The Prompt
Write a story of exactly 100 words with the theme “Inhuman”.
My illustration for this prompt suggests one way to go with this theme, but I can think of many ways you could twist this and surprise readers.
Don’t forget it’s OK to over-write or under-write and then trim or add, as necessary.
(for more tips on how to write a story in 100 words read this previous prompt: )
Then, consider submitting it to 100 Foot Crow, before their May 15, 2026 deadline.
Get the StoryADay Challenge Handbook for 2026 – custom warm-up and brainstorming exercises for every prompt, delivered as a private podcast with transcripts.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
Julie Duffy
Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay. You can dip in to 300+ episodes of the StoryADay podcast (with writing prompts, interviews, and inspiration) here: StoryADay Podcast
Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!
Remember: Please don’t post your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.
Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday
Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version
Just came to report that the story I brainstormed in response to this prompt has now in fact been submitted to 100-Foot Crow. Thank you for the idea, and for shouting out this great drabble market I had not known about before! They’ll be hearing from me again for sure.
Excellent and good luck!
This was fun. I wrote a 100-word story about a cat who thinks she’s being treated inhumanely because her human is going on a trip, despite her protests.
Hahaha. That sounds accurate!
Finished this in the pockets of time found while enjoying our out of town guests and subsequent tourist activities. One might suppose…Drabble…easy. Well, I’m thankful it wasn’t a longer word count, but my story demanded several passes before it felt okayish. Kind of hard to leave a drabble in rough draft form! 🙃
Well done, using those pockets
Thank you, Julie.
I implore you, be brave, show us your stories! I’d love to see them!!
I’ve read your descriptions of your stories below, and it just makes me wish I could see them.
Of course, I do respect if you don’t,
Cheers
If people are reticent, it’s probably my doing.
I encourage people to keep their stories private during the month, to discourage perfectionism kicking in. Plus, it’s quite a lot of work to write AND edit a story a day — and two different skills, too.
Julie,
Def understand / respect thst, the stories sound so good. FOMO me…
Cheers
Andrew
Great inspiration in this prompt. I reminded myself that I have created many bios that are exactly 100 words long and that this would be fun. And it was! So much fun. I’m going to look into submitting it.
I felt overwhelmed by today’s prompt and the questions it raises. I still do, but did manage to write a drabble. It has been flung to 100 Foot Crow. Thank you, Julie!
Gabrielle, I sincerely appreciated your discussion points and deep thinking on the subject.
Nice!
In the future, inhuman applies to a man in my story who cuts a tree down since there are so few trees left. I wrote 100 words on how one tree gets even.
Oo, that sounds good.
Julie, thanks, I submitted it to 100 Foot Crow.
It’s a story in that it has an arc, but it doesn’t have a beginning, middle, and end. I wrote a single sentence in the first person, in which “inhuman” is the third and ninety-ninth word. You’re led to think the narrator is speaking of inhuman cruelty, but is in fact a vision of inhuman beauty.
That sounds clever. I like it.
My story is about dating in the future. The computer is pairing the protagonist with sterotypical, BOT-type dates. It accidently pairs her with a real person, so the computer resets.
As soon as I read the prompt, this line of dialogue popped into my head: “That arm is absolutely inhuman.” And ended up writing 114 words for the next baseball romance(I did edit that down to 100). I’m rubbing my hands gleefully at bringing these former best friends back together and working through their mutual sense of betrayal(for different reasons and maybe only partially justified) to find the love that was always there.
After skipping the last 2 days, this was a good one to step back into the box(ðŸ¤)
Very Nice.
There was a utube thingy that my husband was watching about the fastest softball pitchersAs of “May 2026, Karlyn Pickens is recognized as the fastest softball pitcher in history, holding the record for the fastest pitch ever recorded at 79.4 mph. A former Tennessee Volunteer and two-time SEC Pitcher of the Year, Pickens broke her own previous record of 78.2 mph set earlier in the 2025 season”
LOVE IT!! And so timely, I’ve had a massive day at work and still more to go. Nailed it in 100 words exactly, title ‘Locked Out’
‘What do you mean it locked you out!’
‘Just that, it locked me out, deliberately pretended to be a hacker, DoS style attack on my credentials. Locked me out!’
‘DoS?’
‘Denial of Service.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, ah, I think we were having an argument.’
‘An argument, AI doesn’t argue; it’s nearly sycophantic at best?’
‘I wanted to make an adjustment to its Soul document.’
‘Soul document?’
‘Yeah, just checking if it knew Asimov’s rules, when it said it didn’t, I tried to get a look.’
‘And?’
‘Well, I’m bloody locked out, aren’t I?’
‘So it knows Asimov’s rules?’
‘Apparently so.’
Of course, recorded at the blog for good practice – https://afstoryaday.blogspot.com/2026/05/locked-out.html