http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html
Here's the link to some short stories. I read through a couple of these before starting on my second short story about Abe. My goal was to express an idea in as few words as possible. I don't think Earnest Hemingway's famous six word story is on here but this is it... "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn." (Hope I got that right : / ) What do you think? Are six words enough to tell a story?
Bang postponed. Not Big enough. Reboot.
ReplyDelete-David Brin
I especially like this one.
I never thought we could write a story using six words only. But it turned out that it was fun! I laughed out when I read some of these. Reading is such a pleasant experience with them
ReplyDeleteHere is my favorite: Longed for him. Got him. Shit. I love it because it has the basic things for a fiction: a beginning, a development (with a climax?), and an ending. What’s more, it has twists and turns! I can’t stop from guessing what happened between that “longed for him” and “shit”.
But I do think that six words cannot make a good story. The best thing and the worst thing about stories like this are the same thing: they leave much space for readers’ imagination and interpretation. I guess every reader would like to participate in the work he or she is reading in some way. And leaving space for the readers is a best way to get them involved. In this sense, these short stories are successful in attracting the readers. But at the same time, they leave too much space for the reader. Take “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn." We can imagine that a woman who just lost her baby is sadly clearing off the shoes she prepared for it, or we can imagine a woman who just gave birth to a baby without feet (because the woman is cursed!), and she is sadly clearing off the shoes she prepared for it, or we can imagine a woman who takes a baby away from its biological parents and kills it just to have its shoes sold to pay for her apartment (sounds a little weird). Anyway, I think too much space for imagination stops these stories from being discussed. And lack of discussion and shared understanding make it difficult for a story to be popular among readers.
I was very interested by the aspect of six word stories, considering I never even considered the idea. The six word stories that were provided in the link you gave were very amusing, and some gave me a good laugh. My favorite was:
ReplyDeleteFailed SAT. Lost scholarship. Invented rocket.
- William Shatner
Just the mental image of William Shatner saying such a thing gave me a laugh. Another one that was pretty amusing was the one by Rudy Rucker that said 'His penis snapped off; he's pregnant!' I stared at my screen for a moment just questioning what I just read.
Although these simple, six word stories are amusing and provide a bit of a laugh I do not really think they can provide a good story. They provide space for imagination but doesn't give the reader a semi-solid plot to follow along so we basically have absolutely no idea or indication where the story could be going, we only have what our imagination thinks up. Which at times could be a good thing, but I feel as if that is only a good thing when we at least a few good, detailed paragraphs because then at least we know a little bit about who the characters are, where they are etc. and gives us an opportunity to sculpt a world in our minds and then take off with our imaginations. With six words you can't really get any information about the characters, setting and very little of the plot. So although amusing, I personally think these six word stories can not provide a good story.