Writing Boots

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02.09.2022 by David Murray // 2 Comments

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” The world’s shortest short story, apocryphally written by Ernest Hemingway, right?

Yeah, well here’s one almost as short, and I wrote it myself: “Little girls’ bikes, set out for dibs.”

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Comments

  1. Peter Pedant, Ph.D. says

    February 9, 2022 at 10:29 pm

    Not to diminish the theme of desperation you have captured so effectively and the emotional impact of your story — I could barely hold back my tears and fortunately had a hanky handy in the pocket of my corduroy jacket — but this draft is a teeny bit wordy and borders on the precipice of presumption, easily correctible by deleting “girls’ in your next draft.

    Reply
  2. David Murray says

    February 9, 2022 at 10:34 pm

    Don’t you think “Little bikes, set out for dibs,” while spare and granted, more purely journalistic—lacks a little of the pathos the first story has? Like, the difference between the panhandler’s sign: “I am hungry,” and the one the ad man helped him with: “I am hungry, and it is spring.”

    Thoughts, Dr. P?

    Reply

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