What's depressing me today...
I have been watching the Twitter #sixwordnovels disinegrate over the last few months (has it been months?). The idea, of course, comes from Hemingway’s insistence that the fewer words the better and his proof that a very compelling story could be told in only six words: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”
The strange tweeters on Twitter, however, have served up some of the stupidest sayings without narrative I have ever read. For instance, @prettipucci comes up with “Never leave the one you love.” That is not a novel, friend, that is a piece of (bad) advice. What if the one you love is a serial killer? What is they choose to leave you? @i_am_remote offers “The world’s end will be (n)ice.” Which is a foretelling, not a novel. On and on it goes, “Evil won in the end. Surprise!” from someone I still can’t figure out who it is because no one is giving credit where credit is due. @bronxzou thinks he has really stumbled on something and retweets the Hemingway quote which, after all, is the reason for the whole damn hashtag anyway.
So what are they missing? Something I thought we all learned in elementary school about stories: they have a beginning (a setting), a middle (a conflict and climax) and an end (a resolution). Many authors, including Heminway, play with this formula but narrative movement is essential to what a story is. Stories should develop characters, places and events through dialogue and actions leading from one point to another. Hemingway’s six word novel does this and, so far, no one has offered a compelling sequel. The fact that these people, who write everyday, don’t understand the basic principle behind storytelling is really depressing me today.
