One-sentence stories, a 6 word review, and a challenge
One-sentence stories, a 6 word review, and a challenge
Short-form writing #2
Greetings!
Welcome to this (relatively) new series, short-form writing. Short-form writing is often hard to pull off, because there’s no safety net, so to speak. For example, if you’re asked — or ask yourself— to write a book review and have a word limit of 3,000 words, there’s a real danger that you could get lost in a sea of your own erudition1. But give yourself a word limit of 100 words, and there’s nowhere to hide: every single word has to count.
There’s also the consideration that, as
has pointed out:Short posts let you show up for your readers without having to create a masterpiece. Short posts remind people who you are and why they love hearing from you every week.
I think of this as keeping the pot simmering. Often, when I receive a new book to review, I’ll write a “quick look” post, telling readers what the book is and what my initial impressions are, being careful to emphasise that I haven’t read the book yet, just skimmed through some of it. Later, I follow this up with a full review. I regard this process as better than waiting until I’ve read the book2. It gives the reader a heads-up that the book exists, and it helps the publisher and the author get the word out.
All of which is to say, short-form writing is an art form3, and useful. Whether or not Google’s search algorithms like it is neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned.
One-sentence stories
But enough of this persiflage! Last week I invited paid subscribers to have a go at writing a one-sentence story, and some of them did. (The challenge below is open to all, by the way.) As I said in that post, a one-sentence story lacks the usual narrative arc: there’s no exposition, there’s no climax, there’s no resolution. Instead, the story is, in effect, provided by the reader.
Here are the one-sentence stories that some lovely people sent in4. We’d love to hear your comments, as feedback is always appreciated.
writer Jim Cummings
I knew it was a risk to my career to represent Big Tony but when the guilty verdict came down, his sidelong glare made me realize I had bigger things to be concerned with.
Leaves writer,
She shows me the tiny room where I’m to stay in this urban wilderness of Barcelona, and I find it is painted entirely in a deep, thunderous red, it has no windows, and it seems to be furnished primarily with cats.
***
I don’t believe in spirits or the afterlife — it’s all just superstitious nonsense to me, and yet, I am often visited, awake or sleeping, by my long-dead mother, who tells me it is time to pull myself together.
***
Those who have gone before me — my mother, my father, my dearest love, live now only in my senses, in the taste of dumplings, the smell of cheap bourbon, the echo of a banjo.
What the... BANG!
writer
The gauntlet was thrown, and she grabbed it before it had even hit the ground.
***
'You said you didn't mean it, but I KNEW you did,' she told the bare earth as she turned from his grave.
***
She boarded the seaplane to her paradise island still wondering how the wrong answer had made her the winner.
Finally, my own efforts
Fiction:
Had I known, I would never have answered the door.
Non-fiction:
The worst job I had was the best job I had.
And then there was Spikey.
When the rumours started, I knew what I had to do: create a spreadsheet.
I used to be famous.
Nano reviews
You’ve heard of six-word stories. How about nano non-fiction? I wrote a 6 word review of Lolita, together with a much longer commentary. Here’s a six word review of Portnoy’s Complaint — with no commentary.
My review:
Disgusting, original, debasing, accurate, pathetic, hilarious.
A challenge
Write a 6-word review of a book, play, film, whatever you like, and submit it via this form. I intend to publish the results in a similar way to the one-sentence stories, ie in a post like this. Please do have a go, because I don’t want to be the only one doing this.
Deadline: Midnight British Summer Time Saturday 24 August 2024.
Thanks for reading this incredibly long article about short-form writing. What can I say? The nature of the article made a shorter one impossible.
Like the sentence you just read!
In case you’re wondering if my quick look will state that this is a terrible or wonderful book, only to be contradicted by my subsequent full review, allow me to reassure you. Although I skim read initially, I do read enough of the book to feel on reasonably solid ground.
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PS I should have said: I reserve the right to not publish anything that could land me in court, or anything I don't like for whatever reason. The editor's decision is final, so there.
Well I've entered but in truthi am not a short form man. More a long winded one...