Young Writers Society

six words huh. im new to this and wouldent dare spend 250 points for six words. what get from this is that some guy accidentally brutally murdered someone, like in hot fuzz. and the man trys to bring him down and says he done kilt the poor bastard cause the man was bored and wanted somthing to do so the gave him death by firing squad for the hell of it and the guy left behind a wife and 15 children

Wow. It is very short, but the message is intense and it does strongly convey a basic point.

From what I extrapolute, this is about a man, wrongly convicted by a group of corrupt individuals, those representing the law, as a scapegoat of some sort to cover up something that they are at fault for that helped propell their own agenda.

The man was obviously married, explaining the "Widow Thereafter" bit.

Now that I think of it, I do not think that this story is actually about the man. It is about his widow and the reprocutions it has on her and how she ultimately copes with it.

That is my analysis. I assume you articulated an intentional subtext, so, if that is the case, could you tell me if I am right?

Wow. Never actually heard of something like this. It's very interesting. So, it's almost like an inspiration for a story? I like that. So, my understanding is this. An innocent man was accused of crime by an unjust governments system with corrupt minds, and is put to death, so his wife becomes a widow? You can really go pretty far with something like that. I like! Good job! I may do something like this for a book I'm planning, just maybe more like eight or ten words. Anyway, keep writing!

Man, Joshuapaul stole everything I wanted to say

What he said about using the title as a bit of a cheat is completely true, and I'd utilize that in every way I knew how. Now, you got your story across very well, and what I'm gathering was:

There was a man framed for a crime worthy of death row, and corrupt minds implies either the offense lawyer doing anything he can (and thus, convict whoever he can) in order to win the case for his client and rake in the highest amount of cash possible, or a corrupt judge, or the actual perpetrator twisting the case to frame the innocent. The widow could either be the wife of the accused, or the wife of the victim. Of course, if she's the widow of the victim, the innocent criminal might not have been put to death.

That's the fun part about these six-word stories, in my opinion. They can tell a number of stories, and it all depends on the creativity of the reader.

On the other hand, it wasn't an intensely interesting six-word story. I think it was more your word-choice (which is obviously really limited anyway, so making it creative and hooking your reader with it is no easy task), which felt... a little dull? Finding words is difficult, yes, but I'm pretty sure that there are more interesting ones that you could use "Widow thereafter" was definitely my favourite set of two.

Anyway. Lame review, I know, but everything that I wanted to say was already said, and I've been planning on reviewing this since before that one appeared, so I thought "why not"

Good job and keep writing,
~Ish

This isn't bad. In fact, it would be pretty hard to be genuinely bad with such a tight word limit. The trouble with these exercises is people put arbitrary rules on them and all they do is confuse the author. For example, "This story must have a beginning an end"

Really, that should go without saying, right? But when you see it explicitly stated you concentrate more on the arc of the story than whether or not it's cliche or whether or not it affects the reader as it certainly should. Make no mistake, all stories where something happens have a beginning and an end.

I'm not going to take it all to seriously, but one thing you should consider is the title. That's where you can cheat a little. I mean it's good as it is, but it makes the whole thing very obvious and it's a cliche story, I'm sure you would agree. Short short stories, are not exempt from the rules of good writing. So if you are going to have a cliche story, put a different spin on it.

For example: say if you were to change the title to "The Convict" then when the reader assumes they have it all figured out you change the last sentence to, widower, thereafter.

Something like that would sweep the rug out from beneath the reader. The schema of a convict would have to shift to fit the last line. They would be assuming the convict/criminal was a man and you have challenged their notion of a convict.

That's not necessarily going to improve the story a great deal, but I'm sure you get what I'm saying.

Here is something I found on six word stories:

“Wrong number,” says a familiar voice.


Now, that is a story. It has a beginning and an end. It says a lot.
Here's another one:

"The smallest coffins are the heaviest."

Both of these examples are powerful and speculative. They are complete stories but they don't seem to have a cohesive and clear story arc. I think people will like this because it's clever and not because they were genuinely affected by it or take something away after reading it. That's usually not a good thing.

Hope this helps.

JP

Very nice!
It definitely has a clear beginning, climax and an end. There is not much left to the imagination, but you do wonder who the corrupt minds are, and what the person did to be imprisoned. It also makes one wonder who the widow is for; the victim, or the convicted?

It is definitely a concept that could make one think for a while, and possibly contemplate on the workings of the justice systems of today. I'm sure it took time to imagine a story and through such small amount of words, think of how you could get a message across. I say you did it very well and effectively got a discussion started.

So it's a person who was put to death even though he was innocent, and his wife became a widow?

Ahh, I love six word stories, and yours is fantastic! I think I have a good idea of the meaning behind it, but I'm not 100% sure. I can tell that there's definitely a progression of time, and there's definitely a story to it, and a character.

I think the story is about a man who was falsely convicted because of a corrupted government/criminal justice system? I'm not sure about "window thereafter." Maybe it means that this creates a window for the man to make change? I may be very wrong, though. (If I am, I'd like to know what it's really about, because I like the sound of it!)

Is it about a person who's committed a "crime", was persecuted by a corrupt government, and who was put to death, leaving a widow behind?

Personally, I liked it! Using very little words to tell a story or hint at a situation is quite original and with each reader, it will induce a different meaning and feeling. So, overall yeah, it's good! However, i believe that a longer story is always better

Hmm... Made me think of Christ on the cross. How else could you have an innocent criminal?