num_pages: 188
description: A story collection that proves less is more. The stories in this collection run the gamut from playful to tragic conservative to experimental but they all have one thing in common: they are no more than 25 words long. Robert Swartwood was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's possibly apocryphal six-word storyFor Sale: baby shoes never wornto foster the writing of these incredibly short-short stories. He termed them hint fiction because the few chosen words suggest a larger more complex chain of events. Spare and evocative these stories prove that a brilliantly honed narrative can be as startling and powerful as a story of traditional length. The 125 gemlike stories in this collection come from such best-selling and award-winning authors as Joyce Carol Oates Ha Jin Peter Straub and James Frey as well as emerging writers.
language: English
title: Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company