After dinner, David got out “Our Daily Bread.” Every night, while our family is still gathered around the dining room table, our son leads us in a time of reflection, discussion, and prayer about our faith.
As David started reading the story dated February 23, 2019, I was immediately invited in. I was intrigued.
The Nobel Prize winning author, Ernest Hemingway, was asked if he could “write a compelling story in six words. His response : ‘For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.’”
A Few Powerful Words
The author went on to explain that Hemingway’s story was powerful, because it left space and silence for us to fill in the details. It inspired us to write the story—to fill in the blanks, to scribble on the white pages. We became the storyteller.
“Were the shoes simply not needed by a healthy child? Or was there a tragic loss?”
When you read the “6-Word Story,” perhaps your mind imagined a completely different scenario.
After hearing Hemingway’s words, I started thinking about storytelling.
Becoming a Storyteller
I’m passionate about writing and telling stories. I love vivid details that create a visual picture in the readers’ minds—in the listeners’ minds. Well-written and well-told stories invite the audience into the scene. It’s as if they cannot resist. Listeners are called, beckoned in. They are compelled to enter the story—to hear the sounds, to see the sights, to smell the smells, to taste the tastes, and to feel. No longer observers on the sidelines, they become participants—actors—in the story.
Let’s try this! At the end of this post, I will write for you a “6-word story.” I won’t add my usual details, descriptions, and pictures. Rather, I will leave the pages blank for you to fill in.
May its scarce words invite you to become a storyteller. Allow your wild imagination to take over and create a scene—filling in the details and blanks. May my few words and my silence provide the needed space and silence to write your own story—to paint a picture in your mind.
Next week, I will fill in the blanks for you and write the pages of my “6-word story.” Until then, may you become a “Cultural Story-Weaver.”
Are you ready? Here is my “6-Word Story”:
“Oh, the Places We Will Go!”
Your turn—fill in the pages! Write, create, let your imagination run wild! Tell us your own story in the “comment” box below.
—The Cultural Story-Weaver
Let’s Weave Cultures!
There is no right or wrong way to do this. What scene do you imagine when you read these six words? In the comment box below, tell us what picture or what story you create from this “6-Word Story.” Have fun being Cultural Story-Weavers today!
We invite you to tell us your own cultural stories and global adventures . . . as you engage with the world, breaking down barriers, building bridges, and “weaving cultures!” Write about them in the comment box below.
Oh the places we will go! I see the beach and palm trees. Maybe I am in Hawaii. Maybe I am in the Bahamas, or
Mexico, or the beaches of Spain.
I also see lots of other places, like floating down the water in a gondola in Italy .
I also would like to go to Africa and stay at the Giraffe House, stay all night and have breakfast where the giraffes come up and stick their heads in the window to say “hello”! Wow!
Then the last place of all is going back to the comfort of my home—after all of these wonderful experiences and adventures.
I love your pictures and “places”! Oh, the beach sounds wonderful right now when I look out my window at the piled up “old and dirty” snow! And the Giraffe House?! I want to go too! Giraffes are the most beautiful and fascinating animals to watch—so graceful and elegant. Although if I got there, I’m not sure that I would ever want to go home. I would want to live forever among the giraffes at the Giraffe House! 🙂
I am actually in Hawaii as I’m reading this post! It’s my first time and it is wonderful.
My friends and I are brainstorming the “where do we see ourselves in 10 years” question. Which definitely relates to this 6-word story. We’re coming up with more of how we see ourselves impacting the world around us rather than specific places. It is certainly interesting to ponder and to come up with so many different directions!
Fun! Enjoy Hawaii! Dream and dream big of “where you see yourselves in 10 years.” Yes, “the places we will go” are important—and directly related—but what we are doing and how we are impacting the world is so much more important! Can’t wait to hear the stories you will all write and tell!
I fell in love with Maui when I went there for my 50th birthday. Went to Kauai the next year because I loved Maui so much. Planning on another Hawaii trip in the fall (maybe). Oahu this time?? Hawaii is magical.
I actually imagined a young couple, just married, with wedding rice in hair, embarking on their new life full of wonder and belief in the future.
That’s a beautiful picture . . . I wonder where that couple is going? 🙂