A minisaga, mini saga or mini-saga is a short story based on a long story. It should contain exactly 50 words, plus a title of up to 15 characters. However, the title requirement is not always enforced and sometimes eliminated altogether. Minisagas are alternately known as microstories, ultra-shorts stories, or fifty-word stories.
The form was invented by writer
Brian Aldiss and the newspaper ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'', which has held several minisaga competitions, as has
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
.
Uses
Minisagas are used in business, as an educational tool, a creative outlet, and a source of entertainment. They are not poems, but rather "bite-sized lessons for life and business". They are often used to stimulate creativity, stretch one's thinking, determine the essential elements of a story, or enhance discipline in writing. They often attempt to be funny or surprising.
Below is an example by author
Daniel H. Pink
Daniel H. Pink (born July 23, 1964) is an American author. He has written seven books; five of them are ''New York Times'' bestsellers. He was a host and a co- executive producer of the 2014 National Geographic Channel social science TV series ...
:
When I was shot, fear seized me at first. No surprise that. But once I realized I wasn't going to die – despite the thermonuclear pain and widening puddle of weirdly warm blood – my mind recalibrated. And one thought, comforting yet disturbing, leapt into my head: I need to Tweet this.
There is a limited publishing market for minisagas, but minisaga contests are sometimes held by various publishers or websites, and a dedicated market for "50-word stories" exists a
FiftyWordStories.com with payments available for each month's strongest story.
See also
*
Drabble
A drabble is a short work of fiction of precisely one hundred words in length.["Winners ...](_blank)
*
Flash fiction
*
Literature
*
Short story
References
* Aldiss, Brian. Mini-Sagas: From the ''Daily Telegraph'' Competition 2001. Enitharmon, 2001.
Short story types
External links
*
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