Stories: Half a Dozen Words Each
There's a feature at Wired about six-word stories by a bunch of high-profile authors. Since I tend towards the laconic when writing fiction, this seems right up my alley, so I thought I'd give it a shot or six.
Saved the whales. It wasn't enough.
Finding my wife and kids: Priceless.
Electronics hate you? Don't touch the-
Iscariot was framed, but didn't resist.
Scream all you like. Won't help.
"Well?" "Cancer."
"Treatable?" "No."
"Sweetheart?!" "Shh..."
(fanfic entry, added later)
His Precious led him to Doom.
What I found interesting while writing these was that it seemed easier to evoke negative emotional states than positive ones. And I think that's reflected in the examples in the Wired piece -- very few of those stories have a positive or uplifting tone. Ominous, by comparison, is pretty common. And evoking almost no emotional response in favor of evoking an intellectual response is common as well, although that may be as much of a commentary on the authors who chose to respond as it is on the limitations set by using so few words.
Saved the whales. It wasn't enough.
Finding my wife and kids: Priceless.
Electronics hate you? Don't touch the-
Iscariot was framed, but didn't resist.
Scream all you like. Won't help.
"Well?" "Cancer."
"Treatable?" "No."
"Sweetheart?!" "Shh..."
(fanfic entry, added later)
His Precious led him to Doom.
What I found interesting while writing these was that it seemed easier to evoke negative emotional states than positive ones. And I think that's reflected in the examples in the Wired piece -- very few of those stories have a positive or uplifting tone. Ominous, by comparison, is pretty common. And evoking almost no emotional response in favor of evoking an intellectual response is common as well, although that may be as much of a commentary on the authors who chose to respond as it is on the limitations set by using so few words.