"And remember, class," Miss Cheerilee said, as the school bell rang, "you’ll need to turn in an original short story by the end of next week! And it has to be one thousand words or more. I’ll be checking!"
The colts and the fillies of the classroom started running out, but Sweetie Belle hung back a bit.
"One thousand words?" She said, puzzled. "Why would a story have to be a thousand words or more?"
"Because Miss Cheerilee said so, duh," Scootaloo said. "Guess we’ll have to get writing!"
"Didn’t she say something about not having enough room to tell a complete story in there?" Apple Bloom said. "Not enough room for characterization and motivation and plot and such?"
"Well, it could be a tiny plot, and you could use characters that already have characterization." Sweetie Belle wrinkled her forehead. "I bet you could write a story that was shorter than that if you really tried."
"I don’t think Miss Cheerilee will accept it then, though--"
"Oh, I’ll write a long one for Miss Cheerilee," Sweetie Belle said thoughtfully. "But maybe I’ll write some short ones for myself."
Surprisingly, the idea was still rattling around in her head by the time she got home.
Okay, what’ve I got around here I can use?
She ransacked her room, looking under the bed and in the closet and all the drawers around. Eventually she plopped down a binder full of lined paper down on her desk, and wrote on the front page "Sweetie Belle’s Short Stories".
She pinned another piece of paper to a cork board hanging on one wall, and scribbled on the top "Story Ideas".
Then she pondered. What could she possibly write about?