One of my favorite posts is the one when I asked you to write a 140-character Twitter story—and you did!

Twitter Story: Tell a Story in 280 Characters

But this month something shocking happened: Twitter expanded its limit to 280!

The Benefits of Limitations

Last I heard, the official reason was so that users speaking English, Spanish and most other languages could express as much as those speaking Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (you can say a lot more with one character in those languages). Who knows?

At first I was resistant to the change, but now I’m ok with it. The expansion may encourage proper grammar. Also, as we writers know, it takes a lot of time to write something short—more characters will be a time saver!

The 140-character limit did encourage this amazing global practice in concision, but so will the 280 limit. And maybe now people will feel less inclined to post photos of paragraphs or series of tweets.

A Twitter Story in 280 Characters

In honor of Twitter’s change, today’s practice is to write a Twitter story in 280 characters. Here’s one I told my parents yesterday:

A friend of mine posted a shocking experience on Facebook. He cracked an egg and a chick was inside! After gagging, I texted all of my friends. Their response was “fake news!” So I went back to the original friend to confirm that his story it was true. He sent pictures.

What curious Twitter stories will you write?

What do you think about the new character limit? Let us know in the comments.

PRACTICE

Take fifteen minutes to do one of the following:

  1. Write a story in 280 characters or less.
  2. Take the Twitter story you wrote for the 140-character challenge and expand it to 280 characters.
  3. Take one of the 280-character stories in the comments and edit it down to 140 characters.

Or . . . why not do all three?

When you're done, share your tweet-sized stories in the comments. And be sure to leave feedback for your fellow writers!

Monica is a lawyer trying to knock out her first novel. She lives in D.C. but is still a New Yorker. You can follow her on her blog or on Twitter (@monicamclark).

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