Draw Breath

I'm still trying to catch up on the weekend's newspapers and have come across the Guardian's challenge to contemporary writers to follow in Hemingway's footsteps by composing a six-word short story.

Hemingway's is a stunning piece:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Phenomenal.

The commissioned writers seem to me to fall into two camps. Some try to follow Hemingway explicitly and produce something in the vein of a short-story: a postcard snapshot of a life moving on. Hence Patrick Neate's

"The pillow smelled like my brother."

Others try, with less effect to my mind, to fit a whole story into the six words. The worst sinner on this is Alexander McCall Smith. Sadly this is also the route taken by John Banville:

"Set sail, great storm, all lost."

Anyway, you can see the other ones over on the Guardian's site.

One other thing that strikes me is that the most effective of these are the ones that convey some sense of despondency either through perceived loss or forbeboding. I suppose that, as with Hemingway's original, horrible things get our emotional attention in quick order.

And finally: I wouldn't be a proper blogger without having a go myself. So, keeping all the above in mind (and following Helen Fielding's contraction cheat)...