Fun-Reading: World's Shortest Stories!

[A.S. Rafi]

Augusto Monterroso is a Guatemalan short story writer best known for his 8-word story titled “El Dinosaurio”:

When I woke up, the dinosaur was still there.

[You might imagine a young girl who wakes in the morning to find her pet Dino faithfully at her bedside.

Or you might imagine a lost traveler who’s become a T-Rex lunch, passed out because his legs are torn to shreds, and then wakes up to find the T-Rex picking the meat from his finger bones.]

(source:web)

[A.S. Rafi]

Story 2:

US Author Earnest Hemingway was famously economical in his style. He was once challenged, supposedly for the price of his bar bill, to write a complete story in only six words. Hemingway rose to the challenge brilliantly:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn


[Source: www.writerinthenorth.blogspot.com]
 

[A.S. Rafi]

However the myth that Hemingway wrote that above mentioned shorter and more powerful story, turns out to be a humbug!!! After some research it looks like this story was not written by Hemingway. It was most likely an actual ad in a newspaper, except selling a baby carriage

[A.S. Rafi]

Probably this is the manipulated version of  that Ad. Check it out!!!

[A.S. Rafi]

another sample:

[Shampa Iftakhar]

Rafi:

The word  "dinosaur" is frightening!!!!!!!!!!! ??

Even the story might be funny.

[A.S. Rafi]

Shampa apu,
 
This is the magic of the story. It becomes full of fun, horror, suspense in a single line

[A.S. Rafi]

Story 3:

The science fiction writer, Frederic Brown, is also credited with writing one of the shortest stories ever, though in truth his 1948 story, Knock, goes on to develop a plot from the story that is introduced thus:

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door . . .

[A.S. Rafi]

Story No:3 is complete in itself. Knock inspired a response by Ron Smith, who gave his story a tongue-in-cheek title that was almost as long as the story itself. He called it A Horror Story Shorter by One Letter than the Shortest Story Ever Told, and it goes like this:

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a lock on the door . . .


Source: www.writersdock.com

[A.S. Rafi]

World's most concise short story writer Lydia Davis wins Booker International Prize 2013.


 The influential American writer accepted the £60,000 honour, which is presented every two years to a living, non-UK author for a body of work published in English, at a ceremony held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

[A.S. Rafi]

Photo & Info. www.independent.co.uk

[A.S. Rafi]

Story: 4

Here goes one for you from Davis' Collected Stories-



Often I think that his idea of what we should do is wrong, and my idea is right. Yet I know that he has often been right before, when I was wrong. And so I let him make his wrong decision, telling myself, though I can’t believe it, that his wrong decision may actually be right. And then later it turns out, as it often has before, that his decision was the right one, after all. Or, rather, his decision was still wrong, but wrong for circumstances different from the circumstances as they actually were, while it was right for circumstances I clearly did not understand.

 

[A.S. Rafi]

Davis' story is a hard nut to crack! ugh!

[A.S. Rafi]

Here is another short story by that 2013 Man Book Prize winner, Lydia Davis:

   Story 5:


    Losing Memory

    You ask me about Edith Wharton.
    Well, the name is very familiar.

[A.S. Rafi]

The Canadian author Margaret Atwood equaled Hemingway ( Although Hemingway's "Shoes story" is a myth, I already told you!) for brevity with her forthright six-word story:

Story 6:

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.


Interesting, eh?