Yes.
If you want to be technical about it, a drabble is only and specifically a work of exactly 100 words.
Just like a haiku is a poem of exactly three lines, in the pattern of five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables.
A drabble is exactly 100 words long. No more, no less.
However, colloquially, many people use ‘drabble’ loosely to refer to any very short work of fiction. Essentially it is used loosely as a synonym for “ficlet” or “flash fiction”, which are more appropriate terms for a work of a very short length which is not 100 words long.
We actually answered this question once before about a week ago, and you can see that answer here.
As we stated in that answer, it’s basically fine if you want to call your short work a drabble, but it’s not technically correct, and using it that way does contribute to linguistic drift. Which again, is fine.
We only use drabble as originally intended. Exactly 100 words.
Here’s some historical context about the drabble from fanlore.org. I recommend going and reading the full article.
The term itself comes from Monty Python’s 1971 Big Red Book, which declared the drabble a word game in which two to four players compete to be the first to write a novel.[1]
Drabbles emerged within British science fiction fandom in the 1980s; the Birmingham University SF society is credited as being the organization that set the length at 100 words.[1] The form remained popular throughout the decade, and the British science-fiction publisher Beccon Publications put out three books of drabbles in aid of charity between 1988-1993. The third book, Drabble Who, had a Doctor Who theme and presumably many of its 100 drabbles could be considered fan fiction.
