This project is based on "Appendix B – An escalation exercise" from George Saunders' A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, 2021.

The book resulted from Saunders' 20 years teaching a class on the Russian short story at Syracuse University.

The book comprises seven stories – from Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol – and related essays charmingly and insighfully written by Saunders.

The seven stories and associated essays are followed by three appendices, each describing an exercise that teaches a principle of good writing.

I read A Swim in a Pond in the Rain in December 2022, shortly after I had begun to learn Python.

When I read Appendix B (an excerpt from which is reproduced below), it occurred to me that it was well-pitched as a beginner's programming project.

I had a lot of fun putting together the simple logic, and once I'd completed it I realised I wanted to share it.

That entailed an unanticipated diversion into HTML, CSS and Javascript, and this page is the modest result.

MIT

Set a timer for, let's say, forty-five minutes. Now write a 200-word story. BUT the trick is: you get to use only 50 words to do it. You'll discover your own way of keeping track of the word count; one approach is to make a running list. Say, for example, that your first sentence turns out to be "A cow stood in the field." You write, at the bottom of the page, for reference:

1. a
2. cow
3. stood
4. in
5. the
6. field

Now you "have" those 6 words to use going forward. When you hit 50 words that's it: you have to start reusing words. (Let's allow plurals. So "cow" and "cows" count as the same word.) The final product is to be exactly 200 words (not 199, not 201). Ready? Go.