Exercise from Story Club with George Saunders. (Related entries: The Opposite of Worry and The 200/50 Exercise)

Here's the rules:

1. Set a timer for 45 minutes.
2. Write a 200-word story. But (and here’s the trick), it has to be exactly 200 words long (not 199, not 201)
3. You can only use 50 unique words in the process.

And to clarify — the point is not to overwrite and cut back...rather, write “up to” the 200 words. - George

The website keeps track of time, word count, and unique word count. We use a simple method to determine/separate words, but hopefully it'll be easier than manually keeping track of each word.

Nothing you write on here is shared or uploaded anywhere. It'll try to auto-save to your browser just in case you accidentally refresh the page. This website is not affiliated with George Saunders. I just like Story Club.

Created by Jamie Crisman