I don’t recall the first time I saw the image below but it has stuck with me ever since.
Actually… it wasn’t the image. The image I just googled for, but the words I read years ago. It was the imagery that stuck… and the idea that an effective storyteller could evoke serious emotion in so few words.
We all know that is not one of my skills… succinctness I mean. I write and think and speak all the words. ALL. THE. WORDS. whether there’s anyone around to hear/read them or not. Saying things out loud or writing them down gives them life… the ideas and thoughts I mean. Then I have an opportunity to really look at them and decide whether or not they are really true or valid… or if I can dismiss the idea/thought/feeling.
Giant has discovered how therapeutic it can be to journal now in his adventures that I haven’t shared much about yet but will when the time is right. I’ll tell you what… Mini may look like me, but Giant IS me. And I couldn’t be happier about that. Point is, he has learned how powerful writing things down can be. For good or evil. Case in point, there was a bully he was dealing with. He started journaling everything that happened… every detail of every attack… and when I spoke to Giant after a few days of this, I didn’t reccognize the kid on the other end of the phone. He was angry and frustrated and sad and emotional… It was heartbreaking to say the least and we cried together more than a few times during our call… lucky for me, I wasn’t the only one who noticed the change in him and it was suggested that he take a different approach to the journaling and focus instead on the lessons learned from the activities. The opportunities if you will. Just like that, (ok a few days later change is rarely instant) everything shifted. Words are powerful y’all. And like I said, I use them all.
But then… as I was perusing the book of face the other day, I saw this image shared on Traveling Mom‘s page.
Well shit. Hard enough to tell a story in six words, and most of those are sad over on Reddit (Go check them out anyway – it’s intriguing) but a happy story in FOUR words? I pondered this for days y’all. DAYS. Within the responses on Facebook, most… honestly… were sentences instead of stories really… both on my share of the image and the original on Traveling Mom‘s page. Although I had to laugh at Travis’s response:
I think that Traci told the reverse of the Saddest story in six words:
And not surprising, Helen and I were on the similar pages:
Some of the super short stories that Popped into my brain over the last few days:
So what about you? Think you could tell a story in only 4 words? What’s the difference between a story and a sentence?
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