Twitter Microfiction
Microfiction has been an interest of mine for a long time. There is value in brevity, and it is often difficult to express something of worth in a limited space. With this notion in mind, I present a challenge to my students:
How short of a story can you write?
There are multiple steps to this process, however. Before presenting the task, it is important to review the key elements of a story: character, plot, setting, etc. With these elements in mind, the class is presented with three forms of microfiction.
The first is 55 Fiction, which started out as a writing content in New Times, challenging the readers to create a work of fiction with a maximum of fifty five words.
Extending from this idea, the class would be asked to take out their cellphones and try to write a Twitter story, in 140 characters or less. Each student will tweet a story to my account on Twitter. Taking the elements we discussed earlier, the student will try to complete a coherent story under the limitations of a single tweet.
After reading some of their tweets, the class is introduced to a bit of literary folklore. Allegedly, Ernest Hemingway claimed that his story, only six words long, was the greatest he had ever written. The story:
For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn
Continuing with what we've been doing, the class is challenged to write a six word story, which they will also tweet to me. After the students have written their stories, we will discuss what they created in relation to the parameters of a traditional story and whether their stories have all those elements, or if those elements truly are crucial to a story.
The following is a PowerPoint presentation displaying several stories taken from Not Quite What I Was Planning, a collection of six word memoirs, as well as other six word stories found on Wired.com
6 Word Story PowerPoint | |
File Size: | 648 kb |
File Type: | pptx |