Our Best Work, by Robert Swartwood

Hello. My name is Robert Swartwood. Last year I created the term “hint fiction,” which is a story of 25 words or fewer that suggests a larger, more complex story. It was inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s infamous six-word story: “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Of course, there is debate on whether or not Hemingway is the true author of the story. No written account is made of the story anywhere. Yet somehow Hemingway has been linked with the story, just as somehow he’s noted for claiming it as his best work.

Not too long ago I received an e-mail from someone asking my thoughts on the Hemingway piece. One of the questions was whether or not I believed Hemingway really considered it his best work. My reply—both via e-mail and via a blog post on my website—was that yes, I did believe Hemingway believed it was his best work … if, of course, he truly did write the six-word story.

In the comments section of the blog post, one person disagreed heavily. Among other things, he said there was absolutely no way the story was Hemingway’s best work. His argument being that while the six-word story may have taken Hemingway a couple of minutes to write, it took him days and weeks and months and possibly years to complete a novel. That anybody could have come up with those six-words, but the novels and short stories that Hemingway came up with was his and his alone. (I’m paraphrasing, of course.)

My reply was simple: do I believe the six-word story is Hemingway’s best work? No. Do I believe Hemingway may have claimed it was his best work? Yes.

You have to figure that in Hemingway’s time, a story like that had never been done before. There was no Internet. Twitter was only something birds did in trees. Six-word stories have become commonplace nowadays thanks to websites such as SMITH Magazine, but at the time it was something new and exciting. Hemingway was, in a sense, creating a new form. Novels and short stories, those had been written by many other people, but a six-word story?

So for argument’s sake, let’s assume that not only did Hemingway write the six-word story, but he also believed it was his greatest work. Again, I would have to believe that’s true. After all, it should be a writer’s goal to attempt new and different things. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with traditional storytelling, but if a writer is constantly playing it safe because he or she worries about possibly wasting time and effort, then that’s sad. As writers we should explore, not just different worlds but different forms. Maybe we’ll be surprised by what we find. And who knows—even though others may disagree, maybe we’ll consider it our best work.