I can scare and thrill you in only...100 words!
Stay at Castle
Dracula…and Other Short-Short Stories
by Jim Nemeth
Genre: Horror Short Stories
Do you
enjoy a good drabble? No, not America’s most popular word game—that’s Scrabble.
No, not those cute, furry little creatures from Star Trek—those are tribbles.
A drabble is a form of intense fiction writing consisting of 100 words. Not 100
chapters, not 100 paragraphs, nor even 100 lines. 100 words. Exactly.
Author Jim Nemeth loves the format and is an
accomplished dabbler in drabbles. “Whenever I explain to friends what a drabble
is,” Nemeth relates, “I get the exact same expression of disbelief: ‘100 words?’
In fact, I took these reactions and wrote a drabble about it, “Impossible
Assignment,” which leads off the collection.”
Stay
at Castle Dracula and Other Short-Short Stories, a chapbook,
collects 26 tales, 23 of which are drabbles. With the three other stories, the
author “splurged” and indulged himself with an additional 100-200 words.
Other
tales of five score words include “Disgruntled,” where a joyous family
Christmas celebration turns horrific when a little boy doesn’t get the toy he
wanted; “Love Potion” relates what happens when a witch’s magic works too
well. And in the title story, another young English traveler debates his
decision in staying in Count Dracula’s centuries’ old castle.
It’s What’s Inside That Counts
“Why does Christy have to come over to play,” six-year-old Chloe asked in the petulant voice in which she exceled. “She’s ugly and I hate her!”
“Chloe!” the girl’s father shouted in
reprimand. “Don’t talk like that. Christy may not be the prettiest of girls,
but ‘beauty is only skin deep,’ as they say. It’s what’s inside a person
that counts.”
Later that afternoon in her room, Chloe
lay aside the dripping, red-drenched scissors with which she’d used to slice
open Christy’s midsection. Closely examining its contents, she frowned in
confusion. “I don’t see what’s so special about her insides…”
In 1993, Nemeth won first prize in a national magazine’s short story
writing contest for which legendary authors Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch were
judges. The award held special meaning for Nemeth, as Bloch remains his
favorite writer and main literary influence. Nemeth is the author of two
additional books: It Came From...The Stories and Novels Behind Classic
Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction Films and Robert Bloch: An
Unconventional Bibliography, as well as being the webmaster of The Robert
Bloch Official Website (robertbloch.net).
A long-time community activist, the author is particularly committed to
the cause of animal rescue. He lives in the historic harbor town of Marblehead,
MA.
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