 Short Stories: May 13, 2015 Issue [#6984] |
  Short Stories
This week: For sale: Baby shoes, Never worn. Edited by: NaNoNette  
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| Hello short story writers and readers. I am NaNoNette , and I will be your guest editor for this newsletter. |
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For sale: Baby shoes, Never worn.
The truth behind Hemingway's shortest novel.
The title of this newsletter "For sale: Baby shoes, Never worn." is widely attributed as Ernest Hemingway's shortest novel that he penned as a result of a bet that he couldn't write a novel in six words. Just as it would be a tall tale that Mr. Hemingway himself had baby shoes for sale, it is a tall tale that he wrote those words first.
Tragic very short stories were around before him with the one closest to the above sentence showing up in a 1906 newspaper under the header "Terse Tales of the Town" with an item that said, “For sale, baby carriage, never been used. Apply at this office.” Mr. Hemingway was at the time only 7 years old and not a novelist yet.
From this truth, we learn a couple of things:
1. Protect your copyright or somebody more famous will get the credit for it.
2. Writers have purposefully or inadvertently impacted readers with very short sentences for a very long time.
Am I advocating for very short stories? No, actually, I am not. While those six words in the title hint at a tragic story, it is bare bones and really only tells us that somebody bought shoes that are small, which ended up not to be worn. There are so many reasons why. An obvious assumption might be the baby was stillborn or died before it could wear the shoes. There are, however, so many other possibilities that the story leaves out.
What if those shoes were pink sandals with a bow, but the baby turned out to be a boy and he parents didn't want those shoes for him?
What if they were a present from a far-away relative and they arrived so late with slow shipping that they were simply too small already?
What if the baby already has so many shoes, more shoes aren't needed?
Word economy and concise descriptions are certainly something to strive for in short stories to make the most out of them. A six word advertisement doesn't make for a very good story though since it lacks plot and a resolution. For instance, the sale of the baby shoes could lead to romance and more babies ... 
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For my last Short Story newsletter "Where Are You?" , I got the following replies:
Joto-Kai  wrote: Although I doubt I would ever, ever think of looking at a map to find a character's location, I can certainly understand that it would be a faux pas! I could see using these positions, if they exist, as a key to internal consistency but I would think they would be best edited out... Fantastic point, one I would never have considered!
I never thought about looking up a character's location on a map until I got to the chapter in the book by Cassandra Clare (mentioned in "Where Are You?" . That's when I realized that any location that is not well-known can add more confusion for a reader who kinda-sorta knows the area and starts searching for clues in their mind as to what they are "looking at" in the text and how it fits in with their memories of that place.
Callie hears Angels these days  wrote: I can understand your irritation with too much extraneous information, but I wonder if perhaps it might be that the writer has failed to engage you in the story? James Joyce's Ulysses makes a certain town come alive. Being a fan of Robert Parker, I always felt a nice jolt when traveling in the same road with Spencer and Hawk.
Thanks always for the food for thought. I am reminded to keep the plot moving!
You are definitely on to something when you suggest the writer didn't engage me. She started off this book six (book five left off on a cliffhanger) by introducing a host of new characters instead of taking me back into the world she created in the previous five books. It was too jarring and I still haven't read that book.
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