Ficlets

Ficlets

Company type	Non-commercial
Industry	Online literature community
Founded	2006-10-31
Founder	Kevin Lawver
Defunct	2009-01-15
Fate	Shut down by AOL; content archived as "Ficlets Graveyard"
Successor	Ficly.com
Headquarters	United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Kevin Lawver (Founder and system administrator), Jason Garber (front-end developer), Ari Kushimoto (UI design and programming), Cindy Li (UI design, programming, promotion), Jenna Marino (website and logo design)
Products	Online platform for creation and archiving of ficlets (flash fiction)
Owner	AOL
Number of employees	5 developers (including founder) (2007)
Parent	AOL
Website	ficlets.com (archived)

Ficlets was a non-commercial community platform hosted by AOL, dedicated to the creation and archiving of ficlets, a type of flash fiction. Established on 31 October 2006 by Kevin Lawver, the website became fully functional by March 2007. After Lawver departed AOL and relinquished his role as system administrator on 6 June 2008, the site was left without active management.

On 2 December 2008, AOL declared that Ficlets would shut down permanently on 15 January 2009. During December 2008, users encountered a closure notification banner and pop-up messages. Despite Lawver’s attempts to preserve the platform—including efforts to transfer ownership to a non-profit organization—AOL refused these proposals. As a result, Lawver launched the "Ficlets Graveyard" archive to safeguard existing content under the site’s Creative Commons license.

In the aftermath of Ficlets’ shutdown, Lawver collaborated with programmer Jason Garber and design agency Viget Labs to develop a follow-up site called Ficly.com. Introduced in January 2009, Ficly sought to revive the ficlet concept with enhanced functionality, aiming for a launch around March 2009.

Content on Ficlets.com was distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license and freely accessible to all visitors. Registered members had the ability to contribute original or derivative ficlets inspired by Creative Commons-licensed Flickr images or other stories, manage drafts and personal profiles, and engage with others through comments and private messaging. The platform also hosted a blog featuring posts from Lawver and science fiction writer John Scalzi, covering subjects such as author interviews and featured stories. User registration supported OpenID as well as AOL/AIM credentials.

Creation

The platform was developed in late 2006 by Kevin Lawver, an AOL system architect and lead developer responsible for back-end programming, designed as a repository for ficlets. The idea stemmed from Lawver’s own challenges as a writer struggling to finish longer pieces; he envisioned ficlets as short writing exercises achievable in "five or ten minutes" during breaks. The site’s purpose was to spark "inspiration" through "pictures, phrases or other stories," allowing users to expand on existing works via prequel or sequel options, thereby eliminating the need to start anew. The name is a blend of fiction and chiclets, with "lets" signifying something small.

A supporting team of four AOL developers also played key roles in building the site:

• Jason Garber – responsible for front-end development.
• Ari Kushimoto – contributed to user interface design and programming.
• Cindy Li – handled user interface design, programming tasks, and site promotion.
• Jenna Marino – focused on website and logo design.

From its inception until late 2007, science fiction author John Scalzi was a key contributor and blogger for the site.

Content

The platform featured "ficlets," which were extremely brief narratives ranging from 64 to 1,024 bytes in size. These ficlets were designed as independent stories but allowed any registered user to expand the storyline by adding prequels or sequels. All ficlets were distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License.

While ficlets could contain mature themes, outright pornography, vulgarity, and hate speech were strictly prohibited. Stories with adult content had to be clearly marked and were accessible only to registered users who chose to view such material. The use of third-party intellectual property, including fan fiction, was not allowed. Real individuals could only be featured if they were public figures, and defamatory or libelous content about them was forbidden.

By January 4, 2009, the website hosted close to 49,000 ficlet stories, received over 80,000 comments, and had more than 10,000 members registered.

Notable contributors

Several established authors contributed original works to the platform, such as:

• Rachel Swirsky, a science fiction and fantasy writer, who posted four stories: "Whistbone's Chase," "DNA Designs," "My Way Out," and "Falling Further In."
• Brian Francis Slattery, known for science fiction, contributed three pieces: "Asbestos," "Invisible Wars," and "Telescope."
• Wil Wheaton, recognized for his role in Star Trek: The Next Generation, authored nine ficlets including "The Fifteenth," "They Don't Come Out at Night," and "Hunter and Hunted."

Awards

In 2008, Ficlets earned the Gold Award in the Social/Networking category at the W3 Awards.

That same year, it also won the CSS category and received a nomination for the Community category at the South by Southwest (SxSW) Web Awards.

Critical reception

During its initial week, the site inspired nearly 400 blog posts and attracted a user request from Boing Boing. Mike Linksvayer of Creative Commons expressed considerable excitement about both the platform’s launch and its application. In February 2008, the CBC Radio program Spark featured a segment on Ficlets that included an interview with founder Kevin Lawver and readings of two ficlets.

External links

• Archived official site
• Ficlets Memorial
• Ficly.com – Successor site created by Lawver
• Ficlatte.com – Community-driven replacement following Ficly’s closure to new submissions in 2015