love."  With that, he deftly wound his mistress's stocking around the fat neck of his wife and, for the second time that evening, whooping ecstatically, he tightened the noose.

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A Painted Lady  by Jim

Sweat is soaking into the collar of my white shirt.  It’s sticking to my neck.  I concentrate hard on the keyboard, listening to the music singing in my mind, and thump out the cords for ‘Lady Be Good’.  The Lascelles woman commands the floor, the hub of attention. I have seen her around on the social scene, in this kind of place, and she is always the same.  How does she do that?  Anyhow, who does she think she is: a princess or an ice maiden perhaps?  I focus on the piano keys and my music.  I look up to find she has materialised in front of the grand.  Now I feel uncomfortable; maybe my bow tie is squint?  She looks cool.  I stare down at the black keys, then at the ivories, and my fingers do their stuff.. God! The music’s good—this is something I do well.  She speaks.  Her accent is Middle English, with a daub of Edinburgh upper class.  ‘The way you play is marvellous: how can you make music like that?’  Her voice sounds cold.  I carry on, ignoring her, concentrating exclusively on the keyboard.  She doesn’t like that. I catch a whiff of expensive perfume, and look up in time to watch her hips swivelling as she walks away from the stage.

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Untitled  by Polly

Honestly Sylv, I wish I had your faith. I do. I really do. I mean it must be so comforting to know that your every thought and deed is watched over, and carefully noted, so that when you snuff it you’ll go straight to a happy judgement. Being a sweet innocent, naturally you’ll be whisked directly to Heaven to be welcomed by a kind and loving God who, of course, is a firm believer in the gospel according to the Reverend Clive Penrose.

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The Gravedigger  by Jim

The slender moon lies on her back, a crescent sliver of white gold staring upwards at the navy blue depths of a star-brilliant sky.  A sparkle of lights glints on the horizon locating a flotilla of fishing boats. St. Martin's Isle, the forgotten gem of the Irish Sea, spreads out over the bottle green ocean like a blot of ink.  The high stone cross stands where it has been for twelve centuries; its ebony shadow etched against the backdrop of the heaven's galaxy.  Its sombre bulk, covered in lichen, casts a darker shade over the grave below.  A hooded figure moves silently through the darkness and stops in the shadow, bending down.  Two sinewy hands, slender as a woman's, their skin as smooth as a musician's, move with the assurance and precision of a blind person in a familiar room.   Lifting aside the turf, already neatly cut into brick-shaped squares, they reach down inside the gravespace, picking out the ribs, one by one.   A breath of counting as each one is carefully dropped into the sack; next, the vertebrae, then the rest.

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Memoir  by Polly

I galloped through life, rushing headlong from today into tomorrow with never a thought for yesterday. A tragedy in my family showed me that there is not always a tomorrow to hurtle into and yesterday and today might be all I have. ‘It’s time to slow down and take stock’, I thought. I wasn’t exactly sure why I had decided that taking stock involved disappearing into the wilds of Andalucia, but it did. Perhaps I was just running away. However, it is impossible just to run away. In running away from one thing I was, of necessity, running towards another. What would this other something be?

      This might be an alternative first paragraph:

“Carlos!” I shouted, “Carlos, I‘m here!” Silence. I seemed to remember that the one time I had gone to his flat we had climbed some stairs. I clambered up the steep geranium-lined stone steps to a door with a key left in the key hole. Surely this must be the door. I knocked loudly and called his name again. Nothing. Had Carlos left the key for me because he had gone out? Surely not. I didn’t like to go in. I wasn’t even certain it was the right door. I banged and yelled again and the third time a huge grin appeared with Carlos standing behind it.
“You are early”, he volunteered in his near perfect English. He appeared only to be clad in a large blue apron. “I thought you come later.”
“You never read my emails”, I scolded. “I am late, not early.”
“I have no time for emails, I clean bathroom”, he offered by way of explanation. “Come in, come in.”
He held open the door and I was relieved to see that the large blue apron was hiding a pair of khaki shorts.

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