On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Martin Bennett wrote:

Hiya folks!

I just wrote a little 4k fic, and I was wondering how short a fic you 
could actually write that has a proper story. Just a stray thought from 
my dark and twisted imagination... ;}

   Arthur C. Clarke had a discussion on short prose, proposing limiting a
story to 500 words as a goal. I once read his 440 word Aliens take over the
world, story. Very good. The whole plot was there.

   Vignettes, and other emotional scenes are also excellent material for
exceedingly short, but dense material.

   If you want to go for extremes in length, and don't mind the quality, I
hereby submit one of the shortest fics on the mailinglist. Granted, it could
be tightened up a bit, but I didn't wand to remove ALL of its literary merit:

   Ranma died, eventually.


Hope you liked it. C+C not really needed, actually.
						Neil Reynolds