This is great. I found it yesterday and e-mailed it to Seb but it never occurred to me to post it here. Oh well. We thought Alan Moore's was great but closer inspection of the unpublished works reveals the idea to be slightly less original than it could've been. Arthur C. Clarke's is a pile of shite, though, I'm surprised it doesn't mention braincaps. I think Frank Millar's does quite well to embody the spirit of the original request as a lot of the others are more distilled concepts or jokes, where Millar's, like Hemingway's, actually suggests a narrative and emotional arc even in such few words.

It has to be said that none of them are quite as good as Hemingway's original, of course...

Arthur C. Clarke's would have been better if he'd written "God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' End."

Or something.

Incidentally, James, since Frank Miller and Mark Millar both wrote ones... which one of them were you referring to above? ;-)

Arthur C. Clarke's would have been better if he'd written "God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.' End."

Or even just "And God said, 'Cancel Program GENESIS.'". The elaboration he adds is completely unnecessary, and in fact quite contrary to the entire spirit of the exercise.

'Help! Trapped in a text adventure!' made me laugh.

That'll teach me to comment in the morning. I meant Frank Miller, of course.

My favourite is the bottom one - 'Dorothy: "Fuck it, I'll stay here."'

Let's do some -

'Family planning, torn rubber, oh shit.'
'Cellophane cell phone, transparent conversations suck.'
'Deathly dark shame burned, her Hell'
'Secluded lives, a chance lost, death.'
'I ate, you ate, we ate.'
'Saviour required, must not eat worlds.'
'Lover required, must not have syphilis.'
'Does truth exist within your intercourse?'
'I, I, I, I, I, ego.'
'Tesco closed, suicide rates septupled overnight.'
'Nine-eleven. Seven-seven. Seven-eleven?'
'Red Dwarf. Was better. At first.'
'Harry, Luke and Frodo. Are gay.'
'Who the fuck are you, pillock?'
'I don't own, Beat The Geek.'
'Sky bought Lost, so clitting what?'
'"Crappy little cunting crap," he pondered'
'Masturbation is allowed, when she won't'
'No-one heard. The Darkness's. Last album.'

I was trying to think of a witty 6-word reply to performingmonkey's post, but none of them were better than Hemmingway's.

Putting 6 words into a sentence is easy. Putting them into a story is not.

That day, performingmonkey missed grammar class.

Damn you!

Until now, I was only aware of the various versions of The World's Shortest Horror Story:

"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door..."
"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a lock on the door..."
"He sat alone in the dark, afraid. Someone put matches in his hand."

Short straw: your turn to jump.

Sign says "monsters here". Run away!

Vag poots like fat tuba player.

Two hours later, I was dead.