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Week Twenty Six

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn


Woah! We're halfway there! Week 26!!!!!!!


The Facts

Text: For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn Author: Ernest Hemingway*

Genre: Flash fiction, 6 Word Story, Tragedy Year: N/A

Available: In the title of the blog. I mean that sentence is it. That's the story.


*Although attributed to him recent scholarship proves he probably didn't write it. (I know I was shocked too.) More on this in The Fiction section below. Content Warning: Death of a child, implied.


The Fiction


I'm halfway through this project! So I'm doing a unique short story this week! Initially I had a concept that I was going to just write six words in this and The Feeling section of this blog and have that be my whole entry for the week in honor of this story. But then I did some research and found there's actually some history behind this story that I can't not talk about, so I am going to write a bit more than six words this week! But I want you all to know I did seriously consider it.


"For sale: baby shoes, never worn" is perhaps the most famous of the Six Word stories. It is often touted as the gold standard example of how to write the shortest of short stories. This one sentence story, however, comes with a story of its own. I had always been taught that the history behind "For sale" was that it had been written by famous American author Ernest Hemingway in a bet with other famous writers from the 20's. The competition was to see who could write the shortest possible story, and Hemingway won ten dollars with "For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn." This anecdote is famous in the writing world.


And apparently its not true! In doing quick research for this week's blog entry I learned that this anecdote attached to this famous six word story is apocryphal. There is no evidence that this competition/bet between Hemingway and the other writers ever happened, and on top of that there are a few instances of "For sale" or at least stories similar (some involving a "baby carriage" instead of shoes for example) appearing before Hemingway's writing career even began.


S0 Hemingway didn't write this story. That's one famous writing myth busted. But it doesn't really matter because whether Hemingway wrote it or not "For sale" is a famous short story in the writing world and has inspired an almost new subgenre of flash fiction. The Six Word story has taken off in the writing community with blogs, writing contests, magazines, and websites dedicated to collecting writers' best attempts at the Six Word story. If short story and flash fiction writing is considered a challenge to writers to be as impactful as possible in as few words as possible than the Six Word story is considered the rawest test of this skill.


For more Six Word stories check out this link there are hundreds floating around the internet!


So now that we've gone into the history of this story and talked about the genre this is usually the part where I summarize the plot of this week's text....but you know the whole story. "For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn". If you click the link above or have ever looked into the Six Word story phenomena (or maybe even written your own) you'll know that while many writers attempt this it is difficult write a good Six Word story. Many Six Word "stories" are interesting or heartfelt sentences but they aren't all stories like the original.


What makes a story is that moment of change, the turn, the epiphany. The oh. This story sets up a premise in the beginning (for sale), gives us details in the middle (baby shoes), and then has that moment of change/reveal in the ending (never worn). This sentence contains the three structures of a story: beginning, middle, and end. It also successfully has a moment of epiphany. "For sales baby shoes" is an ad in the newspaper, "For sales baby shoes never worn" is a tragedy and a story because of the twist. It is because "For sale" is not only a clever sentence, but successfully integrates the main structure and components of a story that is so iconic in the Six Word genre.


The Feeling


Heartbroken! They lied about the shoes.

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