The AI Drabble Challenge: 100 Words, Infinite Possibilities

What Is the AI Drabble Challenge?

I’ve always loved the discipline of writing a Drabble (a 100-word story). A Drabble forces you to choose every word with care, no padding, no shortcuts. Now I’m curious: what happens when we invite AI into the process?

Can AI really help us write better stories, or does it simply hold up a mirror to our imagination?

This post launches a brand new weekly AI writing challenge where we explore that question together.

How It Works

Each Wednesday here on The AI Grandad, I’ll post a new creative task: craft a Drabble of exactly 100 words (no more, no less) with a little help from AI.

You can use any tool you like, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok or others. Maybe the AI drafts a version and you edit; maybe you co-write line by line. Or perhaps you let AI write the whole story – remember though, to check the word count. AI is not very good at counting words. Often it will give you the story and tell you, most confidently, that it has written exactly 100-words. Don’t believe it!

The Challenge:

1. Read the week’s prompt, it might be an image, a set of words, or both.
2. Use AI in any way you choose to create a story of exactly 100 words.
3. Post your Drabble in the comments below, or publish it on your own blog and pingback here.
4. Tell us which AI model(s) and prompt you used, let’s learn from each other.

What you need to remember is that the fun in this challenge lies in the process, not perfecting the greatest Drabble ever written (though that might happen, you never know!).

Why Join the AI Drabble Challenge?

Because creativity grows through play.

A Drabble’s tight word count keeps things focused, and experimenting with AI lets us see how humans and machines collaborate.

If you’d like to know how this idea began, take a look at my earlier post,
When Chaos Tells a Story: An AI Creativity Experiment.
It inspired this challenge,  moving from me testing AI to all of us exploring together.

For background on the form itself, you can read
Wikipedia – Drabble.

This Week’s Prompt

Image Prompt:

Word Prompts: whisper · frost · memory · tether · silence

Use either the image, the words, or both, and see where your imagination (and your chosen AI) takes you.

Remember: exactly 100 words, no more, no less.

How to Join and Share

Add your story in the comments or post it on your own site with a pingback. Each week I’ll read through entries, highlight a few favourites, and feature one in next week’s challenge.

This isn’t about competition, it’s about curiosity, connection, and creative discovery.

A Closing Thought

What might a 100-word story tell us about the way humans and machines think? Let’s find out together, 100 words at a time.

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