| Ernest Hemingway, as a young newspaperman in the | | | | But is this the only conclusion one can draw? I tried |
| 1920s, bet his colleagues $10 that he could write a | | | | to think up alternatives and they are admittedly |
| complete story in juts six words. | | | | weak. A drug addict parent buys the shoes, but then |
| He won the cash with this: "For sale. Baby shoes. | | | | sells them when his craving becomes too much. |
| Never worn." | | | | Possible, but the gap between advertising the shoes |
| As an example of brevity this is unsurpassed, but is it | | | | and getting any money for them to buy the drugs |
| actually a story? Does it fulfil all the rules of drama | | | | would seem too great. Another option is if the shoes |
| which I tend to harp on about? | | | | were bought as some kind of practical joke and, |
| Admittedly there is no plot, no structure, no | | | | having fulfilled that purpose, are no longer required. |
| protagonist or antagonist, but this is a story because | | | | This could be plausible but stretches credibility, |
| it evokes an emotional response in the reader, and | | | | because the poignancy of those six words is lost. |
| that is the prime aim in creative writing. | | | | Hemingway didn't make them 'baby' shoes for no |
| What Hemingway does, and in a masterful way, is | | | | reason. |
| leave out everything apart from those words which | | | | Each word here is carefully chosen, and especially the |
| are going to trigger emotions and leave the reader to | | | | last two. 'Hardly' worn doesn't do it, and neither does |
| fill in the story. It's a cheat, but a brilliant one. His | | | | 'unworn' though it would have served to reduce the |
| story doesn't answer questions, it poses them, and | | | | story to five words. That word 'never' is the key, |
| the main one screams 'What happened to the baby?' | | | | because it is like a lament for what will 'never' be. |
| What happened to this baby for whom shoes were | | | | Like the competent director of a horror movie, |
| bought but which are not now required? Why would | | | | Hemingway does not show us his monster, he leaves |
| a baby no longer require shoes? The responses all | | | | it to our imaginations, and there is a lesson for us all |
| seem tragic, death, illness, kidnapping, every one a | | | | here. Less is, indeed, more. Finding the balance |
| parent's nightmare. The parents then, or those who | | | | between what exposition to give the reader and |
| placed the advertisement, are the protagonists. The | | | | how much to conceal places the writer in as |
| antagonist is unknown, the question of what took | | | | precarious a position as any tightrope walker. |
| the baby. By the time we get to the story it is over | | | | I've always advocated rewriting and brutal editing of |
| and we are left to use our own imaginations to fill in | | | | your own work. All superfluous words should be |
| the pieces. We must create, in our own heads, the | | | | jettisoned as soon as possible. Hemingway takes my |
| beginning, middle and probably tragic end. | | | | credo to the limit. |