I stole the idea and the photo for this particular blog from one of my favorite blogs, A Dark Planet, from David Terrenoire. I hope he doesn’t mind my theft but i’ve had this rolling around in my head for a couple of days now and felt like sharing. Sorry, David.
In his post, David talked about coming across this tiny pair of sandals in the office park where he works, a place not frequented by children. He wrote about how this sparked all sorts of speculation. It was basically the start of a story which reminded him of what Ernest Hemingway had written when challenged to come up with a story in just six words:
For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.
It’s a stunning use of six simple words and nine syllables. It conjures up all sorts of storylines involving all sorts of human experience- love and marriage, tragedy and loss, etc. It’s like the spark that sets off the explosion that creates a new universe. A Big Boom of ideas.
I found other examples. For instance William Shatner came up with this:
Failed SAT. Lost scholarship. Invented rocket.
Then there’s this from author Margaret Atwood:
Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
And Augusten Burroughs wrote:
Oh, that? It’s nothing. Not contagious.
To his credit, David Terrenoire came up on short notice with:
A mother, now childless, seeks divorce.
There’s a website, Six Word Stories, that has a running log of such stories,to which anyone can submit. Some are pretty witty. Some very creative. A few recent ones:
No thanks, Eve. I prefer oranges. – from Ruth Polleys
And from Brian (just Brian):
Five zombies. Four bullets. Two zombies.
There are many more but I still haven’t found one that has that completeness of idea and emotion that Hemingway brought with his six words. I keep running some through my head, kind of like trying to put together a puzzle. For me, it’s like composing a painting. I’m trying to create something that has a sense of its own world with the fewest elements, paring away detail but trying to find an iconic image that carries all sorts of meaning, needing no other words. I always seem to find myself in a dark, kind of noir setting.
Greyhound into Reno. Cuckold fingers pistol.
Okay, it needs work. I never claimed to be Hemingway or even a writer. I paint pictures!
Redtree Times 