Six-Word Stories: A Creative Writing Exercise

Purpose

This exercise is designed to cultivate delegates’ creativity, emotional intelligence, and reflective thinking through the challenge of expressing experiences, emotions, or insights in just six words. It encourages briefness and precision in communication. It helps with:

• Enhancing creative writing and storytelling skills.
• Self-reflection and personal insight.
• Ability to convey complex ideas succinctly.

Objective

Delegates get to practice creative writing, encapsulating an important idea or experience in just six words.

What You Need

• Pen and paper or digital devices for writing.
• Timer.
• Optional: Online platform for sharing stories (e.g., a course LMS, discussion board, or social media group).

Setup

• Explain the concept of six-word stories, emphasising the challenge of capturing a reflective experience, emotion, or insight in a limited format. Here are some examples:

Examples

Personal Growth

• “Lost, wandered, found myself again. Home.”
• “Mistakes made, lessons learned, character built.”

Achievement

• “Dreamt it, pursued it, finally achieved.”
• “Late nights, early mornings, goal reached.”

Challenges

• “Stormy seas navigated, now sailing smoothly.”
• “Fell down seven times, stood eight.”

Hope

• “Darkest nights produce the brightest stars.”
• “After rain comes the rainbow. Renewal.”

Change

• “Cold winter passed, welcomed spring’s warmth.”
• “Old doors closed, new windows opened.

Relationships

• “Hearts met, worlds merged, journey began.”
• “Friendship's bond tested, emerged stronger together.

Adventure

• “Mountains climbed, rivers crossed, spirit free.”
• “Lost in foreign lands, discovered self.”

Reflection

• “Years passed, memories faded, love remained.”
• “Life’s book turns, new chapter awaits.”

Resilience

• “Against the odds, stood strong, victorious.”
• “Lost everything, resilience became my wealth.”

Discovery

• “Unknown paths walked, unexpected treasures found.”
• “Stargazed nightly, universe whispered, soul listened.”

• You can either assign a specific theme (e.g., Personal Growth, Challenges, Hope, Change) or allow delegates to choose their own theme based on their experiences or insights they wish to share.
• Get delegates to consider the following tips:
  1. Encourage them not to overthink and to write from the heart.
  2. They don’t have to write a single sentence with six words. As shown in the examples, they can include several sentences, including one-word sentences. Example: “After rain comes the rainbow. Renewal.”
  3. They can first try to capture an idea with as many words as needed and then make it concise by bringing it down to six words.
• Ask delegates to write five of such statements.
• Allocate about 10 to 15 minutes for this.
• Bring back everyone together and ask delegates to read their statements one at time in a relay format and then continue for five rounds until all statements are read by delegates.
• As each statement is read, let delegates express their insights, praise the creator and also say why they like it.
• Follow with a general discussion.

Timing

Explaining the Exercise: 5 minutes

Activity: 15 min writing + 15 min sharing = 30 minutes

Group Feedback: 10 minutes

Discussion

After the writing phase, encourage the group to reflect on the diversity of experiences and the common emotions or insights that emerge. Highlight the power of concise storytelling and communication.

In particular, discuss the following:

• How was your creative process?
• Why such an exercise is useful?
• Where and why would you need to communicate with less words?

Lead the discussion to the important point that if an idea can be expressed with less number of words, it is always better, though only up to a point. Too few words can make a statement vague and confusing, demanding a whole lot more clarification and negating the benefit of saving the words in the first place. The aim is to find the ideal balance.

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