Ficlets: a Story

The children sat in a circle. Jeff and Matt were shoving each other and laughing. Lisa, Nancy, and Tori were giggling about some shared secret that was no longer a secret. Joannie was staring out the window. Kevin sat silently, watching it all. Mrs. Rickles walked over and just stood there, towering over them, slapping a ruler against her palm, making just enough sound for everyone to notice.

And notice they did! After a few brief seconds, the room was silent. All eyes gazed upward at the direful, gargantuan matriarch of the classroom -- indeed, of the entire school, since it was she who had been there longer than any other, far longer even than Mrs. Rawknash, the equally terrifying school principal.

"Children!" Mrs. Rickles' deep voice boomed. "Now it's time for us to share a story. Each one of you will contribute." She smiled a strange smile down at them. A long rolling laugh eminated from deep in her chest and began to reverberate across the room.

"It will be fun, don't you see?" Slapping the ruler one last time, sharply, against the innocent bookcase that just happened to be beside her.

Like This Story?

Like this story? You can extend it by writing a prequel or sequel at Ficlets.com, the new site started by a team of AOL developers led by Kevin Lawver.

But to extend my story, you'll have to create a Ficlets.com account, or sign in if you already have one. You can sign in using your AIM screen name or your OpenID URL. Yes, Ficlets.com is another site (one of very few) where you can use your OpenID as your login credential. Cool!

So, I tried logging in using my diyincite AOL OpenID. This directed me to an "AOL OpenID Sign In Request" page:

I was then presented with a "Write a ficlet" page, consisting of a simple editor box and options defining my story as containing mature content or as being a draft. If it's a draft, only me and my editors can see the story.

Sequel 1

"Wow!" Amanda shrieked. "You mean I can have my very own editors? Who will help turn my words into an incredible literary experience before I release it to the entire World?"

The Doctor looked at her calmly. "This is true, gentle novice," he said. "With ficlets, your words can be reviewed by an editorial team of your own selection. But," he continued, "shouldn't you edit your profile first, so potential editors can know a bit more about you?"

"Umm.. yeah.. I guess," Amanda said, suddenly realizing that there is a lot more to this writing career than she realized.

"Indeed," the narrator's voice said. Both Amanda and the Doctor looked up into the corner of the room from which the narrator's voice was emanating. The narrator continued: "Being a literary artist is not all glory. It's a job. It requires countless hours of thought, research, meditation. It involves agony, pain, suffering, as the artist struggles to find the precisely perfect word to express the concept whose image has been echoing for decades, nay, eons, within the collective unconscious of the society, going back generations, nay, millenia, back to the days of--"

"Umm.. Sir?" Amanda said, shyly.

The booming narrative voice abruptly ceased. An eerie silence filled the room. Silence of the ages, washing over them like waves from the past, unstoppable, unfathomable, words and images from the past sailing across the room, their sails billowing in the wind of the narrator's powerful, inconceivably potent breath--

"Sir?" Amanda said again. "I think I'll just write a ficlet."

"If that's OK with you," the Doctor echoed.

Your Ficlets Profile Page

Your Ficlets profile page lets you enter the following information:

• Pen Name
• Profile URL (for example, I just created http://ficlets.com/authors/diyincite)
• Buddy Icon (automatically retrieved from AIM, AOL, Flickr, or Twitter)
• Your homepage (the one that screams "me!")
• Location (not required)
• Bio
• Favorite Author
• Favorite Book

Prequel 1

Here's how I originally started this post:

When you go to ficlets.com and start reading, you find yourself in the middle of a story, with an invitation for you to extend the story by writing a prequel or sequel to it (if you like the story). It's like a group storytelling circle, where each person adds the next event to the story -- only it's online, and you can add to either end of the story.

The front page includes a brief listing of the most recent and the most popular stories...

That was before I realized just how much fun ficlets.com can be!

Sequel 2

My First Ficlet: "Character Countdown: a sad tale"

Sequel 3

Seizing the moment, diyincite dashed to the ficlets.com Home page. Sure enough, there it was: "Character Countdown: a sad tale" by "You" was highlighted in the "Most Recent" category, having been published just "2 minutes ago."

But, There's More: Seriously (Potentially)

The home page has a link titled "Writers, Editors, Publishers: Promotional Opportunities on Ficlets". This brings you to a page that talks about ways to promote work on Ficlets. Right now, the opportunities consist of author interviews and guest ficlets (which are promoted on the Ficlets Blog).

This is interesting. Conceivably, a site like ficlets could be used as a venue for attracting attention to the work of serious authors. Just as on MySpace you see serious professional musicians as well as amateurs who are posting songs just for the entertainment of their friends and themselves.

Sequel 1a

Kevin vividly remembered those storytelling days in Mrs. Rickles' class. He knew that that was what had set it all in motion, this crazy idea he had to create an online community where people could tell stories and add to each other's stories. As time had gone on, it had become a passion that he just couldn't set aside. Nothing would stop him. It simply had to be.

And one fine day, it was!

-- Kevin Farnham
O'Reilly Media