UK Imperial War Museums marks WWI centenary with 100 100-word stories

Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-05 18:41:56|Editor: mmm
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LONDON, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Imperial War Museums in Britain started Sunday a major literary project to commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War.

The project, called 100 Days, invites one hundred volunteer writers to each create a short story inspired by and based on the life of a real individual who experienced the First World War. Each story runs to exactly 100 words with the opening and closing three words repeated.

The war museums share one story a day from Sunday until 12 November to coincide with the anniversary of the One Hundred Days Offensive.

From Mahatma Ghandi and Elsie Inglis, founder of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, to Karl Kraus, a Jewish satirist and Jeanne De-Neve, a Belgian refugee needle worker, the diverse stories of these individuals reflect experiences of this conflict from all over the world.

The broad range of volunteer writers has been brought together by 26 Characters Ltd, a not-for-profit organization representing people who share a love of words. Writers include a bestselling author, a screenwriter, a communications consultant and several journalists, as well as performance poets, creative writers and copywriters.

Lisa Andrews, one of the writers, said, "There is a power in the constraint of short-form writing. One hundred words is not very much. But, actually, you can say so much in 100 words. All of our writers have done that. Some of them will absolutely break your heart."

The stories will be published in a crowd-funded book, with the profits going to charity.

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