Challenge – The Six-Word Story
A photo for you to riff upon, and some discussion of how the six-word story can be so much fun and can even involve a 75-piece symphony.
‘Dress code? Who, please, decided that?’
I’m a sucker for old photos. I love to stare at them, trying to imagine who they were, what it was like for them to stand there — in front of a barn, on a pile of timbered logs, driving oxen, plowing fields with a single horse, whatever.
What were their lives like? How did they talk? What did they do after the photograph was taken?
I also love micro-fiction. And six-word stories.
It’s a famous prompt, of course. Ernest Hemingway is the supposed author of this gem: “For sale. Baby Shoes. Never used.”
Heartbreak? Or excess?
So take a look at the photo above (or below) and in the comments, try your hand at it. Write a six-word story about what you see.
This one from the Depression era:
Go wild like the wind, friends!
Do it once. Do it thrice.
Just remember: No prize at all!
Just adulation and fame, that’s it.
Oh gosh, I just can’t stop.
What about you? Feeling the six?
Certainly a bunch of kids were.
Here’s how to take an idea to the max.
In 2008, we at the Young Writers Project, a nonprofit I started, collaborated with hundreds of young writers, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and the Vermont Midi Project who mentored a 15-year-old composer, Joshua Morris of St. Albans, VT in creating six, one-minute compositions re-defining six six-word stories — written by the young writers — into music.
The VSO then performed the songs — with the kids reading in some of the concerts — in several performances that reached thousands of listeners.
The six stories, by the way, were chosen by a gaggle of young people I bribed with pizza to select the best of the best from 2,500 entries.
This idea was hatched when David Serkin Ludwig, then VSO’s composer-in-residence and on faculty at Curtis Institute (he’s now dean and director of music at Julliard), and I had double-shot espressos together and started scheming things we could do with kids with words and music. This was our first idea (there were others). David, by the way, was also serving as a mentor with the Vermont Midi Project, now called Music Comp.
This recording was made at rehearsal the night before two concerts at the Flynn Center in Burlington, VT. The piece reached about 2,000 people in two concerts that year and was performed again three times the following year. Needless to say, the unique piece wowed the audiences.
(Unfortunately, not all the students could attend to read their pieces so I read some of them. The authors, though, still got a kick out of their words being turned into music, AND being presented on stage.)
The stories:
Before the light hit the earth. — Bailey Walker, North Country Union High School
People finally stopped reading the newspapers. — Camille Sage Bower, Mt. Mansfield Union High School.
The aliens transported the cow away. — Emily Patch, Rutland High School
Her ghost restlessly haunts the castle. — Amie Schiller, Brattleboro Union High School.
I knew I should have walked. — Chris Smith, graduate of Spaulding High School.
No, sir, it’s a bird shop. — Misha Kydd, Mt. Mansfield Union High School.
I have to say that was one of the most fun projects I had at Young Writers Project, a nonprofit I ran until 2018. It was proof of the strong connection between words and music and of the power of youth to create.
Don’t forget to post your six-worders for either or both of the pictures above in the comments on the site.
My pockets as empty as promises.
They say it's better in California.
Once again, giving up. Moving on.
Put the screen away. Touch grass.
In old photos we breathe immortality.