‘Starlet sex scandal. Giant squid involved.’- a Daily Mail headline, maybe? No, it’s actually a very, very short story indeed, penned by Canadian novelist and poet Margaret Atwood in response to the ‘Hemingway Challenge’. Nicknamed for the author who once claimed that his best work was the succinct ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’, this short, sharp format has produced some diverse and brilliant pieces both online and in print.

The website www.sixwordstoryeveryday.blogspot.com is one of my favourite responses to the challenge, combining graphic design and illustration with the few words allowed, and now containing a story for every day of 2010. Their newer site, www.sixwordstoryeveryday.com furthers the project, including appropriated lines from sources such as Shakespeare and The Police alongside writers’ original stories and a huge variety of illustrations and typefaces.

Having tried, failed, and persuaded my friends to give it a go too, I can confidently say that making a story work in just six words is a lot more difficult than the tiny end products might suggest. This about sums up my efforts...

...it was definitely an interesting challenge to undertake. The pieces which really seem to work without the support of graphics or illustration are like Atwood’s or Hemingway’s- a little bit bizarre, intriguing or sad (why were the baby shoes unworn and for sale?), and carefully crafted by their author.

Or, like Joss Whedon, you could just go for the murder mystery. ‘Gown removed carelessly. Head less so.’

What did Shakespeare sound like?

Through a mixture of scholarly scrutiny and informed guesswork, it is possible to figure out what it might have sounded like- love, after all, no longer rhymes with prove. At the London Globe theatre in 2004, with the help of David Crystal, a three-show run of Romeo and Juliet was performed entirely in Original Pronunciation, or at least as close as we can get to it. Given the Globe's dedication to period costumes, period sets, even period music, why has no movement towards period pronunciation come sooner? The costumes and music may lend the feel of exoticism to the whole affair, tempered for a modern audience by cock-gags aplenty, (as any Globe-trotter will no doubt attest). Don't get me wrong. I like cock-gags. If I see a rapier at the end of a production hanging from an actor's hip which hasn't been bloodied or employed as a phallic symbol I boo and tear up my ticket and spit in the steward's eyes before leaving the theatre. Likewise for the costumes; I have nothing against period-dress-porn, or even against the less-than-chunky riffs or miniscule hooks afforded by the lute. But why have we not seen more of an attempt to revive Original Pronunciation? Surely the aural cannot be entirely subsidiary to the visual? This is theatre! The synthetic art! Give me both or give me death! Vive la OP! Swords and chords! Never enough ruffs! The accent that was meant! Prove your love fo- Prove your lo loo Loov? Lurve? Prurve yer lar-lur-leaughm...

Ah. Maybe that's why. Perhaps The Globe's dedication to authenticity stops at the doorway of comprehensibility. I suppose you can't blame them really- they've got fire exits after all, and no doubt Shakey would have appreciated them at the time.

Here's David Crystal's website for his book, which has a bunch of recordings on it: 

http://www.pronouncingshakespeare.com/

The book's worth a read as well, if your local library has it. (It does.)

Yours sincerely, Prof. Phil E. Stein