A Frame Story of 6 Word Stories?
So yesterday I started to think how cool it would be to take the 6 word story idea a step further. What if you created a frame story, i.e., a story that is created from a subset of distinct stories told by individuals that create a whole. The Canterbury Tales is an example of this literary device.
I'm sure it's doable. But I'm also sure it would be extremely difficult. The more I thought about yesterday, the more it confounded me.
I thought, perhaps, it might be best to start with a known story and then "reverse-engineer" it back out to the frame story built by 6 word stories.
The Iliad came to mind. You could tell that tale from the various points of view of the major players. Then I realized that is kind of a stupid idea, since the Iliad is already pretty reduced, being a poem that in Homer's time was meant to be memorized and told out loud from beginning to end. And told in the cadence iambic pentameter, so, again, not convinced it is the right work to attempt to reverse-engineer.
Still I did mess around with the idea a bit, focusing on starting with an observer of the Judgement of Paris.
Here are my various false starts.
1. The golden apple and Aphrodite — rotten. 2. Judgment of Paris. Hypergamy spells war. 3. Beauty contest on Olympus, poor Hector. 4. Holding the apple, Aphrodite smiled menacingly.
Meh, I don't think any of them work as true 6 word stories, because they all depend on reader having a prior knowledge of Greek Myth and the Trojan War.
Yet, I'm still convinced that a frame story of 6 word stories is possible somehow.