In 2023, we're inviting you again to join us for a weekly writing exercise

The first game of #RāmereShorts happened in 2010 and was the inspired creation of then Book Council communications manager Sarah Forster.

More than a decade later, the Friday ritual is still going strong: at 9am we deliver a set of six fresh words, and participants craft them into a small poem or story. A winner is chosen at the end of the working day: who used the words in the most original and clever way? Who made us laugh or cry or shake our head?

Sometimes it just comes down to: who used all six words and kept within the character limit of 140?

This year, we hope you'll join us each Rāmere (Friday) to compose a little something and share it with our community. We love reading the entries and seeing how different thinkers use the same words.

How it works

Around 9am every Friday (Rāmere) morning, we begin by posting six randomly-chosen words on our Twitter feed.

To play along, use these words to compose a small story, poem or witticism. You can compose your piece on paper then tweet it, or you can follow the link we provide to a handy online tool that counts your characters and lets you know when you've used all the given words. Post them on your Twitter feed, along with the hashtag (both #ramereshorts and #rāmereshorts will work, as will #RamereShorts and #RāmereShorts). You can enter as many times as you like. Read the other entries and ‘like’ your favourites!

When we see a new entry, we retweet from our account, and at the end of the working day, we post a winner.

Character count

Your entry can be any length, but only entries that use 140 characters or fewer will be considered for the winning place. The hashtag is not included in the character count.

Using the words

Winning entries must use all six of the words provided. These words can be tweaked to change the tense or plural, though. For example ‘drive’ can be ‘driven’ and ‘dog’ can be ‘dogs.’

Judging

Around 5pm on a Friday, we’ll choose a winning tweet. We will usually go for the most succinct, moving, or funny entry, or the one that most cleverly uses each given word. Then we check that it falls within the character count, and uses all six words.

Group entries

We know of one office that plays #Rāmereshorts together as a team-building exercise each Friday. Everyone votes on the best entry, then that one is entered into the competition. There are also primary school classes who join in, and secondary school students, too! We would love to see more work groups, families or schools take part! Please spread the word and join us.

Inspiration

To get inspired, click the #Rāmereshorts hashtag on Twitter to read some previous entries.

The most previous winning entry was penned by Twitter user antzlapwood:

The words were: crop, read, expect, side, reflect, link

Side effects to expect when
reading a crop of books include:
opportunity to reflect,
conceptual links,
increased vocabulary, lost time