LESS IS MORE

10 Of The Best Six-Word Stories Out There

Image: Etienne Girardet

They say that brevity is the soul of wit, and when the complex art of storytelling is distilled into only six words, you end up with some fascinating literary artifacts. An example of a curious genre called flash fiction, these minimalist tales offer brief glimpses into all kinds of worlds and situations.

Kindred to short-form poetry, popular jokes, and other types of oral literature, six-word stories can be truly enthralling. But crafting a narrative with such limited space requires a masterful touch. Here we gathered some of the best for your enjoyment. Maybe it will even inspire you to write your own!

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A mother's worst nightmare. Many times erroneously attributed to Ernest Hemingway (another master of succinctness in his own way), this brief masterclass in storytelling only needs six words to indirectly imply a heartbreaking story of loss and unrealized dreams.

Image: Austin Neill

A story of betrayal. You know what they would say about jumping off a cliff with your friends. And it doesn’t need to be a real cliff even, because what actually hurts the most is trusting someone to stay by your side, only to find out in the worst possible moment that they weren’t truthful.

Image: Zach Lucero

Authored by award-winning sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card, better known for his 1985 novel Ender's Game. Blending humor with an ominous theme, this intriguing short story leaves us thinking in what kind of world such a phrase could be uttered and pondering about what makes us human.

Image: John Hernandez

Kind of bragging, really, but goes to show that it is even possible to write a romantic comedy—sort of—in this very limited space. Or a crime thriller, perhaps, if you take the metaphor literally. This one also serves as an example of a telegram-style narrative, using very few words per sentence.

Image: Charles DeLoye

Another tearjerker, and even without knowing anything about the two main characters of the story, you can feel the pain of losing a brother or sister. On the other hand, you could certainly argue that this one is not entirely grammatically correct—and you would be right—but part of the fun in this type of short story is to let go of the usual rigidness of language and convention.

Image: Hasnain Sikora

A playful sci-fi parody of the classic "baby shoes" story, it gives us a different perspective from the usual science-fiction cliches. It leaves readers to wonder what could have happened to prevent someone from trying such an amazing scientific discovery. Maybe a time machine is not really worth it, after all. Or maybe it just doesn't work.

Image: John Schnobrich

Why is this genre so full of heart-wrenching stories? This one could be a lone entry in a personal diary or a whispered confession to a worried friend. It manages to condense the myriad of tragic details and everyday actions that can remind us of a person who, for whatever reason, is gone from our lives.

Image: Chris Briggs

Another story set in the realm of speculative fiction, this one introduces us to a classic trope of the genre: Teleportation. But have you ever thought about how the machine actually works? Maybe it is just destroying you and making an exact replica somewhere else, with all your memories and thoughts. But it just isn’t you anymore, because the original was vaporized instantly. And even if that existential problem is out of the way, what happens if it malfunctions? Well, I’m not buying a teleporter any time soon. Beware, early adopters!

Image: Yuvraj Singh

From strangers to lovers, then strangers again? Sadly, an almost universal experience! This six-word narrative traces the arc of a relationship with an economy of words that's as powerful as it is poignant. And while a bit depressing, it can be an honest timeline of how most human relationships go.

Image: Geetanjal Khanna

This one could work great as the ending of a noir fiction novel or as the departing words of an antihero protagonist who ultimately decides to sacrifice himself for the greater good. It’s no wonder this is the tone that this short story conveys because its author is none other than comic book wizard Frank Miller, known for his dark stories and brooding characters.

From page to big screen

Who wrote this? 9 romantic films inspired by literary classics

Many are quick to dismiss the Romantic film genre as superfluous, unrealistic, or shallow. There is a widespread belief that the scripts of romantic comedies are filled with cliches, and that they all follow the same formula, making them predictable and depth-lacking**.** On the other hand, romantic dramas don’t always receive better criticism. While this might be true for some movies, there are plenty of romantic films with good scripts. In fact, many beloved films from this genre are based on known literary works. Let’s go through some romantic films you might not know were based on a classic!

Let’s start with a bona fide classic of the '90s. Here, instead of Regency-era rich and spoiled Emma Woodhouse and her matchmaking meddlings, we have ‘90s fashionista Cher, also rich and spoiled, also meddling, but this time in high-school drama.

_Emma_’s country soirees might be changed for pastel colors and Beverly Hills, but Austen’s core idea remains: Well-intentioned good deeds might not always be what others need from us.

In Easy A, the literary text works both as inspiration and as a plot device. With her "good reputation" in shambles due to a white lie and a series of out-of-control rumors, teenager Olive Penderghast decides to own up to her bad reputation and wear a red letter A on her chest, inspired by Hawthorne’s depiction of a single mother in a 17th-century Puritan community.

While _Easy A_’s story is more lighthearted than the one in The Scarlet Letter, both showcase the results of hypocrisy, rumors, and public shaming.

Another cult classic from the ‘90s, this time reversioning a comedy by William Shakespeare. In The Taming of the Shrew, the suitors of Bianca, unable to marry until her ill-tempered sister Kate does, pay Petruccio to wed her.

The 90s version is set in high school, so there are no marriages in sight. Instead, the prize is being able to date Bianca and take her to prom, something Kate has no interest in doing herself.

While not everyone has read Shaw’s Pygmalion and its tale of turning a low-class florist into a high-class lady, everyone knows its most famous film adaptation, My Fair Lady (originally a musical). But did you know that the 90s also have their own version?

In this RomCom classic, popular boy Zach bets he can turn anyone into the school’s prom queen. His chosen target? Not-so-popular, artsy, low-profile Laney.

This Civil War romantic drama is the film adaptation of a novel by Charles Frazier, but the plot is not necessarily original: a young man left the woman he loves behind when he went to war, and the journey back is treacherous, hard, and filled with danger. Rings any bells?

That’s right, Inman’s journey back to Ada is a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey, but using a real-life character. The protagonist, W. P. Inman, was Frazier’s great-granduncle.

This musical romantic drama is known for its eclectic soundtrack, its cast, and its tragic history. Many people recognize the opera La Boheme as one of the inspirations behind Christian and Satine’s tragic history, and they are not wrong. However, director and writer Baz Luhrmann has also pointed to a French literary classic as a source.

The Lady of the Camellias (also known as Camille) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas fils (not the one who wrote about musketeers, but his son). It tells the story of the affair between Marguerite, a courtesan who suffers from tuberculosis, and young Armand. Like its film adaptation, Dumas' story is both romantic and tragic.

Some could say that A Knight’s Tale doesn’t really count as a romantic comedy, but the romantic element is important enough to make it part of this list. If you saw the film, you might remember William’s friend Geoffrey Chaucer, played by Paul Bettany. He was a real person and one of the most important writers of English literature.

A Knight’s Tale is a reinterpretation of Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, from the Canterbury Tales: it tells the story of two knights who duel for the hand of a woman. In the film’s end, everything comes full circle when Chaucer decides to write the story down.

In the comedy by Shakespeare, we see John Falstaff (a drunkard, gambler, and a recurring character in various plays by the Bard) wooing several married women for financial gain, but the tables are turned on him when the women realize his plan and join forces to get revenge.

How does this translate to a 2000s teen comedy? Another John (now John Tucker), a popular high school athlete, is dating several girls at once. When the girls find out, they plan to make him fall in love with one of their friends, and then break his heart and publicly humiliate him.

Cyrano de Bergerac has been the source of several romantic films, both tragic and comedic, with different takes on big-nosed Cyrano and his letters. In this ‘80s version, Cyrano is Charlie (also big-nosed and ashamed of it), in love with beautiful Roxanne.

Believing Roxanne is interested in Charlie’s coworker Chris, he starts coaching him on how to woo her and writes Roxanne letters under Chris’s name. Luckily for everyone involved, this version has a less tragic ending than the original play.