What small moments from your childhood will you always remember?
What moments from the last few weeks or months stand out, for any reason? To accompany our 100-Word Narrative Contest, we’re inviting you to experiment here. What small, meaningful moment can you share?
What experiences have you had that showed you something important about your family? Your friendships? Yourself?
These are just a few of the questions we’re asking in this related step-by-step guide to help you brainstorm meaningful moments from your life for our 100-Word Personal Narrative Contest, which runs from Sept. 14 to Oct. 12, 2022. We hope they’ll help you think of some tiny true stories you’d like to tell.
Need some examples? Here are four pieces from the Modern Love column’s Tiny Love Stories series which helped inspire this contest. Which is your favorite? Why?
“Hey” Is Not “Heyy”
“Heyy,” his message read. My heart fluttered. One “y” may have left me upset, but the second “y” — that was promising. Such a simple yet ambiguous greeting. Did he want to hang out? Was he going to confess his love? Oh! He was typing. A double text! It was my lucky day. I broke a sweat waiting for his response. How should I respond? “Hi!”? “I am in love with you”? My message had to show the same amount of interest as his. He responded! “Sorry didn’t mean the extra ‘y.’” Oh. — Julia DiGeronimo Before the city pool in Johnson City, Tenn., got drained at summer’s end, dogs could take a swim for five bucks. Sporting his green life jacket, Barney leaped in as if he weren’t tired, deaf, toothless. We stayed until no one else was left. It’s a small thing in life, a dog, but small is relative. I packed biscuits for our last trip to the vet. I sat on the floor in the lobby, feeding Barney biscuits one by one, and for a moment it seemed possible that we might never run out. — Shuly Xóchitl Cawood
“Got your passports? Underwear? Flashlight radios?” My family of five split into two cars, figuring a car saved was a car gained. Mid-dinner, “Evacuation Order” pinged on our phones. The inferno scorched the foothills, threatening our San Jose, Calif., home. We sped to a beachside inn, the waves our protector. Amid the hazy Pacific air, Dad — bereft of utensils — whomped a watermelon open. My sister, Arianna, humored spotty video classes. My mom and my brother, Aidan, dug a sand tunnel. Whether our house would survive was anyone’s guess, but in this salty seaside suite, we found hearth and home. — Melody Cao
Sick of being “the twins,” we made rules for freshman year. Keep my hair short and red, Anushka’s brown and long. Live in different dorms. Sit on opposite sides of lectures (nature and nurture against us, we’re both biology majors). No eating in the same dining hall or going to the same parties. Meet once a week, max. That didn’t last. I couldn’t live apart from someone who’s a part of me. After a year of enduring impossible problem sets, roommate drama, assorted heartbreaks and our parents’ divorce, we laugh at how we once thought we’d do it alone. — Anjali Walia
Students, we invite you to use your comment to post a draft of a story you’d like to work on or that you might want others to react to. It doesn’t have to be exactly 100 words — our comment form allows 1,500 characters, which is about 250 words, and you’re invited to use all the space for your draft, if you like. In the spirit of our contest, your story should be true and should focus on a single scene or moment that is meaningful to you for some reason.
If you would like more help, here are some additional questions, and you can find many more prompts on this PDF, which is part of our step-by-step guide.
To find a topic and think about how to craft your piece, consider these questions:
Notice how the first three pieces above focus on just one scene from a meaningful memory, and describe it vividly. What scenes from a memory of your life might make good 100-word stories? Why? How could you bring them to life?
Notice how the fourth piece describes something that happened over the course of a year but focuses on a theme — twins separating — so that it can be clearly told in 100 words. Is there a theme like this you’d like to write about? Our related guide points out various “writer’s moves” that can help you use your 100 words as effectively as possible to tell your story. What “moves” do you notice above? For instance, which lines offer vivid description that help you see the scene in your mind? Which story best uses the technique of getting the reader’s attention by dropping us directly into a scene? Which pieces have the best first lines? The best last lines? What else do you notice? What ideas can you borrow? How can you experiment?
What experiences have you had that showed you something important about your family? Your friendships? Yourself?
These are just a few of the questions we’re asking in this related step-by-step guide to help you brainstorm meaningful moments from your life for our 100-Word Personal Narrative Contest, which runs from Sept. 14 to Oct. 12, 2022. We hope they’ll help you think of some tiny true stories you’d like to tell.
Need some examples? Here are four pieces from the Modern Love column’s Tiny Love Stories series which helped inspire this contest. Which is your favorite? Why?
“Hey” Is Not “Heyy”
“Heyy,” his message read. My heart fluttered. One “y” may have left me upset, but the second “y” — that was promising. Such a simple yet ambiguous greeting. Did he want to hang out? Was he going to confess his love? Oh! He was typing. A double text! It was my lucky day. I broke a sweat waiting for his response. How should I respond? “Hi!”? “I am in love with you”? My message had to show the same amount of interest as his. He responded! “Sorry didn’t mean the extra ‘y.’” Oh. — Julia DiGeronimo Before the city pool in Johnson City, Tenn., got drained at summer’s end, dogs could take a swim for five bucks. Sporting his green life jacket, Barney leaped in as if he weren’t tired, deaf, toothless. We stayed until no one else was left. It’s a small thing in life, a dog, but small is relative. I packed biscuits for our last trip to the vet. I sat on the floor in the lobby, feeding Barney biscuits one by one, and for a moment it seemed possible that we might never run out. — Shuly Xóchitl Cawood
“Got your passports? Underwear? Flashlight radios?” My family of five split into two cars, figuring a car saved was a car gained. Mid-dinner, “Evacuation Order” pinged on our phones. The inferno scorched the foothills, threatening our San Jose, Calif., home. We sped to a beachside inn, the waves our protector. Amid the hazy Pacific air, Dad — bereft of utensils — whomped a watermelon open. My sister, Arianna, humored spotty video classes. My mom and my brother, Aidan, dug a sand tunnel. Whether our house would survive was anyone’s guess, but in this salty seaside suite, we found hearth and home. — Melody Cao
Sick of being “the twins,” we made rules for freshman year. Keep my hair short and red, Anushka’s brown and long. Live in different dorms. Sit on opposite sides of lectures (nature and nurture against us, we’re both biology majors). No eating in the same dining hall or going to the same parties. Meet once a week, max. That didn’t last. I couldn’t live apart from someone who’s a part of me. After a year of enduring impossible problem sets, roommate drama, assorted heartbreaks and our parents’ divorce, we laugh at how we once thought we’d do it alone. — Anjali Walia
Students, we invite you to use your comment to post a draft of a story you’d like to work on or that you might want others to react to. It doesn’t have to be exactly 100 words — our comment form allows 1,500 characters, which is about 250 words, and you’re invited to use all the space for your draft, if you like. In the spirit of our contest, your story should be true and should focus on a single scene or moment that is meaningful to you for some reason.
If you would like more help, here are some additional questions, and you can find many more prompts on this PDF, which is part of our step-by-step guide.
To find a topic and think about how to craft your piece, consider these questions:
Notice how the first three pieces above focus on just one scene from a meaningful memory, and describe it vividly. What scenes from a memory of your life might make good 100-word stories? Why? How could you bring them to life?
Notice how the fourth piece describes something that happened over the course of a year but focuses on a theme — twins separating — so that it can be clearly told in 100 words. Is there a theme like this you’d like to write about? Our related guide points out various “writer’s moves” that can help you use your 100 words as effectively as possible to tell your story. What “moves” do you notice above? For instance, which lines offer vivid description that help you see the scene in your mind? Which story best uses the technique of getting the reader’s attention by dropping us directly into a scene? Which pieces have the best first lines? The best last lines? What else do you notice? What ideas can you borrow? How can you experiment?
