Jim Woessner, a thirty-three Issaquah Dock resident, has published his latest collection of microfiction, Aliens in the Park. It’s his third volume of one hundred hundred-word stories.
The story, “Aliens in the Park,” is about how people relate to other living things that share the planet. “Since many of the stories are reflections of questionable human behavior, I thought that it might be an appropriate title for the entire collection,” Woessner says.
Microfiction is defined as complete stories with characters, plots, and emotional arcs in as few words as possible—ranging from 25- to 300-word limits.
“Unquestionably, my adventure into microfiction was inspired by poetry,” he says. “For years, I’ve written poetry based on syllable counting, so the transition to microfiction was fairly painless.”
He chose 100 words almost arbitrarily, he says, although his poems were of a style that were typically 60 to 80 words. “Part of the attraction was the challenge, but I always found such short pieces too restrictive,” he says. “When I started writing 100-word stories for online magazines, it was as if a whole new world had magically opened.”
Each story in the collection is exactly 100 words long, which can be challenging to achieve.
“I can assure you that the most dreaded number in the world is 101. If you’ve written a piece with 99 words, you can always add an adjective. That’s easy,” Woessner says. “But when you’ve written what you think is the perfect short story and discover that it has 101 words, it’s maddening. You then have to examine every punctuation mark, the meaning of every word and phrase, and the construction of every sentence in order to eliminate one single word.”
He added, “But as with the poetry, the challenge is why I love the process. The more restrictions I place on myself, the more it forces my creativity.”
In October, Jim Woessner read selections to an appreciative audience at a reading hosted by Jordon McCollum. You can purchase Aliens in the Park directly from Jim Woessner on Issaquah or from Amazon, where you’ll also find Latté with Extra Foam and No More No Less.
