Comedy

Nobody in these stories is having a good time

Comedy is the hardest thing to do in this format and the most obvious when it works. Text messages are already a comic form; autocorrect, the message sent to the wrong person, the four-paragraph reply to "k"; and the stories here mostly build on jokes the reader has lived through rather than inventing new ones.

What distinguishes the good ones is restraint. A chat-fiction comedy that tries too hard reads like a screenshot compilation; the ones that rate well here are usually about a situation getting steadily worse for a character who keeps insisting it is fine. Chapters are short, the pacing is quick, and very few of these stories outstay their welcome.

This is a good category to start with if you are new to the format, because the payoff comes fast and you can tell within two chapters whether a given writer is for you.