In their famous book of guidance for great writing, William Strunk and E.B. White (yes, THAT E.B. White!) offered writers the following great advice: Omit needless words.
Well, who are we to argue? So our next writing contest is meant to challenge your powers of concise expression. Concise expression. Six words, to be exact.
We’ve all heard Ernest Hemingway’s well-known six-word memoir: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Now it’s your turn. Choose one of the prompts below and, in six words—no more, no fewer—tell us a story. (Don't worry, Ernest won't be your competition.)
- Your time machine is finally working.
- A writer’s life is never simple.
- Superhero with amnesia looks for work.
- Why am I always getting dumped?
We'll be tweeting entries during the contest, so include your Twitter handle with your entry! Our six favorites will earn free entry to PageToFame, our flagship writing contest, and one lucky winner will receive Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, a collection edited by Rachel Fershleiser.
To enter the contest, create a new chapter in the Six-Word Story Writing Contest. Good luck!
THE FINE PRINT: Contest ends at 10 pm on March 18, 2012. WEbook does not take into account the user ratings when deciding who will win the challenge. We read each submission carefully, and decide the winners based on our own judgment. Just in case you love all our prompts, we’ll allow two submissions per person for this contest only (as usual, you can revise your entries up until the deadline).
P.S. Don’t forget to check us out on Pinterest for Writing Contest Inspiration!
In The Elements of Style (1918), a professor William Strunk concentrated on specific questions of usage—and the cultivation of good writing— "Make every word tell"; hence, the 17th principle of composition is the simple instruction: "Omit needless words"
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Posted by: Kate Smith | March 16, 2012 at 07:27 AM
We all owe God one death - Shakespeare
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Utseende Beats Hodetelefoner Institutt for ørepropper brukes til å kutte prosessmodellering, alt svart med ikke bare styrke begroing evne, men også synes å være veldig rolig.
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