Micro Fiction Challenge: Dilettante
Posted by David Duhr in 
Dilettante is our word of the week here at the WriteByNight Micro Fiction Club, and it is defined as “a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, especially in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.”
As usual, your task is to create a 25-word or less piece of fiction using the word. And beginning this week, we’re going to start giving away prizes to each week’s winner. WBN goodies like trial memberships, and freebies like free books and lit mags. So now that something’s at stake, dig down deep and wow us. As usual, extra points for making us laugh.
Keep your story to 25 words or less, include the word “dilettante,” leave it in the comments section below, click “Notify” to keep abreast of your competition, and feel free to use a pseudonym if you’re shy.
We’ll announce this week’s winner in this space next Tuesday, and we’ll give a shout-out to our favorites on Facebook and Twitter.
So get crackin’, my non-dilettantes.
Last week’s winner goes by “CR,” for the following story using “fey”:
She was different. The gang of her tormentors hated how she ignored their bullyism. In fey – looking past them, oblivious, into another preferred existence.
Congratulations, CR! You have won an immense amount of pride, and the joy of being the last person to win our Micro Fiction Challenge before we started giving away prizes. Woot!
In the beginning she was a dilettante. In the middle she was a generalist. In the end she was put on medication.
Dani the delectable dilettante discussed Dabny’s disgusting dependency, deciding drugs and decay didn’t do. Derring-do demanded decency. Dani delivered.
For sale: dilettante’s painting, never shown.
The love of chocolate kept the dilettante confectioner’s hopes alive. This year, she would win the blue ribbon. Unfortunately, the judges immediate death proved otherwise.
In Haiku form:
Constantly alone
Driving men away in droves
Expert dilettante
The dilettante finished the first line of his new novel, put his pen down, and turned on the TV. Time for American Idol. More dilettantes.
Twitter. The dilettante’s chosen format for fictive political forays. Also, porn.
They sat in a semicircle of dilettantes, exchanging hobbies like the recipes they never intended to make. Oh, the joys of being a housewife.
The dilettante reached for his sword, paused, then let his hand fall. Shrugging, he turned around. The dragon wasn’t important. A drink was.
I’m playing with this dilettante challenge. My cat just jumped on my desk, the little ninja calico. Let’s see…dilettante…. Now she’s attacking my computer mouse.
She feigned a superficial interest in grammar, acted a literary dilettante. Secretly, she slipped into bed passionately clutching a well-worn copy of Strunk and White.
Dilettante in my drug use in my younger years, now I pierce a needle through my flesh every day, in hopes that the medication takes.
as if a dilettante
were any less
likely to
stumble into
the palace of
wisdom he kept
a parakeet in his mouth
like chewing gum
Flitting, he browsed, touching each scented colourful beauty, granting each a precious fleeting moment, ‘You dilettante!’ they cried and the butterfly floated away, wings flashing.
When they left, I felt as if I had lost my arms. I was so sad that I lost my appetite .Al-Maghrabi then flew to Manila to look for two other Filipino wrekros to replace the ones who had left. Previously, he had tried wrekros of different nationalities but they did not impress him. There is no comparison between Filipinos and others , he says. Whenever I see Filipinos working in the Kingdom, I wonder what our life would be without them.Saudi Arabia has the largest number of Filipino wrekros 1,019,577 outside the Philippines. In 2006 alone, the Kingdom recruited… Read more »
“Dilettante, makes me sound rather impressive. Maybe I could change my name. Hi, I’m Dilettante and you are?”
[…] Last week, a good many of you non-dilettantes stepped up to the plate and gave us some great stories. Choosing a winner was extra tough this time around. Among our favorites were Hal’s “For sale: dilettante’s painting, never shown,” Laura’s alliterative awesomeness, past winner Ava Love’s reference to Strunk & White, and, of course, Jo’s haiku. […]
When it’s wisdom you need I am no font
Of the things I have tried the mem’ries haunt
As a dilettante
There’s one thing can I say
You can’t ask such work of a dilettante!
Rats! Guess I found this after the deadline.