Six-word Stories

I'm fascinated with the book Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak, a compilation of famous and obscure authors' six-word stories. I think part of my fascination is simply at the brevity. The first complete story (novel, not short story) that I wrote took 1,309 pages. That's a lot of words! My second story is roughly 72,000. This last was almost 120,000 words. All to tell a single story. And yet, here these people have created whole stories in just six simple words. Which is the second part about these "stories" that fascinates me: that a mere six words is all it takes for my mind to conjure the whole of a life/story.

For instance, my favorites of the few I've seen: "I loved the idea of you." and "It's worth it, despite your mother." Succinct. To the point. Yet, I see the whole world, the whole story. Even a bit of irony in the first, humor in the second. Of course, what I picture and what you picture when reading those six words might be two totally different things, but that's also part of the beauty of a six-word story.

The idea of a six-word story wouldn't get out of my head the past few days, so I've decided to create a few six-word stories to try to sum up Conventional Demon. None tell the whole story, not as I feel they should (because I know, honestly, my story can't be told in six words), but I liked writing them. I also found that, put together, they almost told the story like a query letter. (Would a literary agent notice if every sentence in the query was six words in length?)

Here they are, in a vaguely particular order:

• Clean souls are only one requirement.
• Evil hasn't met its match in Madison.
• Imps, demons, and magic, oh my.
• Self-note: Demons think you're tasty.
• Madison Fox: breakfast for local demon.
• It's time to fight or die.
• Defend souls, convince evil you're scarier.
• Some things are harder in person.
• Confused but confident, Madison faces evil.
• A job, a destiny, a disaster.
• Enforcing good with a small stick.
• Evil lurks, happy at Madison's incompetence.
• Facing her fears, find her destiny.
• Soul-searching in black and white.

Tomorrow: NON blog interviews Peter V. Brett. It is a fascinating, inspiring read. Checking back weekly for new interviews.

Okay, I'll stop now; I promise.