Pedantry and Death Mode Drabbles

[soc_puppet]

So on the one hand, I could point out that the English language use of the term "haiku" is a very watered down version of the traditional Japanese form, and that therefore using it to defend defining drabbles as exactly 100 words may not be the best move; you're going to get dozens of pedants in the notes (just like me, right here and now) pointing out all the other rules that haiku have beyond just the 5-7-5 syllable arrangement, and how English language haiku largely ignore those rules, so maybe comparing drabbles to sonnets or Bredlik poems would be more appropriate.

But the much more interesting and funny approach would be to suggest that 100 words is the minimum form requirement for drabbles, and that there should be different optional rules for drabbles depending on who your writing buddies are, what fandom you're in, etc.

Tell me, what would your extra requirements be for Death Mode Drabbles? 😈

Comments

[conuly]

Note: Haiku in Japan aren't even divided into syllables, they're divided into moras.

[soc_puppet]

See? Exactly like this! Even what the 5-7-5 stand for isn't an exact translation, which gives us the perfect opportunity to make drabbles even more of a challenge 😈

[definitely_not_an_alb]

Well, there are the 221Bs and dribbles, too, and apparently X-Files had it's own 155-thing at some point according to fanlore? But yeah, 221Bs have extra form restrictions over drabbles.

I'd argue 'there has to be an actual story arc/conflict within the 100 words, otherwise it's just a snippet' is death mode. Which is the complaint my inner editor comes up for about mine all the time.

[soc_puppet]

Ooo, I'll have to look those up! And maybe start 151s for Pokémon? alexseanchai suggested "drabbles that are also sonnets" over on Tumblr, which sounds like a delightful level of horrifying 😂

I remember reading a fic by Sleeps With Coyotes/Ciceqi where every scene/section was a drabble; I'll have to see if I can dig that one up, as well.

[definitely_not_an_alb]

221Bs originate with Sherlock (unsurprisingly) and have to be exactly 221 words long and the last word has to start with a B. Sometimes there were more restrictions I think, but Fanlore doesn't list them.

I've actually got one WIP in a folder somewhere that's a drabble collage like that! It's so neat and also so hard. Definitely goes with the 'needs to have an arc' thing, because then you need every drabble to essentially be a full scene in some way.

'Drabbles that are also sonnets' does in fact sound like hell. I'm not up-and-up with Pokémon, where does the 151 come from there?

[soc_puppet]

Oh yeah, I can see that as the origin there 😜

Oh, drabble collage! I like that as a name for it! I've got at least one outline that wants to be either a drabble collage or a three-sentence-ficathon collage to actually end up being written. Less brain power in some respects, more brain power in others.

Lol, a couple of people were demanding that someone else write a drabble-sonnet so they weren't compelled to do so 😂

151 is how many Pokémon were in the original game/the first generation of Pokémon. For 151s, I'd say that they have to include at least a reference to Pokémon, in some way, shape or form; least strict can be in a non-Pokémon universe with a reference to merch or the games or a movie or whatever, medium strict has to be in a Pokémon setting, very strict has to include a Pokémon as part of the story, and most strict would be that it has to be about one of the original 151.

[alexseanchai]

as a poetic form, the sonnet tends
to clock in at around one hundred words.
not from any effort toward such ends:
pentameter, in iambs, undergirds—
coincidentally—syllabic counts
that, in the English structure and syntax,
will break down word by word in such amounts
there's eight or seven words per line—it tracks
that times fourteen will hit three digits, just.
hexameter in dactyls will not work
the way Shakespearean-style sonnets must,
but might do better drabbling when the quirk
authorial is polysyllabic:
under ninety words? hardly dogmatic!

I was going somewhere else with this.

o m g

[jesse_the_k]

Sound the bells, alert the grammarians and text all the fans. We have a sonneteer in this timeline!

Re: o m g

[alexseanchai]

unfortunately that is only a sonnet, not also a drabble

and this is a drabble, not also a sonnet. that poem even says in the text it is not a sonnet!

…I may have some favorite themes.

(the cut text on that fan_flashworks post reads "a walking stick is not a great chasing hammer")

Re: o m g

[jesse_the_k]

Most excellent -- and you've just introduced me to the delight that is fan_flashworks' Pinboard, with 194 poems right now.

https://www.pinboard.in/u:fan_flashworks/t:m:poetry

[gullwhacker]

Death Mode Drabble?

Palindrome.

Your text must be one hundred words, and if you take out the punctuation/spaces it's the same when reversed.

I blame my Spider Robinson years. Which never tried for a drabble but did give the lovely palindrome:

"I, madam, I made radio. So I dared! Am I mad? Am I?"

So that's 13 percent of the way there...