Thanks to the bloggers of the Writing Popular Fiction Program at Seton Hill University, I came across this article by Wired Magazine that’s making the rounds. They had this idea about Ernest Hemingway’s six word short story (”For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”)–could they solicit some six word masterpieces by some of today’s great Speculative Fiction writers? The result was a bit uneven. There seemed to be a few good ones, telling enough of a story that draws us to fill in the rest just like Hemingway’s original:

• K.I.A. Baghdad, Aged 18 - Closed Casket
  - Richard K. Morgan
• Osama’s time machine: President Gore concerned.
  - Charles Stross
• Corpse parts missing. Doctor buys yacht.
  - Margaret Atwood

But there a lot more that aren’t–it’s clear that some didn’t take the exercise seriously or weren’t overly inspired:

• I win lottery. Sun goes nova.
  - Steven Meretzky
• WIRED stimulates the planet: Utopia blossoms!
  -Paul Di Filippo
• It’s behind you! Hurry before it
  - Rockne S. O’Bannon

Other’s seemed more like great first lines of longer stories or were more poetic than prosaic:

• He read his obituary with confusion.
  - Steven Meretzky
• Your house is mine: soft revolution.
  - Howard Waldrop
• Kirby had never eaten toes before.
  - Kevin Smith

Check out Wired for the rest of them.

The whole thing reminded me a bit of a recurring forum thread over at Bookcrossing where people are invited to write five word reviews of the books they’re reading. Many are more like summaries than reviews, but they’re great fun to read.

Feel free to post your own six word story or five word review.