Good tips, Bill. Pentinas are especially challenging. But I enjoy the challenge. I think microficiton sharpens your writing by forcing you to strip away everything but the essentials of the story and still make it engaging. It also make writing longer stories feel luxurious. 😂

Attempting microfiction can also be a good longer story generator. I have started several 50-word stories that simply couldn't be pared down to 50 words. But the ideas were so good that they became popular longer stories.