Friday, February 09, 2007

Very Short Stories

I happened upon a list of "Very Short Stories" ,science fiction style, in a past edition of a blog called "Wired" .
The blog entry opened thus: "We'll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves"



Here are a few examples from the long list on the 'Wired' site

Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.- Richard Powers

The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.- Orson Scott Card

TIME MACHINE REACHES FUTURE!!! … nobody there …- Harry Harrison

Tick tock tick tock tick tick.- Neal Stephenson

Easy. Just touch the match to- Ursula K. Le Guin

Heaven falls. Details at eleven.- Robert Jordan

Bush told the truth. Hell froze.- William Gibson



This idea reminded me of a magazine competiton my Dad used to enter regularly many years ago. The magazine would print a selection of phrases , competitors had to pick one (or more) and compose another phrase which expressed a clever definition or interpretation of the original phrase, ususally with double meaning.
One famous example, which has remained in my memory, was:
" For services rendered" (the phrase given). Winning entry was "King pinned on cross" (think about it!)

Both these endeavours required extreme economy of words with ingenuity of thought. Summed up astrologically could this be be expressed as
Saturn conjunct Mercury in Aquarius ?...... A 5-word story about a 6-word story!
(Had to get astrology in there somewhere!)

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