Hemingway's Six-Word Story
| Written by: | John deGroot |
|---|---|
| Central Theme: | Loss. |
| Synopsis: | "Baby's dead" expressed in six words. |
| Genre(s): | Flash Fiction |
| First published: | 1996 |
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"For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn." |
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A piece of Flash Fiction allegedly written by Ernest Hemingway; however, the oldest known source of it is the 1996 Biopic play Papa. Snopes has more information on it.
Being only six words long, the story as reprinted here is both laconic and unabridged.
Tropes used in Hemingway's Six-Word Story include:
- Beige Prose
- Downer Ending
- Fictional Document
- In Medias Res
- Minimalism
- Nameless Narrative
- Scrapbook Story: The format's that of a newspaper classified ad.
- Subtext: Where the substance of the story lies.