The Battle

Author's Note: My challenge was to write a story that was abstract and vague. I have a great idea for a detailed story (of which I'm still "researching" and trying to outline the plot), but didn't know if I would be able to make it either of those two qualities. Then one of the other Inkwells members suggested that I outline the detailed story and use the outline as the response to this challenge. It turned out that outlining this story in narrative form makes it the shortest story I've ever written (not to mention, shorter than the paragraph I've just written to introduce it), at only 39 words:

The Mistress of the Island Plain and the Lady of the Mount, each on orders from the same monarch's duly authorized lieutenants, took the field in a fiery witches' contest. The assassins cast many spells, both offensive and defensive, and eventually one witch found herself unable to continue the battle.

Author's Note: The version above is actually 50 words long, since one of the Inkwells members mentioned that there was a who, where, and how, but no why. So, it took me 11 words to add the why.

Also, I figured it out!

I looked up the dictionary and thesaurus entries (on thesaurus.reference.com) for abstract and vague. Vague is "not definite or clear," and abstract is "conceptual, theoretical." Neither one is listed in the other's synonyms, but they are both listed as synonyms for abstruse, which means "difficult to understand."

So, my story is definitely vague. It's not abstruse, but I'm pretty sure it can be considered abstract, since it's not just a very short, vague story, but it's also the concept of a longer, more detailed and clear story.