Welcome to 1,000 Characters!

This is a project about exploration, into writing and into characters. The goal is to create one thousand characters, and learn more about all of them. Most days (at least twenty per month) there should be a new story snippet to keep the words flowing. Do not fret that everything (or at least most things) are short, as that is the intention.

1,000 Characters is a practice for better storytelling, improved fiction. The focus is diving into characters, looking curiously and deeply into their hopes, dreams, desires. Exploring new characters, their stories, the places they live and work, becomes a journey of fun. This process of discovery should, in many cases, lead to longer stories, possibly even a novel. Dare it be said: maybe novels.

A total of 102 works of fiction featuring 32 different Characters!

Featured Story

Published: Dec 01, 2020

Wet Mailboxes

Jerry was the kind of man who fixed things, things he didn't know how to fix, things that did not yet need fixing; if it was broken or perhaps about to be broken, Jerry was there fixing it. Sometimes there were things he could not fix the first time around, things that kept breaking. He would occasionally deem those things unfixable. But Melinda, Jerry's wife, could count the number of times he had stopped trying to fix a thing easily, if she could remember those times; they were so few that they sort of just slipped out of her mind.

He was currently battling one such thing: their mailbox. It leaked, and had done so for twenty-odd years, off and on. Every so often the rain was blow just right on the wind and find a way into the mailbox, where a few letters or a magazine would soak up the water. Jerry could not leave the problem for the next sideways rain that might happen in six or seven months.

"Other people must have wet mailboxes," he proclaimed over a plate of biscuits and gravy. "There for someone has found a way to fix them and I will too."

Recent Stories

Published: Aug 29, 2025

Lamb History

featuring: Moreland Bouquett

Moreland stood before the picture window filled with hanging sausages, dried jerky, smoked slabs, ribs, and birds, plucked clean, dangling by rope. His mouth watered. He entered the shop, breathing heavily and ...

Published: Jul 12, 2025

He Walked too Far

featuring: Moreland Bouquett

Sometimes the long walks took Moreland into new parts of the city, blocks and blocks that he had never seen before or that had completely changed since the last time he had ...

Published: Jun 26, 2025

Moreland Liked to Walk

featuring: Moreland Bouquett

Moreland liked to walk the streets because he could inhale the smells of foods leaking from the restaurants as he passed: fried, spicy, grilled, sweet, steamed, broiled, baked, and fresh. Glasses tinkled ...

Published: Jun 19, 2023

Jonesy

featuring: Harold White

Trash tumbled down the parkway, carried by the wind. Trees swayed, the crescendo of rustling leaves drowning out the sounds of the street at the end of the block. Harold watched from ...

Published: Jan 25, 2022

Email is Popular

featuring: Kroft Rodgers

I thought about writing this story last week. The plan was to type some words and see what I thought of them. Instead researched the top searched words on Google. I learned ...

Characters