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Hemingway's Six-Word Story

 Hemingway's Six-Word Story
type
TVTItem
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story
label
Hemingway's Six-Word Story
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story
page
HemingwaysSixWordStory
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story
comment
A piece of Flash Fiction supposedly written by Ernest Hemingway. It wasn't: The idea of an ad that indirectly hints at the death of a baby is at least as old as a human interest story in a 1910 newspaper, and has been tossed around as an anecdote or story idea long before it was connected to Hemingway.The oldest source that attributes the story with the quoted wording to Hemingway (who supposedly scribbled it on a napkin to win a bet) is found in the 1991 self-help book Get Published! Get Produced! A Literary Agent's Tips on How to Sell Your Writing by Peter Miller, who claimed he heard the story from a "well-established newspaper syndicator" in 1974. This origin tale was further popularized by the 1996 biographic play Papa.Snopes has more information on it.Contrast to The Tropeless Tale.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story
fetched
2024-03-03T06:29:52Z
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story
parsed
2024-03-03T06:29:52Z
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story
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DBTropes
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_1f6983f7
type
Ambiguous Situation
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_1f6983f7
comment
Ambiguous Situation: The entire story is made up of a six word advertisement that give absolutely no context to the situation behind the words and may or may not even imply characters behind the words, with none appearing or even being described in the words at all. It doesn't tell us whose baby would have worn the shoes, who owns the shoes and why they're selling them, why the shoes haven't been worn or if the shoes were even planned to be worn by a recipient beforehand (i.e. a baby belonging to the owner of the shoes) in the first place. It's entirely up to the reader to decide and interpret the context and details of the words. However, it's frequently assumed to have a tragic context (i.e. a baby died before it could get a chance to wear the new shoes, the parents had a miscarriage, the family is very poor, etc.) since that's pretty much the only way to make a story out of such a vague or otherwise seemingly mundane situation.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_1f6983f7
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 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_1fffccf7
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No Plot? No Problem!
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_1fffccf7
comment
No Plot? No Problem!: There is no plot given to the reader, only an ambiguous situation.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_1fffccf7
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Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_1fffccf7
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_269e82c1
type
Death of a Child
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_269e82c1
comment
Death of a Child: An ambiguous case, but it’s one of the reasons the shoes may be for sale.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_269e82c1
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type
Trope Codifier
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_44bd31e2
comment
Trope Codifier: For Flash Fiction Histories, being one of the most famous examples and was remarkable enough to spawn a Sub-Genre based around 6 words in total.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_44bd31e2
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Beige Prose
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_49b1fe0
comment
Beige Prose: The entire story is only six words long. That's probably about as concise as a story can get while still having, or at least indirectly implying, content.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_49b1fe0
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Minimalism
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_549a92e7
comment
Minimalism: The point of the story is to show that even with the barest minimum of words, you can still come up with a story, or at least a situation, that hooks people into it by using the right words and letting the reader's imagination fill in the blanks for themselves.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_549a92e7
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The Law of Conservation of Detail
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_8bd16732
comment
The Law of Conservation of Detail: What little the story has gives you just enough information to imply that there's something going on behind the baby shoes ad, and leaves the rest to the reader's imagination.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_8bd16732
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Scrapbook Story
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_90c54800
comment
Scrapbook Story: The format's that of a newspaper classified ad.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_90c54800
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No Title
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No Title: The history has no formal title and is usually referred as the one used in this page.
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No Antagonist
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_e0aed924
comment
No Antagonist: There's no villain in the story, or any other characters for that matter.
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Flash Fiction
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_e2e4db69
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Flash Fiction: One of the most famous instances of it, to where it inspired an entire trend of writing stories with only six words.
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_e2e4db69
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No Ending
 Hemingway's Six-Word Story / int_ea2e9f2d
comment
No Ending: All that is presented is six words presenting a situation with a completely ambiguous context behind it and no characters are described or present. Because there's nothing present to drive the situation further, there is no resolution, much less any kind of progression, given to this situation.
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Hemingway's Six-Word Story

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 Hemingway's Six-Word Story
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Scrapbook Story / int_a77e6fec
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