I'm stealing this from another forum I visit.

The idea is incredibly simple. You can write a story about anything you want, but it has to be exactly 600 words. 600 was chosen because the original creator of this game would set out to write a 500 word story, and always overshoot it by about 70 or 80 words. She decided 600 was just easier.

Feel free to comment on stories that are posted in this thread, and to give other participants meaningful, polite feedback.

Tips
- Use http://www.spellcheck.net to check the length of your story (and to spell check, obviously)

- Initially shoot for 500 words, you'll almost definitely run over by at least a little

- Make every sentence count; be poetic.

- The idea here is to tell an entire story, however simple or complicated. Make sure you write a beginning, middle, and end.

- Your title/author lines DO NOT count against your wordcount.

- Have fun! This is a valuable creative writing exercise.

I'll start us off...

Like A Ghost Story
By Status

I was about fourteen miles from Vandalia, Illinois, surrounded by corn for about as many miles in any direction. My red Chevy S-10 was caked with grime from the rain-soaked country roads, to the point that even the hood looked almost brown. It was one of those brutal nights where you prayed to God you didn't break down or find a deer in your headlights. I found a woman.

Unless you're living out a bad ghost story, a girl in a white dress at the site of the road isn't something you come across very often, especially not fifteen miles deep into raccoon country. But there she was, her figure glowing brilliantly in my high-beams. Of all the times to find a damsel in distress, I had to find one with the storm of the goddamn century closing in. But even Old Scratch couldn't have left her out in the weather to rot. I pulled right along side her and rolled down the passenger window, offering her a ride with the closest thing to a boyish grin I could muster. She quickly muttered something about rides with strangers, but I assured her I was a Christian gentleman. It was a half-truth at best, but not an outright lie; the "man" part was on the level.

She stepped into the cab of the truck right as the rain began to pour, hunching over on the seat and pulling her legs up into the fetal position. At first I figured she was cold, but then it dawned on me in this weather, that pretty white dress wasn't doing much for her modestly. I flipped on the dome light and grabbed my work shirt from the floorboard, handing it up to her. She was a redhead. That was all I needed. Beautiful as anything though, even soaked and filthy as she was. She took the shirt and put it on, buttoning it with trembling hands. I pulled off the shoulder and headed towards Vandalia, and a dull silence set in.

"My name is Breeze," she said after a mile of stone quiet. "The hell it is," I replied with a smile. She laughed a bit and softly repeated "The hell it is..."

More relaxed, she finally offered up her story, explaining that her boyfriend had taken her back on the dirt roads to try to get a little. When she'd refused, he threw her out of his car and left her. The story was bullshit, but probably happier than the truth. None of my business anyway.

For the next ten miles, we spoke of her love for coffee and The Beatles, and the bottle of White Shoulders she'd bought just for tonight. "The most magical night of her life," she'd softly mused to herself. After that, nothing else was said until we reached Vandalia. We stopped at the first gas station, and she thanked me for the ride. As she got out, I told her I was sorry. Hell if I knew what for. She flashed me the most gentle smile I'd ever seen, and walked up to the pay phone. I jumped out of my truck and walked into the station, figuring I'd hang around just long enough to make sure she got a ride. I bought her a cup of coffee and headed back out in to the rain. She was nowhere to be found.

Like a goddamn ghost story, I guess. I never got my work shirt back. And my truck still smells like White Shoulders.

Hey Stat. That's pretty darn good. And it's tough writing short than it is long. And man that's a pretty sweet story. (Sweet as in "ebonics" sweet, not sweet as in "awww... that's sweet).

600 words huh? Challenge. I might give it a go if I got a story running around.

Okay, this topic looked far too interesting to pass up. So naturally, i decided to try it. I sat down and wrote for about an hour and came up with this. Unfortunately when i did a word count, it only came up to 480. ugh.

Not wanting to spoil it by adding more than what i deemed was necessary to the story i decided against trying for 600. Anyway thats enough rambling from me, heres the story.

the black widow
sbn

The pernicious temptation of somatic wealth had consumed Layla’s being. The incessant waves of opulent reverie had drowned her better judgment and common sense. Soon she would find herself plotting her husband’s demise in nothing short of an industrious fashion.

Armed with the esoteric certainty of a myriad of better times ahead with her new found romance, she washed down her wedding ring with poison and kerosene. A sordid respite from her typical routine morning with the one whom had pledged undying loyalty and love to her. The flames danced to the decadent waltz in her eyes as she smiled in banal callousness.

And it came to pass; the bloodstained lucre was in her hands. Merry making was in order and so she danced and dined in alfresco together with her completely ignorant lover, oblivious to the tragedy that had led to his current luxury. However, the jubilance would be short lived. As even the most beautiful of objects are eventually bedridden by fallacy.

It dawned unto her slowly, but fate would have it that she would understand the trifling apprehension she felt was not to be ignored. She quickly came to realise that the paint was chipping from the illusion of comfort she had painted so immaculately, yet she could do nothing but watch in moral disdain. The calamitous show had left her crestfallen. Her partner, completely ignorant of her plight, belittled himself and exalted an air of vainglory in wake of her wretchedness of late. This only assisted in the horrid comprehension of her quandary, leaving her with no choice but to attempt to rationalise and cast curses at her conscience.

The intrinsic storm raged into an unbearable tempest and served as the spark to turn her sanity to cinders. With much time wasted contemplating, she had reached the mordant conclusion that the love of her life was not the one she shared her bed with at the moment but instead the one she had set afire to no more than a December ago.

The comedy of it all had forced a wistful smile upon her face, which she had on her when she decided to free her current partner from his earthly shackles.

Sauntering through the rain, she had chanced upon a familiar street and in the ruins of a charred edifice, she spotted the swing where so much of her life had been squandered. Sitting in silence was the least she could do in an otiose effort to contain that lunacy that was now filling the hollow she had created by slaying the two men who could bring themselves to adore her.

Her pupils dilated and she felt at ease with the plethora of colours that danced just beyond the edge of the swing. The chill of the rainy night was of no comparison to the icy touch of loneliness that now so boldly caressed her.

I tried to write as fast as I could. Spell-checked and word-counted with MS Word. Trimmed several words out before remembering not to count my title, which was 20 words long, and replaced 20 words. Fun.
===

Addressed From: Misquote, Dreamland, Somewhere At Home (In A Corner Of A Mind Where All Seemed Benign)
By “da dick”

Richard did not vaguely remember himself ever waking up. But here he was, toothbrush in hand, facing a basin too tall. He was on a stand. He peeked at the mirror for some clue. Did he have too much of the brew that night that went so brusquely? “What be this? I am 10 metres off the toilet floor!” Was this an odd concoction from his poppycock mind? “Alas poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio,” a faint echo somehow vibrated through the looking glass. “Excuse, sir?” replied Richard, as if he was expecting the mirror to swing open like a door. But there was his mistake, for he fell through the floor, as the 10-metre stand vanished beneath him. Fell through and through, layers of layers, of toilets that were over 10-metres tall, with tiles that were as thin and crispy as waxed paper.

“I definitely do not remember waking up!” A grey figure carefully placed a folded paper into an envelope.

Richard finally landed at one end of a cemetery. A quiet one. No bones of Yorick here. And no kindly ears for Horatio, to listen to any passionate plays, if any were to be found in a remembering place. He walked on a million paces, which his conscious mind could not count, and his sub-conscious was a little too abstract and aloof to bother. Cracking noise soon disturbed his forgetful pacing. Ribs. Spare ribs. They were everywhere on the burial grounds. And from that ground came a monster fuming with rage, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned!” A crusty finger pointed accusingly at Richard. As the moon shined its light on the form of judgement, he could recognise a familiar female shape, whom he could still smell in his hair. “You’re that whore, ” he snapped, returning the finger. “I paid you and finished the business, so be gone with you. I do not deserve this!” The creature responded with a disapproving shake of its head. “Play it”, it commanded as it snapped what looked like fingers and an opposing stick.

“I still do not believe I deserved that…” The figure’s unseen tongue licked an impossible stamp.

The static on the screen seemed to shiver with excitement before it remembered Technicolor and finally the channel was tuned to some classic black & white talkie. A man, sitting opposite to Richard, soon raised his glass elaborately, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

“Nnooooooo!!!” exclaimed the very handsome lady with a feather boa named Richard.

“I did not deserve that”, said the shadowy figure that once was Richard. “Now how do I send this and to whom? To where!? And to where it would go, what is this place as defined from there?” He that was once someone who may or may not be he who once was at one point and many others (but who’s to say, who’s to say…), brood on when a raven landed on his shoulder one day (but he couldn’t tell which day, if there was day today (or night)). “Yes friend”, he looked the raven in the eye like a comrade-in-arms, ”Tell me I am not weak. That I may return from the edge of this misplacing world. That this end of words (twisted, abused, and forgotten) scares me not. I still exist sane and my words are my own, however similar they are to others.” And the letter he held turned to ash, and ash to eyes (his own), and into raven eyes and tongue. The raven that is Richard must find oneself.