Monday, November 29, 2010

Hint Fiction

Post by Christina

Ernest Hemingway, on a bet, said that he could write a short story in less than ten words. Here's what he came up with: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
Let's set aside the fact that there's a good chance this anecdote about Hemingway never really happened. What's important is the six-word story's function as the inspiration for a new form called Hint Fiction. A few weeks ago I heard this NPR piece. It's an interview with Robert Swartwood, who compiled a collection of short stories, each 25 words max. Despite my initial skepticism, I was surprised by the emotional punch of a few of the stories Swartwood read. Here's my favorite, Golden Years by Edith Pearlman:
"She: Macular. He: Parkinson's. She pushing, he directing, they get down the ramp, across the grass, through the gate. The wheels roll riverwards."
Ah! It's amazing that that really is a complete story in itself. I don't believe that's the case for every story in the collection. Here's one that sounds like a setup or opening for a really great traditional story or novel. Dickie by Minter Krotzer:
"Everyone in town went to the same gynecologist, Dickie. Even Dickie's sister went to Dickie. No one thought this was strange except for the out-of-towners."
See what I mean? I like it, but I think it's a stretch to call it a story in itself. There are also some that are more like jokes than stories, like David Joseph's Polygamy:
"I miss her more than
the others."
Very clever, but is it really a story?
I'm not gonna lie, these teeny tiny stories intrigue me, and I'd like to read more of them. I've got Swartwood's collection on my wishlist. I haven't talked to anyone about this yet- I've just been stewing in my own thoughts. What do you think?
Is hint fiction a symptom of our internet-age urge for immediate satisfaction? Does it have the potential to contribute to this urge?
Is Hint Fiction a brand new art form, or just a glorified writer's exercise?
How is Hint Fiction not poetry?

A couple of related links:
Robert Swartwood himself wrote about the idea behind Hint Fiction here, and here's his Hint Fiction homepage. If you'd like to try your hand at writing a six-word memoir, you can do so here.

Comments (16)

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Hint Fiction almost seems like a writer's prompt to me instead of a complete story...talk about Reader Response...so many dfferent directions you can go with the examples you shared. Interesting and mind provoking for sure.
1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago
Right! I wish some of them would actually be expanded into full stories because the Hints are so good that they leave me wanting more.
great post.
I do like the one in the photo about the ransom! :)

carol
1 reply · active 762 weeks ago
Thanks! And me, too. :)
I think the ransom one in the picture is my favorite out of the examples you gave. Looks interesting and difficult to successfully pull of a complete story in so little time.
1 reply · active 762 weeks ago
I like the ransom one, too. And yeah, it's something that I think would be extremely difficult to do well. Swartwood said in the interview that most of the entries came off more as random thoughts or excerpts from a longer work.
Who knew that flash fiction would become even more bite-size... maybe because of twitter?
1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It's interesting that micro-blogging was followed pretty closely by micro-fiction. What's next?
I think that you might have something there, speculating that it is very similar to a writing exercise. In fact, the Six Word Stories (I think referred to as micro fic?), has been used in my classroom for students to determine main idea. I do an activity where they come up with their own six word memoir (the "main idea" of who they are, so to speak) which leads into six word summaries of books that they've read.

Quite honestly though, I could care less what they're called. I think they're fun and my students agree.
1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago
That is a really cool idea, using the 6-word limit as a teaching tool for main ideas. I hadn't thought of it that way.
In a similar vein, I remember my AP English teacher having a game where you had to define a word using as few words as possible. Like the party game Taboo, only where the number of words is limited, not which words you can use. Her goal was to get us to write more concisely. I was horrible at it, but it was fun and got the point across.
Hint fiction sounds like a board game, something that can be enjoyed by a group at a party, each one to finish the story. I don't even think you can consider them short stories, seriously, I need more details!
1 reply · active 762 weeks ago
Oooh, Hint Fiction would make a great board game, wouldn't it? And yeah, I think they belong in a category of their own. It seems like some kind of cop-out to lump them together with traditional short stories.
Wow, I am completely fascinated by this idea. It's interesting that you should ask how Hint Fiction is different than poetry because I was immediately reminded of Ezra Pound's 'In a Station of the Metro' (The apparition of these faces in the crowd ; Petals on a wet, black bough.)

I think if done right, these 'stories' can be very powerful, but I think it's probably more of an exception than a rule.
1 reply · active 762 weeks ago
Yeah, I think for this collection Swartwood had something like 2,000 submissions, of which 125 were meaningful enough to appear in the final book. I haven't read them all, but I doubt that even all 125 of them are real gems. But the fact that it takes real skill to do this well just makes me respect the form a little more than I would if it were easy.
Thank you for posting this! I love the idea of hint fiction. If I were still an English teacher (hopefully will be again someday) I would totally use this idea in unit about fiction writing or story. It's a great exploration of what a story actually is. Fantastically exciting idea. I'm not sure this is going to be an enduring form of literature, but it is intriguing for this time of tweets and texts.
1 reply · active 762 weeks ago
Right! I can definitely see this form of fiction appealing to a middle or high school age class. Whether it lasts or not, it's a fascinating idea.

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