A well-publicized recent poll concluded what we already suspected–that a lot of people don’t read anymore, at least not the longer stuff, which is why short-short-short fiction (I mean short–say six words) may become the new bathroom lit. Short short stuff isn’t new. On Pete Lit there’s several samples of this stuff from oldsters, including a six word story from Ernest Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” The end. Irvine Welsh chimes in with another six-worder: “Eyeballed me, killed him. Slight exaggeration.” Back in Hemingway’s time it was a novelty, but now could become the perfect length for modern readers to work up a sweat as they slog through stubby plots.
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Update: This concept is starting to get serious. Check here for a whole series on six-word concoctions.
Ouch. I hope you’re wrong about this. What a tragedy if six-word fiction becomes the “novel” of the Internet generation. I still believe in the long form — and think it will survive even though we’ve going through a bad stage for literature.
But if you do like six word stories — here are a few more you might get a kick out of.
http://darkpartyreview.blogspot.com/2007/12/six-word-stories.html