So you are on a small break or on a short journey and want to read some fiction that can easily be completed in no time, then there can’t be a better option than reading Micro or Flash Fiction which is even shorter than any short story and can be finished in just a few minutes.
Related: Flash Fiction Examples
Contents
What is Microfiction?
Microfiction is the shortest form of a story, sometimes as low as 50 words in length, but typically, a short fiction written between 100-500 words is considered Microfiction.
By the way, there is no official definition of microfiction and whatever we know about this short work of fiction is basically it’s flash fiction, but when shorter works of fiction appeared with fewer word counts they started getting a new name and so our microfiction.
Now, according to Wikipedia, a 100-word long short fiction is called a drabble, aka microfiction.
Related: 101 Flash Fiction Writing prompts
A well-written work of these short fiction can also impact and entertain the readers same as they get amused by reading a short story or a lengthy novel.
Examples of MicroFiction
The Toilet Paper
(500 words)
Little Lilly was so upset after the loss of Pluto, her beloved pet dog.
She was missing him so much, and in grief, she didn’t even come for dinner and went to sleep without eating.
But later at midnight, something very strange happened, Lilly got awake after hearing a loud peculiar sound.
She soon got shocked to hear the bark of Pluto coming from her wardrobe.
She slowly approached the wardrobe in fear.
Now the bark had stopped.
With her trembling little hands, Lilly opened the wardrobe.
The bark of Pluto had started again.
Soon afterward, she heard a strange voice, “Don’t be scared Lilly it’s me your friend Pluto”.
“Please just come inside the wardrobe, we will have lots of fun together”, the voice said.
Lilly got shocked to hear all this and asked in her trembling voice;
“Are you the ghost of Pluto and how can you speak?”.
“I really don’t know what I am, just trust me and come inside the wardrobe and close it from the inside, then you can see me”, the voice replied.
Somehow, Lilly dared and came inside the wardrobe.
As soon as she closed the doors, she found herself in a completely different world where everything was extremely beautiful and made of colors that she had never seen before.
“Am I in heaven!”, Lilly exclaimed.
“Maybe, but we call it the good world”, a young boy standing behind her replied.
“Who are you now? ”, Lilly asked.
“I am Pluto, my dear Lilly”, the boy replied.
“How you can be my Pluto? He was a dog”, she asked.
“No, it is really me, right now I’m a boy so I can talk to you as you know dogs just bark, they can’t talk”, the boy replied with a heavenly smile on his face.
But Lilly was yet not convinced.
She said, “I won’t believe it, If you are Pluto then tell me what was his favorite playing toy?”.
“It’s toilet paper my favorite”, Pluto replied.
“Oh my god! It’s truly you Pluto, my Pluto”, Lilly exclaimed with excitement.
“Now you know”, Pluto replied, “Let me take you to a special place, come with me”.
Lilly started following him, but soon got stopped.
“I know it’s you my Pluto, but yet I’m missing my real Pluto, my dog”, said Lilly.
“Oh!, so I need to turn into a dog again, ok, just put your hands on your eyes, cause I’m feeling a little shy doing it”, said Pluto.
“I’ve closed my eyes, Can I see you now? ”, just after a while Lilly asked.
“No, wait, it’s happening”, Pluto replied, but this time with a strange dog-kind of voice.
“I can’t wait for more, can I open my eyes now”, Lilly was barely holding herself from looking.
“Lill baby got up, you are late for school”, Lilly heard her mom’s voice and promptly opened her eyes but found herself on her bed.
“Was this all a dream?”, she asked herself.
Lilly got up and went inside the wardrobe and closed it again, but this time nothing happened.
“So it was all an amazing dream”, Lilly said to herself in a sad voice, she closed the wardrobe and was leaving the room.
But soon the wardrobe got opened itself and a toilet paper roll dropped with a written message-“Tonight”.
Lilly smiled.
Genre- Children’s Literature
The Graveyard Guy
Alex was on a long road trip outside the city to reach his project site.
Later, on the way his car got a breakdown, he tried hard but couldn’t restart the car.
But soon a young man with a peaceful grin on his face knocked on his car window and said,
“Brother do you need any help”
Alex was first surprised to see the young man suddenly appearing from nowhere on the dark lonely road.
But he promptly said “Yes, yes, please help”, and elaborated on his situation that he is getting late to reach somewhere where his presence is very crucial.
The young man smiled and said,
“Some years back, he also got late in reaching a place, but now he always reaches everywhere in time as he reached here to help him”
Alex giggled but found the words of that man a little strange.
Soon the sweet, but strange man opened the car bonnet and started repairing it.
Alex couldn’t see him, but he started talking to him.
Alex said that he is very kind, and no one helps a stranger these days then asked what he was doing there alone at night, Is he works or lives somewhere nearby, and what his name is?
The man didn’t answer anything and just asked Alex to restart the car.
Soon the car got started, but Alex found something strange, the car’s bonnet was yet opened.
Alex got down from the car to at least say thank you to the young stranger for his kind help but he found no one outside.
Alex already had gotten so late for the meeting at the site that he didn’t even care much about the young stranger and left the place.
The next day when he was returning back home, he got shocked and frightened to see the place where his car had broken down had nothing except a graveyard.
Genre– Horror Fiction
George and Mr. Green In the Time Machine
(400 Words)
Once there was a little boy, George Harper, who was living with his Uncle, Johnny, and his aunt, Nancy after his parents went missing.
George’s father Henry and his mother, Jean, were geologists and never returned from an adventurous expedition trip and were believed to be dead.
Little Harper was loved a lot by his uncle Johnny as he and Nancy had no child, so Johnny always took good care of George as his own son but yet his aunt Nancy never liked him.
Nancy always had an argument with Johnny sending him to boarding school, but Johnny never listened to her.
George was very shy and barely used to talking with anybody.
But he had a friend from his neighborhood, Grace Green the daughter of a renowned and weird physics professor.
Mr. Green was a weird man and wanted to build a time machine.
After doing his day job as a head lecturer at the famous city university, he spends his whole night doing weird experiments in his home laboratory.
The neighborhood of Mr. Green was fed up with watching every night colored-flashy lights and smoke coming from his house.
His weird experiments were the main reason that let Mr. Green’s wife Rebecca, leave him and started living with her parents, but Grace decided to live with his dad.
But George was very fond of watching the colored lights coming from Mr. Green’s house.
He was the only person whom Mr. Green had allowed to enter his house and even his laboratory as George never doubted Mr. Green’s ambitions.
He used to ask many questions related to their experiments.
Very happily, Mr. Green used to answer every question curious George and told George about his secret time machine project on which he was working for many years.
Mr. Green had also promised little George that one day soon he will take him to his parents in his time machine.
Then one day the whole neighborhood gathered after Mr. Green’s house.
Everyone was shocked to see the house of Mr. Green missing its place along with Mr. Green, Grace, and little George.
Genre– Science Fiction
The Fat Queen
(500 Words)
Once upon a time, there was a queen named Alina, who was the fattest woman in the whole kingdom.
Queen Alina was normal before, but because of an unknown disease her weight rapidly increased and she became very fat.
The queen tried every possible way to cure her disease, but she failed.
Now some people of the kingdom had started making fun of the queen, behind her back they used to call her the fat and ugly queen Alina.
Wherever Queen Alina used to go anywhere, everyone stared at her with surprise and like they were watching a creature.
When King John got to know the behavior of his people toward her queen, he got very angry and ordered every person in the kingdom to eat more and look fat so that no one will make fun of her.
The queen tried to stop the king’s order, but he listened to no one.
King John even ordered his guards to throw everyone outside the kingdom who was not following his orders.
Afraid of the king, most of the people, including children started eating more.
For those people who were poor and couldn’t afford to eat more, the guards of the kingdom used to provide extra food to eat.
Every month, some guards used to measure the weight of every person in the kingdom, and who were not found increasing their weight, the guards used to destroy their houses and displace them from the kingdom.
After a year and a half, everyone in the kingdom, including children was fat and overweight.
But now the teenager turned princess Bella had started feeling abnormal and odd as whomever she saw in the kingdom looked fat and even all her friends were so chubby and overweight but she was not.
The princess said to her mother that she also wants to look like everyone else.
Her mother told her that it was a punishment given by her father to the people of the kingdom, not to us.
The princess replied that now all her friends make fun of her as she doesn’t look like them.
The queen didn’t know what to do for her daughter.
Soon depressed Bella also started eating more to look like everyone else and like her friends.
The king and queen tried everything to stop her, but the princess never listened to them and one day she got very ill because of her new overeating habit.
Looking at his own sick and overweight daughter the king realized his great mistake.
Finally, the king revoked his order and asked everyone to stop overeating.
The queen apologized on behalf of the king to her people and said that just because some people made fun of her obesity, the king punished the whole kingdom.
The people of the kingdom also apologized for their mistake and said now they know how it feels to be fat and overweight and asked the king and queen to forgive them.
After a few months, some became successful in turning themselves into what they looked like before, but for most people, it was so hard to leave their new overeating habit.
The king and the whole kingdom learned the hard truth – “you reap what you saw”.
All Micro-fiction and Flash Fiction Examples are by Neel Rana, author ”The Drunken Ghost” .
Copyright © Neel Rana
(This literary work can be used for academics purpose only.)
About the Author-
Neel Rana is a YA short story author, flash fiction writer, literary enthusiast, and the founder of Pandora Post. Neel holds a degree in BA Honours in English Literature and has been writing since 2017. Neel’s magnum opus YA short storybook, “The Drunken Ghost” has been well received by the readers.
