Six-word story
The smallest complete story. Write yours on the card below: the fuse burns to exactly six words, and an AI editor will tell you whether it lands.
Start writing and the fuse burns.
Six-word story examples
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Attributed to Hemingway, likely apocryphalWrong number. Right voice. Thirty years.
Flash Fiction ProLast human alive. Doorbell just rang.
Variation on Fredric Brown's two-sentence story "Knock" (1948)Kept her key. Changed the locks.
Flash Fiction ProGrandpa's telescope. Pointed at grandma's window.
Flash Fiction ProThe robot learned to cry. Rust.
Flash Fiction Pro
Four tricks that make six words work
- A before and an after. "Never worn" implies everything that happened in between.
- A concrete object. Shoes, a key, a telescope: things carry emotion better than abstractions.
- A hinge. A full stop, a colon or a single word like "still" creates the turn.
- A gap for the reader. Leave out the one thing the reader will supply themselves.
Stuck? Take an opening line and cut it to six words, or try a slightly bigger box: the 100-word drabble.
Questions writers ask
What is a six-word story?
A complete story told in exactly six words. The form is often linked to "For sale: baby shoes, never worn," but there is no evidence Ernest Hemingway wrote it. Researchers such as Garson O'Toole (Quote Investigator) traced similar newspaper items back to at least 1906.
How do you write a six-word story?
Imply a before and an after. Use a concrete object, a hinge word (but, still, again, finally) or a punctuation turn, and let the reader fill the gap.
What is a six-word memoir?
A six-word story about your own life. SMITH Magazine popularised the idea in 2006 with the book Not Quite What I Was Planning.
Do contractions and hyphenated words count as one word?
Usually yes. This counter treats anything separated by spaces as one word, so "don't" and "forty-two" each count once.