Six-Word Stories: Narrative Economy in Action

The first book-length study, written for students and theorists alike, of the six -word story—a compact form with outsized implications for understanding narrative.

In Six-Word Stories, David Fishelov pushes narrative theory in new directions with the first book on a peculiar minigenre that, despite its diminutive character, is an excellent arena for the study of not only fundamental questions within literary studies (What constitutes a story? What makes one canonical?) but also the dynamic process by which a new literary genre comes into existence. Charting the place of six-word stories among neighboring genres characterized by extreme shortness—microfiction, aphorisms, epigrams, fables, jokes, and even haiku—Fishelov highlights shared elements as well as those that differentiate these short forms. Building on his significant contribution to genre theory, he elaborates on the formal, structural, semantic, and rhetorical characteristics of six-word stories, raising illuminating questions about reader response, narrative mode, and even what the form can tell us about AI’s creative abilities. By examining dozens of six-word stories, including the most famous one (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” wrongfully attributed to Hemingway), Fishelov uncovers how this intriguing genre, small in form, can greatly contribute to our understanding of narrative .