Thursday, August 5, 2010

Brevity





There's an apocryphal story about Ernest Hemingway. One that involved a wager that he could write a short story in six words. Papa was supposed to have won the bet by writing the following words:



For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn.



Genius.

10 comments:

  1. genius, indeed.
    and yeah, i had to google the word, apocryphal. :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. That'd be an interesting addition to this blog:

    http://saisaisais.wordpress.com/.

    :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. wow! something i can only dream of doing with words.. =( now i'm sad.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm challenging myself to write flash fictions in 101 words.

    I agree, this is genius.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My personal favorite:

    Jennifer stood there, quietly ovulating. -Adam Cadre

    ReplyDelete
  6. alright that made me sad. :S

    when i was younger, i thought brevity meant brave-ness. haha brevity geddit geddit? ang tanga lang.

    not a big hemmingway fan but now i realize why so many people love him.

    ReplyDelete
  7. And I now doubt why I get 1's on my English classes.

    ReplyDelete
  8. @ soltero : Hahaha awww. For what it's worth, one word whose meaning keeps eluding me is "quotidian."

    Which is annoying because it simply means "something that occurs every day; commonplace; routine." Like my quotidian forgetfulness of its meaning.

    @ Manech : interesting blog concept! And i was just thinking if we could have a six-word short story writing exercise amongst ourselves :P

    @ davidrockens : For all his gifts, Hemingway must've gotten really sad at one point, too. Must be why he shot himself :(

    @ narnian : Good on you. I need to discipline myself to write shorter entries, instead of just rambling on and on until I get to a point - or not.

    @ drew: That's five words, which trumps Papa's six hehe.

    "There Hemingway lay, gravely rolling."

    @ Nyl: It made me sad, too. A tragedy in six words.

    @ Ming : Not all writers can be novelists, Ming. But we express ourselves in whichever form of writing we find ourselves good at, or are more comfortable in. That's one benefit I derived from joining the blogosphere: it made me write again. Or at least, it made me write something other than the praises of feminine hygiene products, shampoo, and cookies.

    ReplyDelete
  9. W-O-R-D!!!!!
    we've done this before. interesting talaga, but sadly, am no good at it, hehe.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Rudeboy: Yeah, why not? Sounds like a really good exercise to master concision. :D

    ReplyDelete