"For sale: Baby shoes, never worn."
Hemingway supposedly wrote this to win a bet, but whether the story is true or not, it's harder to think of a more difficult task than writing something with maximum brevity and a paucity of prose.
Hint Fiction is the name of an anthology of leading writers (some well-known, some not) that captures compelling and constricted fiction that's 25 words or less, in honor of Hemingway's heartbreaking tweet of a tale. To me, it's more fun to make your own attempts, so here are my first two first-draft no-editing attempts:
"I pulled the strands taut and started cutting, doleful yet exhilarated, each shorn clump a preemptive strike. 'Timetables,' I thought, 'are for those with time.'"
"We laid together by the stereo light, aggressively not kissing each other, another darkened failure of summer’s promise. Me, I never wanted Disintegration to end."
Try it yourself...it's frustrating fun!
Hemingway supposedly wrote this to win a bet, but whether the story is true or not, it's harder to think of a more difficult task than writing something with maximum brevity and a paucity of prose.
Hint Fiction is the name of an anthology of leading writers (some well-known, some not) that captures compelling and constricted fiction that's 25 words or less, in honor of Hemingway's heartbreaking tweet of a tale. To me, it's more fun to make your own attempts, so here are my first two first-draft no-editing attempts:
"I pulled the strands taut and started cutting, doleful yet exhilarated, each shorn clump a preemptive strike. 'Timetables,' I thought, 'are for those with time.'"
"We laid together by the stereo light, aggressively not kissing each other, another darkened failure of summer’s promise. Me, I never wanted Disintegration to end."
Try it yourself...it's frustrating fun!
Wanting, needing, yet not producing. She laid to waste possibilities that couldn't be. Time, the enemy, debilitated talents not capitalized. Promises nevertheless prevail.
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