Week 12 Lab: Tiny Love Stories

For the story lab this week, I chose to look into learning about microfiction! I've only heard the term "microfiction" from this class, and I'm also pretty sure I've never read any microfiction before now – or at least any specific that I can remember. 

For me, I honestly do not like to read things that are long. A story has to be short, simple and sweet to keep me engaged and wanting to read enough to finish it. That's why every week for the reading notes I always go for the section of "multiple shorter stories" because that's how I stay engaged and honestly get through doing the readings in this class. 

This type of storytelling is fascinating to me. Completely opposite of my reading style – I seem to always write THE longest stories. If a discussion post is only supposed to be 100 words, I'm that gal that'll write 300 or so (yes, I'm one of those people). Being able to condense a story down to 100 words that still gets the whole story and point across is a skill that I'm trying to master and I think is super impressive!

For this assignment, I read the "Tiny Love Stories" section of the New York Times, where short 100 word stories about real couples and their love life are posted weekly. If you've read any of my content, you know I work in the wedding industry and love love, so the instant I read that topic name for this assignment I was hooked in! It was SO sweet to get a small look into a couple's darling love story – my heart was bursting!

While we have very limited storytelling options left for this class, I think I will try and squeeze a microfiction writing into one of them. It's going to be a challenge because I like to ramble on, but this gives me a writing challenge and an opportunity to grow my writing skills – so I'm all for it!

Photo of a spray painted wall with hearts

(Taken by Renee Fisher on Unsplash)

"Tiny Love Stories: 'I Had to Take Your Picture'," The New York Times by Brian Rea