Six-Word Epics

A fun piece from Wired magazine: various well-known writers take up Hemingway’s challenge of writing a novel in only six words. Hemingway's magnum opus: "For sale: baby shoes. Never worn." He called it "the best thing he ever wrote."

It seems to me a very pleasant art form; as valid, say, as a haiku. The trick is to evoke a narrative, ideally an interesting narrative, without using more than six words. Extra points, I think, for natural-sounding diction.

Here are a few I’ve come up with:

A six word romance:

I came. I saw. She conquered.


The Bridge at San Luis Rey in six words:

The bridge broke. Five fell. Silence.


A murder mystery:

December snows: no corpse until spring.


A Hemingwayan novel:

We saw Niagara together. She jumped.


Slice of life: the story of every marriage:

Honeymoon: the lady, or the tiger?


Melodramas, the sort that become made-for-TV movies:

She aborted before the DNA results.

“Darling,” she whispered, “I have AIDS.”


A boy’s book in the grand old tradition:

“Lost. No water.” His last entry.


A psychological thriller:

I conquered Europe. Why this straightjacket?


An end-of-the-world sci-fi epic:

Stalemate? Checkmate. Bombs fell. Bloody hell.


Anyone else want to try?