The Prompt
Write a short story in which the title is longer than the short story itself
Things To Consider
If you’re looking for a more serious take on titles, listen to this podcast episode where I talk all about titles, and download my Terrific Titles Guide.
Sometimes contents and anthologies call for stories of a very particular word count. I am often asked if the title counts towards the limit.
It does not.
Therefore, if you’re feeling cheeky, it can be fun to write a story with a ridiculously long title.
In fact, this year I heard of a contest that called for exactly this: a story with a title longer than the body of the story. In this case you may find yourself playing with the premise of a story for a while before you begin to compose the finished article.
You may need to get up and pace around or go for a long walk, or, if you happen to read this at the start of the day, mull over it all day before you sit down to write. Sometimes that’s how writing goes.
The title you end up with will probably do the work that’s usually done by the opening paragraphs of a more traditional story: establishing the setting, the tone, the character, their desire and the obstacle to that desire.
The story itself will probably take the form of an ‘answer’ to the puzzle you set up in the story. I’d aim for a title that uses up 2/3 of the total word count, and a ‘story’ that is no more than 1/3 of the words. Here are some examples of short stories pretty long titles, but I think we could take similar ideas and expand them in interesting ways.
My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened to the Lion Tamer – Brendan Matthews
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven – Sherman Alexie
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – Raymond Carver
These are novels, but I hope they’ll give you a sense of what I’m looking for today:
No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain’t Never Coming Home Again; A Symphonic Novel – Edgardo Vega Yunqué
Or how about this well-known novel that are rarely given its full title?
The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery – Charles Dickens
And my absolute favorite:
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates – Daniel Defoe
Could you write a title like that and a quick one-sentence riposte as the body of the story?
One of my favorite things about short stories is their ability to defy expectations.
See what you can do with this challenge today. Leave a comment and let us know know how you got on. Was this faster than usual? Slower? Fun? Annoying? Join the discussion!
Leave a comment and let us know how it went!
Upgrade now to the Online Challenge Handbook
Get the Challenge Handbook, with helper videos, audio and text PLUS daily warm ups and brainstorming exercises designed to jumpstart your writing, daily.
Write with us during May or go at your own pace.
Access immediately. (Will stay online as long as I’m running StoryADay!)
Only $31 during the challenge. Price increases to $97 on June 1, 2024
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
(I hope this doesn’t post twice. I tried clicking my first post to edit it, and it vanished.)
I didn’t have time to do this until tonight, but it was fun.
Title: In Which I, Your Noble, Sleep Deprived, Mysterious, and also Remarkably Gorgeous, Heroine, Sink Deeper and Deeper into Despair Following Horrific Tragedy of Incomparable Sorrow, From Which I Will Likely Never Recover, or at the Very Least Not Until Friday, That Thrust Me Into Excruciating Agony of Epic Proportions, Making Me Threaten To Murder The Deplorable One, Who Had Dared Commit This Abominable Crime, With a Spork, And Then Weep Uncontrollably on the Floor Begging God For a Miracle, Before Succumbing to the Irresistible Temptation to Run Around Screaming As Loud As I Could in a Duck Costume with a Hideous Hat, while Brandishing Previously Mentioned Spork, Causing My Ancient Yoga Obsessed Neighbor Mrs. Tammany Fiddlesticks-Sneep to Call the Police, Who Would Have Locked Me In An Insane Asylum if It Weren’t For My Grandmother and Her Black Belt in Karate.
Story: “I need a lawyer,” I whispered, scrunching into a ball, cheek pressed to the tile. “A therapist. Revenge.” Josh had eaten the last cookie. He knew it was NaNo, that Alfonso had died, that killing characters made me hungry, and he had still done it. I sniffled. Dad wouldn’t make more till Friday! “Beetle headed, flap eared, knave,” I muttered, and burst into tears. Dear God, what did I do to deserve this?
I didn’t get to write this till tonight because I was so busy, but it was fun.
Title: In Which I, Your Noble, Sleep Deprived, Mysterious, and also Remarkably Gorgeous, Heroine, Sink Deeper and Deeper into Despair Following Horrific Tragedy of Incomparable Sorrow, From Which I Will Likely Never Recover, or at the Very Least Not Until Friday, That Thrust Me Into Excruciating Agony of Epic Proportions, Making Me Threaten To Murder The Deplorable One, Who Had Dared Commit This Abominable Crime, With a Spork, And Then Weep Uncontrollably on the Floor Begging God For a Miracle, Before Succumbing to the Irresistible Temptation to Run Around Screaming As Loud As I Could in a Duck Costume with a Hideous Hat, while Brandishing Previously Mentioned Spork, Causing My Ancient Yoga Obsessed Neighbor Mrs. Tammany Fiddlesticks-Sneep to Call the Police, Who Would Have Locked Me In An Insane Asylum if It Weren’t For My Grandmother and Her Black Belt in Karate.
“I need a lawyer,” I whispered, scrunching into a ball, cheek pressed to the tile. “A therapist. Revenge.” Josh had eaten the last cookie. He knew it was NaNo, that Alfonso had died, that killing characters made me hungry, and he had still done it. I sniffled. Dad wouldn’t make more till Friday! “Beetle headed, flap eared, knave,” I muttered, and burst into tears. “Dear God, what did I do to deserve this?”
This was fun =)
Very fun assignment but as you can tell my title and story need a whole lot of work.
Title: The enterprising hedgehog who disguises herself to outwit Predator Owl so Mrs. Hedgehog can leave her burrow without Owl eating her but Owl catches her husband and forces him to say where entrance to burrow is then Mrs. Hedgehog has to think of a new way to get her and their children out safely with hopes that if she does their family can move to a safer part of the forest and hopefully Mr. Hedgehog will get away and follow them.
Story body:
Mrs. Hedgehog decided the only way to get Owl off her family’s back was to blow up their lovely burrow which may distract Owl enough that they can flee and she can only hope the Owl will let loose of her husband.
Title: The day Marvelous Milly woke-up with a cold and tried to write a very a long title for a writing prompt.
Story: She gave up and crawled back into bed.
It’s a semi-autobiographical story. Ha! But, in all seriousness, I am so impressed with everyone else’s work.
Semi-autobiographical and somewhat meta. Nice.
I feel the prompt on the first day, where I was writing ridiculously long sentences in order to limit myself to five of them, was good practice for this. My title is 152 words and the story 53.
That One Time When Vanya Ignored Her Long Standing Policy of Staying the Hell Out of Her Beloved Cousin’s Love Life in Order to Introduce Him to a Recently Met Acquittance of Hers Who Reported Having a Crush On Him and Who Was Worlds More Age Appropriate for Him than the Much, Much Older Woman He Had Been Seeing for the Last Year in Addition to Being Exactly His Historical Type But Who Turned Out to Be a Toxic and Abusive Bitch Who Led Him into a Destructive Slide that Almost Crushed His Joyful Spirit Completely and Nearly Destroyed Everything Vanya Loved About Her Favorite Family Member and Which Took Him Years to Recover from, Which in Turn Led Vanya to Years of Guilt, Regret, and Therapy as well as a Renewal of Her Vow to Let the Boy Make His Own Poor Life Choices Without Her Assistance for the Rest of Forever
“Vil!” Vanya rushed over to her cousin, her new friend in tow. “Meet Istle. She did that painting you liked and has some questions about hockey.”
She left as quickly as she arrived and was pleased the two chatted for the rest of the party. The match was effectively made. Go Vanya!
Love the title! 😂
The Bizarre and Apocryphal Story Of A Prodigious Feat Of Gustatorial Legerdemain By Herman Beemer Wallace, World Renowned Champion Hotdog Eater And Chicken Wing Devourer and Sole Acceptor Of The Challenge Of Consuming An Entire Horse In One Sitting.
He died, of course, when he swallowed the horse.
The End
Of course. 🙂
This was fun! I ended up with a 37-word title to a two-word story.
I used this as my first autobiographical piece. It was fun. Sixty-two words in the title. Thirty-four in the body.
I wrote three attempts at this prompt. The first one’s title and story body had the exact same number of words. 😉
Another fun one. Fifty-two words of title, thirty-two words of story, not a seriously meant word among them.
The prompt put me in mind of the classic animated short, “Bambi Meets Godzilla.” If you haven’t seen it, here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4oUuRBnEkE The title isn’t long, but the credits and acknowledgements are a lot longer than the action.
Here is my link to the prompt on my blog. I post all of these in my daily prompt writing. This was definitely a strange prompt. I hope I was able to grasp the meaning of what you were looking for.
https://tessadeanauthor.wordpress.com/2024/05/07/title-longer-than-story-storyaday-2024-day-7/
This was fun. My warm up & brainstorm were longer than the actual story(including the title). My title does include a spoiler for my Jax of All Trade series(although I’m pretty sure everyone except Lou knew where it was heading 😉) This is not quite the plot of the next book, although the dialogue-only story appears in some form in pretty much every book(and I think even this comment is longer than my story😂)
Lou Arrives For a Job and Finds a Dead Body Instead, Putting Their Life and Relationship In Jeopardy As They Go About Not Keeping Their Nose Out of Their Boyfriend’s Case.
“I found the killer for you.”
“And I almost lost you. Again. Please, Lou.”
“You won’t get rid of me that easily.”
I haven’t written anything yet today. But this is a great challenge. For me the title is the hardest part of my story. I usually change it multiple times. But I’m going to think about this while I’m at work today. I’m up for this challenge.