100-Word Story Examples: Two Complete Stories and How They Work
Quick answer: Two original 100-word stories, counted to the word, with a breakdown of how each one fits a beginning, a turn and an ending into a single paragraph.
A 100-word story has to do three things in the space of a long paragraph: set a person down somewhere specific, change something, and stop on an image the reader keeps. Below are two original examples at exactly 100 words each, followed by a breakdown of what each sentence is paid to do. Neither has a moral, and neither explains itself.
The count is not decoration. Magazines that run drabbles, and contests with a 100-word floor, will reject a piece at 98 or 103. Writory's short story contest starts at 100 words, so a story like the two below is the shortest thing you can enter and still receive a score out of 100 and a certificate.
Overdue
Marta Kowalski carried the book in both hands, the way you carry something that might spill. Forty-one years overdue. The librarian, a boy with an eyebrow ring, scanned it twice before the system admitted it existed. 'Fines were capped years ago,' he said. 'You owe nothing.' She had rehearsed an apology on the bus. Instead she opened the cover and showed him the date stamp, 14 March 1985, the day before her brother drove into the lake with the receipt in his pocket. 'I finished it last night,' she said. 'I wanted to tell someone who would write it down.'
Route 42
Dev Pillai drove the 42 for thirty-one years and never kept a lost item. Umbrellas, phones, a wedding dress in a bin bag: all logged, all shelved at the depot. On his final shift a woman in a green coat left a steel thermos on the back seat. He found it at the terminus, still warm. Inside, tea with cardamom, made the way his mother made it in Kochi. No name, no number. He sat in the empty bus, engine off, and drank it slowly. Then he wrote a label, Found, Route 42, and put it in his own bag.
How each story spends its hundred words
Overdue opens on a physical detail, the two-handed grip, before it tells you what the object is. That order matters. You feel the weight before you know the reason, so the reason lands harder. The middle is pure friction: a boy, a scanner, a fine that no longer exists. The story turns when Marta ignores the rehearsed apology and shows the date stamp. Everything about the brother arrives in one subordinate clause, and the last line gives her a want she did not know she had until she said it.
Route 42 works on a rule and its single exception. The first two sentences establish thirty-one years of never keeping anything, listing three lost items so the rule feels lived rather than stated. The thermos breaks the rule, and the cardamom tells us why without a word of backstory beyond Kochi. The ending is an action, not a reflection: he labels it as found, then keeps it. The reader closes the gap between those two gestures.
What both have in common
Each names its character in the first four words, gives them one job or task, and lets a single object carry the emotion. Neither uses a flashback scene; the past is one clause long. Neither ends on a feeling word. Both end on a small physical act that means more than it says.
What writers can take from this
- Write 130 words first, then cut to 100; the cuts teach you what the story needs.
- Name the character in the first sentence so no words go on 'the woman'.
- Let one object do the work of a paragraph of feeling.
- End on an action the reader has to interpret.
- Count with a tool, not by eye, before you submit.
Try it yourself
Write a 100-word story in which a person returns something they were not supposed to have. Name them in the first sentence, keep it to one location, and end on what they do with their hands.
Questions
Do the title and author name count toward 100 words?
Almost never. Contests and magazines count the body text only. Check the guidelines, but you can usually assume the title is free.
Is a 100-word story the same as a drabble?
Yes. Drabble is the name for fiction of exactly 100 words. Some communities allow 100 words with a title on top; others count the title. The two stories above work either way.
Can a 100-word story have dialogue?
It can, and Overdue does. Keep it to two or three short lines, and make each one change the situation rather than fill in information.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
Enter a Writory story contest
Enter the Writory Short Story Contest and have your own story read and scored out of 100. Entries close 25 November. That first entry makes you a Writorian.