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Drabble STORY ARC: Medium | 💯 Story Inspiration Challenge (17/100)

A Medium State of Worry

A ‘choose your own’ story start

JF Danskin
The Fiction Writer’s Den
2 min readJan 17, 2025

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An old typewriter with a page saying ‘the best way is just to start’
Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash

This is a drabble — a 100 word fiction story — and is also the start of a ‘choose your own’ story, “drabble edition”.

Deep in your heart, central to your identity, you are a writer. That matters. But lately, things haven’t been going so well.

Last year, you were writing your little heart out on Medium (a popular blogging platform), hoping one day you’ll reach the magical $100 dollar month that all the big birds like to squawk about.

But something went wrong! Now, masterworks that take you hours to complete are earning a mere 4 cents each.

What’s going on?

You close your laptop and stare around the train. It’s speeding to the city. Something better change, that’s for sure. But what?

You decide to…

  1. Quit as a writer and take up a new career as an assassin.
  2. Head for Medium headquarters, to engage in a Kafkaesque struggle through their hierarchy.
  3. Write a bitchy article about how you’re quitting the platform and never liked it anyway.

This story will grow — I…

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The Fiction Writer’s Den
The Fiction Writer’s Den

Published in The Fiction Writer’s Den

Run by several creative writers, this publication is Medium’s home to short stories, web-novels, drabbles, and other creative work. We also share writing prompts, and stories about the craft of writing, as well other author advice!

JF Danskin
JF Danskin

Written by JF Danskin

Writing fiction (fantasy especially) and poetry, enthusiast for creativity, collaboration, community. An Editor at the Fiction Writer's Den.

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