A ficlet is a short story that enables you to collaborate with the world

What Company Is Offering:
A ficlet is a short story that enables you to collaborate with the world.

Once you’ve written and shared your ficlet, any other user can pick up the narrative thread by adding a prequel or sequel. In this manner, you may know where the story begins, but you’ll never guess where (or even if!) it ends.

How It Works:

ficlets are shorter than short stories. Well, no, actually, they are short stories, but they’re really short stories. Really short, as in there’s not a maximum word count … there’s actually a maximum character count (1,024). There is also a minimum character count, and the number of that beast is 64.

If you wish, they’ll provide you with inspiration (photos, themes, suggested beginnings and endings, even other ficlets), but you’re completely free to blaze your own trail. Now, here’s where the real fun comes in: Each and every ficlet is modular in that, though you may have written a stand-alone story with a beginning, middle, and ending, your fellow ficleteers may choose to write a prequel or sequel to your story. In this respect, you can think of ficlets as literary Legos.

All ficlets are covered under Creative Commons, which means that if you wrote it, you own it. Period.


How To Use It:
Go to the ficlets site, and click on the “Sign In” link in the upper right hand corner.

There are two ways to sign in. If you have an AIM or AOL screen name, you can simply sign in using your existing account. You don’t have to have an AIM or AOL screen name to participate though—you can sign in using an Open ID. If you don’t have an Open ID, you will have to create one to sign in initially. An Open ID will allow you to piggy-back your information from an identity provider. For example, if you have an AOL or AIM screen name, you’d enter http://openid.aol.com/YOURSCREENNAME (replace YOURSCREENAME with your actual screen name). ficlets would then redirect you to your provider so that you can define what information you want to carry over.
More at:http://ficlets.com/