I am a great believer in the virtues of conciseness. I love 50 and 100 word stories, so much so that I’ve dedicated a section of this website to the 100 word variety (which incidentally are called Drabbles). The question is, how short can you make a story? For example, is it possible to have one with only six words? Well, while they’re maybe not stories as such, it is possible to evoke a whole array of thoughts with only six words… and some very famous writers have done it. Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.<\/strong> Ernest Hemingway<\/em> Every one of them makes you think… you make up the background story in your head. I think it\u2019s magical. But could the ordinary man or woman in the street do it? Of course they could. I started a post on an arts & crafts forum\u00a0and invited folk there to post their attempts.<\/p>\n Here are a few brilliant examples:<\/p>\n Joined a handicraft forum… made friends.<\/strong> Ken (You’d expect me to include one of my own, wouldn’t you?).<\/em> All of these were super, but the best of all, in my opinion, was from BJT whose story followed on from Ernest Hemingway\u2019s \u2018For sale: baby shoes, never worn.\u2019…<\/p>\n
\nLonged for him. Got him. Sh*t.<\/strong> Margaret Atwood<\/em>
\nThe baby\u2019s blood type? Human, mostly.<\/strong> Orson Scott Card<\/em>
\nKirby had never eaten toes before.<\/strong> Kevin Smith<\/em>
\nSteve ignores editor’s word limit and…<\/strong> Steven Meretzky<\/em>
\nMachine. Unexpectedly, I\u2019d invented a time<\/strong> Alan Moore<\/em><\/p>\n
\nI came, I saw, I conquered.<\/strong> Julius Caesar (Submitted by Maria – and to be fair Julius actually said \u2018Veni, vidi, vici.\u2019 which would have been disqualified for over-brevity.)<\/em>
\nHeart available again: one broken owner.<\/strong> Kaska<\/em><\/p>\n