Six word stories? Yeah, nah mate.

This all apparently started with good ol’ Ernest Hemingway’s six-word novel: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”—that started the whole flash fiction genre of writing. It’s all about creating a story with the bare minimum of words and for someone who quite often word vomits (doing it right now, oops); the thought of writing six word stories, or in this case memoirs of my totally riveting life, is a wee bit of a struggle.

But I gave it a go, mostly applying the ten per cent word-count-limit thing to get me in the mood…as I try and compact some of my most embarrassing memories into six word memoirs. Yippee.

I’m not great at rules.

Plane toilet door phobia = accidental exhibitionism.

Nauseous just thinking about “What if?”

I can still remember her perfume.

Label: ‘not for human consumption’, oops.

In denial, might just do honours.

Scared teen blows out twenty candles.

“But Mum, it’s just not me.”

“How’s the assignment?” “Yep” “Fair enough”

“I think, you’ve studied enough” – Netflix.

Fell into a squat toilet, shit.

Broke the surface without bikini top.

Puts head into kennel: gets bitten.

“Fuck it”, it’s only worth 20%.

He’s the golden child, not me.

Held her as her heart stopped.

Words by Steffanie Tan

IG – @steffwith2effs

Illustration by Emily Anderson

IG – @apatterneachday