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We've done short stories, even really short stories, but this takes it to the extreme: wired magazine asked 33 writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror to compose a story in six words or less. Some of the results are pretty good, including one by our own OSC.
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Many of these weren't what I would call "stories" -- streams of words having a semblance of a beginning, middle, and end in time, with hints of a conflict- character growth-based "plot" -- but a surprising number of them were. Margaret Atwood's is my favorite of those listed.
Here's the world's shortest fanfic: Hobbits destroy ring, new age begins.
Historical fiction: Vortigern invites Saxons, Britannia becomes England.
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The basic plot for most of the Star Trek TNG episodes: Problems. Reverse Tachyon Pulse. Problems Solved. Not to leave TOS out: Unknown Planet. Green women. Kiss, leave. DS9: Space Station. Wormhole. Dominion. So what? Voyager: Lost in Gamma Quadrant. Story wanted. Enterprise: That's the guy from Quantum Leap!
The Wheel Of Time: Middle Earth meets Dune. Nothing happens. Alvin The Maker: Alvin goes to court. Yet again.
[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited October 27, 2006).]
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I admire Clarks integrity for not cutting, but I've admired him more if he'd realized that his story only needed five words. Indeed, quite a few of those "stories" are longer than they need to be.
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"In Latin, that's only three words" sounds like a story to me. But then I am a linguist. :smiles smugly: Posts: 366 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Okay, I'm just kidding. I was a little mad at the time, but now I think it was merely funny. As my above posts indicate, I started writing a lengthy reply right after my six word post and somehow managed to alt-z or whatever it out of existance. So I noted that in six words, then spent a minute thinking bad things, then wrote another post to commemorate that. My original plan was for a half page explication of the previous post, but I'm going to settle for this paragraph instead because I don't want a repeat of yesterday. Even if that's now funny, the second time would take another day or so to fade into proper perspective.
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Here's an interesting idea. How about only six-word sentences? For an entire paragraph? Without producing nothing but fragments? Like I just did?
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Trousercuit, we can compose those paragraphs. We may get monotonous results, though.
Also, sentence structure can alter meanings. Homogenous sentences reduce continuity of thought. Longer sentences show cause and effect. Artificial limitations thus reduce overall clarity.
Some constructs are hard to avoid. Conjunctions may start sentences, for instance. That violates the exercise's spirit, though. Grammatical sentences are harder, but better. At least, that's what I think.
It's an interesting exercise to try. I wouldn't go for very long.
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Nobody seems to have noticed my little word play on "no" as a syllable you could reasonably add to "haiku".
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Six words is so short that it's probably too limiting to be very helpul. What might be more interesting is a requirement for a very long word count -- say, 30 or 40 words -- and insist that there be no run-ons, no excess words, no rambling thought processes. Complete clarity with 40-word sentences would be interesting, and would provide enough flexibility to avoid the monotony.
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