Create your own six-word novel, assignment help

We are not writing flash fiction or micro fiction in this class, but we can learn a lot about structure in condense stories where the arc is more easily visible.

Here’s a great story. It doesn’t have a title. And it’s only six words long.

“For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

It’s a brilliant piece of storytelling, because in that short piece, we see a setting for who the main characters are (people who aren’t wealthy enough to just hold onto or throw away baby shoes), an arc of rising hopes (expectation of a baby), a dramatic event (the death of the baby), and the declining position of the main characters after that event.

Create your own six-word novel and post it here. (These can be addictive, so if you come up with more than one, post them all.)

Respond to each other’s work. If you’re looking for more examples of the six-word story, go to these links:

Wired: Very Short Stories http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html

NPR: Six-Word Memoirs: Life Stories Distilled http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18768430

(Keep in mind that even though the NPR pieces are memoirs; your assignment this unit is to create a fictional piece.)