We’ve done a lot of short story competitions in our time on Facebook; Love in Eleven, 15 word story, 10 word story, fairytales a dozen and Horror Haikus to name a few but have you ever wondered what a famous author would do if restricted to just a handful of words?
Here are a few I found whilst surfing the net.
Rebecca Miller
As she fell, her mind wandered.
J.T. LeRoy (Laura Albert)
Tossed remorselessly, whiffle balls sure hurt.
Margaret Atwood
Starlet sex scandal. Giant squid involved.
Stephen Baxter
Big bang. No God. Fadeout. End.
Steven Meretzky
I win lottery. Sun goes nova.
Rudy Rucker
His penis snapped off; he’s pregnant!
Jeffrey Kent Eugenides
Defenestrated baby, methamphetamine, prison, rehab, relapse.
David Brin
Bang postponed. Not Big enough. Reboot.
Evelyn Waugh
Lovely spring weather, bubonic plague raging.
Robert Benchley
Streets full of water. Please advise.
(sent to his editor in a telegram whilst upon his first trip to Venice)
Dave Eggers
Found true love. Married someone else.
Bruce Benderson
Mother’s Day came, doubling Oedipus’ pleasure.
Bruce Sterling
It cost too much, staying human.
Steven Meretzky
Wasted day. Wasted life. Dessert, please.
And of course, not forgetting
Ernest Hemingway
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Being limited so drastically doesn’t seem to affect the ability of a good author to shock you, make you laugh and make you think.
The Hemingway one I find especially poignant.
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The baby shoes story being authored by Hemingway is apocryphal. The words first appeared in a newspaper in the 1910s and have been attributed to various authors since.