I like A Brief Message for how they aim to provide messages about design that feature less than 200 words. A recent brief message talked about how six words can tell a story.

The six words story goes back some 80 years when Ernest Hemingway reportedly won a bet for being able to write a story out of only six words. The story was: “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn."

More recently, Wired asked several writers for six-words stories and they published a list together with graphical interpretations of the stories. About the same time, the Smith magazine initiated a contest for Six Words Memoirs. They selected 1000 and issued them in a book entitled Not quite what I was planning.

Of course, not everyone likes the idea of six-words stories. For example, Nicolas Lazarus replied that he does acknowledge the challenge is worthwhile, but he argues that a six words story is not really a story.

I do agree that six-words stories are not the same as literary stories, but they can be stories nevertheless. I liked the challenge, and I gave it a try to write some of my own:

Long - difficult. Short - even more difficult.
Lost meaning. Did you see it?
Too much talking, too few listening.
Looked at sky. Stepped in puddle.
I could only do as much.
I tried. I failed. I smiled.

Eventually, I decided to submit my favorite one to the Smith magazine:

Yesterday: fact. Tomorrow: possibility. Today: challenge.