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Wired's Very Short Stories

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the dragons-eye-opened-the-hafling-wept-michael-zenke dept.

Wired's games blog Game|Life alerted me to a great feature on the main Wired site. Called Very Short Stories, the piece features the work of 33 well-known writers practicing their craft in six word chunks. Their work is combined with several talented graphic designers to generate some very creative works of art. Some of my favorites: "The baby's blood type? Human, mostly'. - Orson Scott Card
'Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.' - Richard Powers
'Kirby had never eaten toes before.' - Kevin Smith" The games blog makes a point to highlight the works of game writers Mark Laidlaw and Steve Meretzky. Laidlaw's contribution: ">Help! Trapped in a text adventure!" Alrighty, folks ... let's hear yours.

26 of 665 comments (clear)

  1. My 2 cents by armydillo2025 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He was born, lived and died.

  2. Re:I don't get it. by euniana · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Make verbose writers toil for brevity.

    --
    stillwaters: silent and reticent
  3. Ummmmm.... by ACK!! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The fat penguins ate them all.

    --
    ACK /ak/ interj. 2. [from the comic strip "Bloom County"] An exclamation of surprised disgust, esp. i
  4. Re:Hum by hattig · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Fridge game: words made; sadness avoided.

    This is utterly pointless, worthless drivel.

    GNAA troll posts; moderated down; victory!

    make && make install; make clean

    why am i still up; insomnia?

  5. The best one... by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Below is a fairly famous short short story I heard a few times. It gives me chills every time I think about it...

    "In the room was the last person on Earth. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door."

    --
    Happy people make bad consumers.
    1. Re:The best one... by Cylix · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Or...

      Last man alive, someone just knocked.

      --
      "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
    2. Re:The best one... by prockcore · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's a little unweildy. How about:

      Last man on Earth hears knock.

    3. Re:The best one... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Last man on Earth hears doorbell.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    4. Re:The best one... by e2mtt · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Last human on earth... who's knocking?

    5. Re:The best one... by Flyboy+Connor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, people are mistaken thinking that this is a short story that is published as such.

      This is part of a story by Fredric Brown. The story is called "Knock", is eight or nine pages long, and it starts like this:

      "There is a sweet little horror story that is only two sentences long: The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door... Two sentences and an ellipsis of three dots. The horror, of course, isn't in the story at all; it's in the ellipsis, the implication: what knocked at the door. Faced with the unknown, the human mind supplies something vaguely horrible. But it wasn't horrible, really."

      However, I think Fredric Brown (who is something of a specialist in writing ultra-short stories) actually is the writer of the shortest SF story, which is called "The End". It is nine lines long, or rather, four-and-a-half lines long, repeated twice.

      The shortest horror story is probably by Roland Topor. It is called "Historical mysteries", and it is only one line, which I do not have the original for, but I can provide my own translation: "Fifteen minutes before he passed away, mr. de la Palice was already dead."

    6. Re:The best one... by jackbird · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Last human, alone... The doorbell rings.

  6. Here are some: by drgroove · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It all started with a corpse.

    The sound waves still permeate us.

    Sweat-stung eyes envision green landscapes.

    The hair samples were conclusive: Sasquatch.

    Unfortunately, the meds had undesirable side-effects. (is the hyphenated word cheating?)

    It wasn't a gateway to Andromeda.

    (this one should ring a bell, though not my line, obviously!)
    My God... it's full of stars. :)

  7. A story weirdly inappropriate for slashdot by patio11 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    She took my ring, said yes.

    --
    Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
  8. Plenty to read by MacDork · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oracle support Linux? Embrace, extend, extinguish...

  9. Re:6w by arth1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Beautiful day. Evil comes. Bangor, Maine.

    Wait, that one has been done before. Let me try again.

    Protagonist and young tease conquer villain.

    Drats, someone wrote that one too. Hmm, I better be original then:

    Loss. Emptiness. Poignant cry: Future, why?

    Regards,
    --
    *Art

  10. Re:I don't get it. by Propaganda13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's really simple, you just have to write

    The Beginning. The Middle. The End.

    and there you've got the whole story.

    I was surprised that some of those stories are really good.

  11. Re:and the sixth word is by buswolley · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Man is born crying, and when he has cried enough he dies.

    From Ran, I believe it was.

    --

    A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.

  12. Re:Ahem by brusk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Soviet Russia: new overlords welcome you!

    --
    .sig withheld by request
  13. "Ok, I'll bite" said the dog. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Short stories for ADD people? Genius!

    I still need a spell cheker.

    Please, pardon me while I pontificate.

    Meagerness of dialect perceived as grandiloquent!

    Is this onomatopoeia? (Lame, I know).

    [They] Said nothing [of punctuation]!

    This time in iambic pentameter! - Shakespeare

    What's the etymology of this idiom?

    In German, six words take pages!

    "Let there be light!" [Big bang].

    Who can fit the most syllables?

    $=()^1/2

  14. Re:I don't get it. by benplaut · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I, for one, welcome these overlords.

    Mad at us? Destroy all humans.

    Messy, but it works. Kinda. Sorta.

    Server went boom, pop, bang! Slashdugg.

    IP? Your pr0n is now gone.

    Running out of ideas. Any suggestions?

  15. Re:I don't get it. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    At school, I occasionally had to give poetry recitals in English lessons. I hated it, and tried to find the shortest possible poems. Eventually I found 'Ode to a Goldfish' (as I recall, but Roger McGough, but my memory might be playing tricks). Here it is, in its entirety:

    Oh wet pet.
    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  16. A favourite of Ernest Hemingway: by SamSim · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."

    I think this is one of the saddest stories ever.

    Then there's the world's shortest horror story: "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door—"

    And of course some science-fiction ones, courtesy of Everything2.

    --
    qntm.org
  17. My try by odourpreventer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Famous last words: What happens if...

    --
    Adventure, Romance, MAD SCIENCE!
  18. Re:I don't get it. by senor_burt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Best I've got...

    Here are some of mine...

    Not fiction. Soylent Green is people.

    The government lies. News at 11.

    Last words... "Don't push this button?"

    Matches right. Keep Away From Children.

    I did it for the insurance.

    Aliens come to discover - humanity tasty? ...I guess the environment WAS important.

    Hi honey, I'm home. WHO'RE YOU!!?!?!

    Meek shall Inherit the Earth. Suckers.

    Should have checked the fine print.

    Suicide bombers have bad retirement plans.

    Man missing leg knows shortest route.

    Damn. I should have backed up.

    Man discovers divine plan. Kinda incomplete.

    You're trapped by your genes. Ha!

    Should have supported the gun registry.

    If only the instructions had mentioned...

    Don't eat yellow snow, he thought.

    Built by the lowest bidder... okay.

    That's one small step for man...

    Radioactive spider? Peter Parker has Leukemia.

  19. Re:The oldest plot in the world by DigitalSorceress · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nevertheless, it was the old story...
    Droid meets Droid,
    Droid becomes Chameleon,
    Droid looses Chameleon,
    Chameleon turns into Blob,
    Droid gets Blob back again,
    Blob meets Blob,
    Blob goes off with Blob,
    and Droid looses Blob, Chameleon and droid.
    "How many times have we seen that story?"

    --

    The Digital Sorceress
  20. Here's mine by spun · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Busses fixed: Sick transit's glorious monday.

    Six word sentences can't say much.

    Please rewind brain before returning body.

    That's no alien, that's a man!

    You get that thing I sent?

    Mind comprehends perfect knowledge. Now what?

    Buy OxLox: our air tastes better!

    Great, now the moon wants royalties.

    It was alive just now, I swear!

    I could go on all day.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton