ULTRA-SHORT FLASH FICTION (SIX WORDS)

SIX-WORD STORIES The challenge is to write Ultra-Short Stories to equal the famous six-worder:

For sale: baby shoes, never used.
—Ernest Hemingway

Firstly, because I simply had to go one better, my five-word version of The History Of All That Exists.

Chaos; miniscule order; development; universe.

There are, by the way, whole websites devoted to six-word stories, and some of the results are really excellent. Now, ten six-word short stories I have written:

‘Obituary? Did he ever achieve anything?’
The unfortunate accident took much planning.
Worked unceasingly, saved fanatically…died young.
Frogs croaked; pond drained; frogs ‘croaked’.
‘Creating havoc?’ ‘Yes; havoc good day!’
Awfully pretty wedding; pretty awfully married…
Bad actors actually murdered Julius Caesar.
‘You sure that altimeter is…aargh!’
He survived the war. She didn’t.
Troubled beginning; resolving development; happy ending.

  In the next three, I have used a heading, but still counted it in as part of the six words.
  I have come to realise that with some of mine (as with many found in the blogsites devoted to this ultra-flash-fiction) the result may give a twist, but that twist is simply a clever quip rather than something which actually creates a story in the mind.
  I think the ideal should be to stimulate the imagination, so that it starts filling in background to create a story with characters, a beginning, middle and conclusion. The heading, if any, shouldn’t give it away at the start. Hopefully, these work on that level.

LIFE-SUPPORT

 ‘Tubey, or not to be…’

 SOLVED

Accident? No. ‘She pushed him!’

LAST CHOICE

 ‘Red…?’ ‘Green!’ *snip* BOOM!

© August 2010 Colonialist (Word/Press/Letterdash)

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