Do you enjoy a good drabble? No, not America’s most popular word game—that’s Scrabble. No, not those cute, furry little creatures from Star Trek—those are tribbles. A drabble is a form of intense fiction writing consisting of 100 words. Not 100 chapters, not 100 paragraphs, nor even 100 lines. 100 words. Exactly.

Author Jim Nemeth loves the format and is an accomplished dabbler in drabbles. “Whenever I explain to friends what a drabble is,” Nemeth relates, “I get the exact same expression of disbelief: ‘100 words?’ In fact, I took these reactions and wrote a drabble about it, “Impossible Assignment,” which leads off the collection.”

Stay at Castle Dracula and Other Short-Short Stories, a chapbook, collects 26 tales, 23 of which are drabbles. With the three other stories, the author “splurged” and indulged himself with an additional 100-200 words.

Other tales of five score words include “Disgruntled,” where a joyous family Christmas celebration turns horrific when a little boy doesn’t get the toy he wanted; “Love Potion” relates what happens when a witch’s magic works too well. And in the title story, another young English traveler debates his decision in staying in Count Dracula’s centuries’ old castle.