Whence the "Drabble"? Whither the "Drabble"?

[capri0mni]

So -- I first encountered drabbles (complete stories of exactly 100 words) a few years ago, while lurking in alt.drwho.creative. And from what I can tell, the form seems to be tightly bound up in fan fiction.

There are 485 Live Journal communities that list drabbles as an interest, and only one (as far as I can tell) dedicated exclusively to original drabbles: 100drabbles; it has 4 members, including myself, and I'm the only one to have posted anything since the moderator's intro. All the other communities are for fan fiction -- of all sorts, but still fan fiction.

Not even Google links to the fiction definition of "drabble" (just the verb: "to make or become wet and soiled by dragging"). In August 2001, someone did start this thread on the Mudcat Cafe, though that the word "drabble" doesn't show up until March 2003.

Anyway, that got me wondering: Where did drabbling begin? And who decided to call the first one a "Drabble"? And what can we do to get the drabble going outside various fandoms (Where, for legal reasons, it must fly below the radar)?

The tips for writing drabbles found here: Drabbleology (a site dedicated to SGWun fandom) are good writing habits for any genre of fiction, and a drabble can truly be a thing of beauty. I'd love to see it taken seriously as a form of literature, and for drabble anthologies to start sprouting up in our bookstores and at poetry readings in our local coffee shops.

... just saying... just curious...

Comments

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

ADAIK they're named after the author Margaret Drabble, who was supposed to have been the first one to start writing the things.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Ah. So when I began this search into their history, and the miniture wizards of Google kept insisting that I meant novelist Margaret Drabble, I should have believed them... at least a little bit. ;-)

[pedanther]

You might find this link informative:
http://www.meades.org/drabble.html

Also, I've been told, the 100-word story is a recognised literary form in China; when we were taught about them in Eng.Lit., they were called "microstories". (This, of course, is how I came to be writing Doctor Who drabbles years before I knew what a drabble was.) I suspect the drabble proper was an independent invention, though.

I suspect part of the popularity of drabbles among fanfic writers is that, if you take the wrong attitude, they're very easy to write - at least, easier to write than a full-length story. This was clearly the motivation behind many drabbles I've read (including most of mine).

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Yes; in the almost-not-wee hours of this morning, I found David Langford's webpage where he talked about how the Birmingham SF Society came up with the idea for charity.

That, in itself, is reason for it staying below the literary waves. In the beginning, you wouldn't have known about The Drabble Project unless you were there.

And if you're the kind of person who does know about the sci-fi fan culture, even if you weren't at the event, you are still going to tend to think of Drabbles as a "fannish thing."

Also, they're a good form for the Internet, where, for many, bandwidth is still an issue.

Back before AOL was a glimmer on the horizen, and Prodigy was the hip new thing in online communication, I was a regular participant in a writers' message board.

Back then, before bandwidth flowed like water, messages were limited to 600 words, tops. And so a group of us, calling ourselves "The Writers' School" would choose one among us to be "Schoolmistress" or "Schoolmaster", who would issue story challenges. Because of the strict limit of message length, each challenge had to be a complete story in 600 words. (I vaguely remember a couple of them, maybe I'll try to rework those ideas into proper drabbles).

[drox.livejournal.com]

...Drabbles as a "fannish thing."

They do lend themselves nicely to fandom, 'cause in 100 words there's not a lot of time for world- or character-building. In established fandoms all that hard stuff's been done already; the readers are at least minimally familiar with the worlds and the characters, so all that's required of the writer is giving said characters something to do, and maybe tell what backdrop they're doing it against.

And even then, keeping it trimmed to 100 words can be a challenge.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

'cause in 100 words there's not a lot of time for world- or character-building.

Yes. That did cross my mind. All you need to do is mention the name of the character, and you've got three paragraphs worth of information already in the reader's mind.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

I'll have to read yours, because I don't think I've ever read an original drabble that was any good. :P One thing that people outside of fanfic seem to miss is that a drabble needs a point. They'll just write a hundred words of meaningless dialogue about characters nobody cares about, and call it a story.

If I were going to write an original drabble, I'd probably do it the way I'd write a haiku-- think of something to describe, and use my best prose. Unfortunately, as with haiku (or any other kind of strictly-formatted work such as poetry), the results would probably be horrendous.

Fanfic drabbles aren't easier in terms of writing skills (I find they really help me learn to be ruthless in my editing of my own work, and my writing becomes cleaner and more concise), but I do think drabbles are best applied in situations where the writer and reader have a common frame of reference.

For instance, I could see drabbles being written that involve pop culture, common experiences, religious or other widespread rituals, etc. A drabble is the verbal equivalent of a single-panel comic strip.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I haven't gotten permission from the author, so I won't repost it, I'll just link to it, but if you want to read a good original drabble, read this (http://www.mudcat.org/Detail.CFM?messages__Message_ID=524034) first real response to "Mudcat Challenge: 100 word story exactly. It was posted August 8, 2001 and has stuck with me ever since... it wasn't until I rediscovered the thread that I remembered what form it was in.

And actually, my first entry to 100drabbles was an essay, not a story with a plot (though it does have a point), so I'm not sure if that actually counts as a drabble. And... my second posting there (I now realize) isn't very good -- I could do a lot more to clarify the character and her conflict -- I'd gotten the basic action down to 89 words; I just filled out the rest with the wrong details, I think.

There's this: Drabble of the Day (http://www.livejournal.com/users/capriuni/1576.html) (on my second day of LJ-dom). I hadn't read it since I posted it, until just now. I still think it's a good story, but again, there needs to be some trimming in some places, and clarification in others.

I think despite, their brevity, no-one can write a good drabble-a-day. Like any fiction, you need to let it sit for a day (or year) or two and then come back to it.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

I knew I'd heard the word 'drabble' before 2001. In 2001 I was a university student, and I already knew the word from Star Trek fanficdom. So I popped it into the Google newsgroups search and looked for any instances before 1999 in alt.startrek.creative.

Lo and behold, the earliest reference I could find was from 1993. It's a hundred-word ST:TNG story by our very own Kate Orman.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

I should add that I also searched alt.drwho.creative, and the earliest usage there was by Greg McElhatton in 1996.

I don't know how old either of these groups are, so it may have been used elsewhere earlier.