{"id":21499,"date":"2014-04-30T06:15:56","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T11:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=21499"},"modified":"2014-04-21T07:44:40","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T12:44:40","slug":"write-a-six-word-horror-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=21499","title":{"rendered":"Write a Six-Word Horror Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a (probably apocryphal) story that Ernest Hemingway was challenged to write a six-word novel, and he responded with, “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” Over at io9 they’ve been riffing on this extreme flash-fiction idea with a series of posts inviting commenters to write six-word science fiction stories: Part 1, Part 2<\/a>, Part 3<\/a>, Part 4<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Science fiction and horror are kissing cousins at the very least, so a lot of the contributions skew in that direction. Some are outright creepy:<\/p>\n

It was moving under my skin.
\n— Blalock<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“The snow… it… it… got hungry.”
\n— fogelmatrix<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Try to relax,” my parasite said.
\n— Claire B.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They ate dreams. Only insomniacs survived.
\n— x84jdh<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some are really evocative:<\/p>\n

\nThe monsters cry in their sleep.
\n— JennyGirl<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The outsiders killed us last night.
\n— spagornasm<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Walls had ears. Eyes, too, now.
\n— Daryl<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Old Gods come in peace.
\n— Phos<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Death machine works, but it weeps.
\n— Matt<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And some are funny:<\/p>\n

Zombies placated! They just wanted hugs.
\n— nootrac4571<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“The badger revolution humbled us all.”
\n— interrogator-chaplain<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Room for rent, cheap. NOT HAUNTED.
\n— Long Lost Albatross<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Chess?” scoffed Death, “no way. Candyland.”
\n— ColinGagnon<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Most of them seem to be less “complete story” and more “really intriguing first sentence.”)<\/p>\n

Want to play along? Write your spookiest six-word story and leave it in the comments! Here are a few to get you started:<\/p>\n

“Believe<\/em> in ghosts? I am<\/em> one.”<\/p>\n

The screaming isn’t real. Ignore it.<\/p>\n

Tiny footsteps run into the closet.<\/p>\n

“Mommy, why won’t it stop moving?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a (probably apocryphal) story that Ernest Hemingway was challenged to write a six-word novel, and he responded with, “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.” Over at io9 they’ve been riffing on this extreme flash-fiction idea with a series of posts inviting commenters to write six-word science fiction stories: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21499"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21511,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21499\/revisions\/21511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}