Gatehouse Blog
Started Monday. Hated Tuesday. Left Wednesday.
Hemmingway once wrote a story in just six words – “For sale: baby shoes, never worn” surprisingly, he described this as his best work, giving hope to all the budding authors out there. However, you’re unlikely to get a publishing deal on the back of six words, perhaps a new business discount in the classified section of the weekly paper is the best you can hope for.
Dreams of becoming the next JK Rowling aside, taking the theory behind creating a six word story and using it within different situations can be incredibly useful for managers and communicators – icebreakers , getting to know each other or simply practising how to become more concise in saying what you need to say and avoid waffling on – is where this technique can help. It’s also a lot of fun to do.
My own six word story refers to an unremarkable three day episode after accepting a Christmas job with a well-known retail company. Not least to say it didn’t end up being one of the best Christmases I’ve ever had on three days wages, but at least I got a story to tell from it, albeit a very short on. I’m sure we’ve all been there.
The beauty of this technique is that it can be used to describe yourself, your team, department, organisation, what you do etc, and, in a variety of different ways face to face, blogs, newsletters, intranet, website. Furthermore, it intuitively paves the way for your story to include a couple of magic ingredients that every story needs – intrigue, entertainment, characters, suspense, surprise, emotion and above all simplicity.
Mark
