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Microfic
| Synonyms: | N/A |
| See also: | Fan Fiction, drabble, ficlet, Story Length, Vignette |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Microfic is one of the terms for story length, like drabble or longfic.
Looking for a Definition
At the moment, there doesn't seem to be an agreed-upon single definition. Some, like Microfic May, organized by the HP fandom, expect microfics to generally be below 50 words.
What is a microfic? We define a microfic as any work of fiction 50 words or less. However, we accept works of all lengths and mediums (including art, podfics, crafts, etc). These prompts are for inspiration and to be used as a jumping-off point for creating HP fanworks of any kind!Microfic May[1]
Others, like the Microfic May variation of The Vampire Chronicles fandom, set their expectations between 100 and 1000 words.
Entries should aim to be between 100 words to 1000 words, though no one is going to be counting and it’s fine to go a little over (or under!)Vampire Chronicles Microfic May Event Guidelines[2]
Checking the Numbers
A brief look at works tagged "microfic" on AO3 shows a wide variation. As of April 14, 2025, when filtered by complete works only, the search returns 390 pages. Sorted from smallest to highest word count, page 200 ends with maximum of 178 words, page 250 with 289 words, page 350 with 899 words. Word count continues going up from there but a lot of works with higher word count are collections of several microfics.