Whose flipping idea was this? Is this the work of some over-laxatived editor, ferociously snipping every word from a new novel so that just six words remain, thus ruining the descriptions of all the lovely Georgian vases?

What is wrong with PROLIXITY? Why are we obsessed with CONCISENESS?

I don’t want a pithy summary of someone’s life. Ultimately they are going to various permutations on the same idea: I was a tough, funny and thoroughly brilliant person to be around. So sod off.

I am anti the six-word memoir. It is blocking up the refund queue. Plus loadsa newbies can’t spell memoir properly. Plus six words is a silly amount of words to be given. Plus the idea is infuriating. Plus people are leaving snide, mocking reviews. Plus…

Nargh. Baa humbug.

::puts an ‘anti-stress mechanism’ sticker on a frying pan::
::sends it to Claire_D::
::giggles::

Srsly. I have to agree. Blocking the review queue, refund queue. It’s a fad. It, too, will pass.

At least the 55 word stories were a challenge..

I think Smith kind of caters to the “lowest common denominator.” They feature only 6 word memoirs and non-fiction autobiographical work that I feel feeds only the most prurient voyeuristic tendencies in readers. I love creativity and fiction, but I think that many readers want “real” stories.

Claire_D:

Ignoring the effect on Urbis, as a lot of things are screwing it up at the moment:

I was a sub-editor once, a long time ago, and had to write captions for photos and illustrations.
Trying to cram a valid and valuable description in 2 sentences of 3-5 words each (or sometimes less) was an exercise in brevity.
“This is a cat” is easy, try a caption for a photo detailing how to re-assemble a mechanical watch when the body text is lacking!

Anyway, writers trying to condense much in a few words I see as a great exercise.
The failures we are seeing in the competition shows how much that exercise IS needed.

I typed a detailed response to this, but my computer crashed.

So I’ll have to be concise this time.

In fiction… no-no to the brevity. In technical writing… OK to the brevity.

The rest of you are beautiful and wise.

Be well.

claire_d:

Surely it’s better to know how to write concisely and then expand because you feel the story needs it, rather than literary diarrhea because you can’t do anything else?

If it were an excercize in brevity, as an excersize, as in writing to be better at writing, I’d be all gung-ho.

However, it’s masturbation. That’s the kinda thing you do at home. All private-like.

I don’t want to see it.

NOTtelling:

“However, it’s masturbation. That’s the kinda thing you do at home. All private-like.”
Ah, right.
So you set up a table in the center of town when you write, yes?
Or is it something you do “at home. All private-like.”?

Wow, I’m just amazed at the ferocity towards a simple little competition.
Do it, don’t do it. Read them, don’t read them.
Quite simple really.

Perhaps I am the only one here that remembers that long lost art – wit.
From the sharp rejoiners of Oscar Wilde and Groucho Marx, to the verbal shots from William Pitt and other politicians.
No 500 word soliloquizing from them, just a few choice words.
The fact that a high proportion of the 6 word entries are not up to it doesn’t destroy the fun of the idea.

“at home” is not meant to be literal. I don’t care where people write. My point is, they are essentially journal entries. People can write whatever wherever. Whether or not they choose to post them on the internet and demand brilliant reviews or choose to place them in a journal to make them smile at their own words of (insert adjective).

Sure, there’s merit in doing exercises to improve your writing skills. More people should practice. More people should also understand the difference between writing exercises and work they want critiqued. My problem with the six-worders is that you can’t actually review them. I don’t care about the competition. I’m irritated about the hissy-fitting about reviews, refunds, and the sheer QUANTITY of these things. It’s like a junior-high game of MASH. The nice thing about the Urbis forum is that I can complain to other people who are equally as frustrated with these things, as they aren’t going away right now.

The thing I like about forums is those occasions where discussion can lead to finding accord.

Yes, critiquing a 6 worder is tough, as/if not more so than writing them.
I put one up, received 1 review. I was lucky, it was a well written review.
I haven’t reviewed any, simply because I have yet to see one I feel worth reviewing.

Perhaps, having decided to put up this ‘opportunity’, Urbis should have made this a straight voting item instead of the normal review process.

Have you noticed the trend that has been growing on Urbis?
Particularly noticeable with reviews, growing with submissions – the in/out fast kill mentality. Put up something short – lots of reviews.
Whereas longer pieces are getting few reviews and then mainly short junky ones or borderline credit theft reviews.
Too many want to submit something and then do minimal work/thinking to get it reviewed.
Of course this same mentality is going to jump on the 6 worder, especially with the reward of being published on offer.

I join everyone in disliking this mentality, I just think that it should be the focus of our ire and not the competition itself.

I did get the ““at home” is not meant to be literal.”
My point was that, with the exception of any that write to try to change the world, we are all masturbating when we write.
And most of us want the world to see the results!
Just some of us are willing to put a lot more effort into that masturbation and make it a better show.

I agree with the idea that some of us are more willing to work for our “art” (I just gagged) than others. I also agree that longer pieces recieve fewer reviews and that many review for the sake of getting reviews themselves (and, for the most part neglect to give a thoughtful review). Agreed, agreed. I don’t know that it’s a ‘growing’ trend. I’ve been here a few years and I notice cycles, for sure, in which reviews tend to suck less in volume or over-all.

Maybe it is just the mentality that fills me with indignance and not the practice, however, this competition has brought it to a head, for me.

Another issue I have w/this 6 word schtuff is the “concise” aspect of reviews. The second a review is longer than the piece I notice an influx of refund requests. I’m disgusted all around. It isn’t simply this competition.

I don’t even know what my point is, anymore. I do know I’m tired of using all my skips on 6-word memoirs. Bah.

“Concise” is a tricky criteria isn’t it.
Personally I do not read that as “short”.

Converting the not concise
“Hmmm, I read this several times, like I always read things many times cos I’m made that way, but really I am struggling to find the meaning. Then again it’s not my sort of thing. Anyway, no spelling or grammar I can spot wrong, but I’m not a good speller myself”.
to the concise
“Not my thing and no errors I can spot”
does not change it to a good review.
Even more concise would be “Skip”

Concise is where you have something useful to say and you say it with neither repetition nor waffle.
If that means writing a 50 word review of a 6 word item, fine by me – as long as each word counts for something.

Much as my inner fascist wants to round up the dimwits who buy into this worthless gimmick and march them off a cliff, I am a humane man and am willing to exercise clemency. That said, I don’t like six word stories and don’t want to read them, and would dearly dearly love to keep them off of my review list. Unfortunately there’s no clear-cut category for them; they get lumped in as “short story” or “humour/satire” or “quotes” (honestly!) and because they demand less effort from their slackjawed instigators than the average fart, they outnumber all the half-decent pieces on urbis by a considerable margin. Let it be suggested, then, that either a new category be created for them, or at least that they all get forcibly lumped into “flash fiction” and those of us with marginal standards of taste and decency will stand a fighting chance of ignoring them.

Avedis:

I absolutely agree that concise does not mean short. I simply meant to point out how many people seem to believe that if a piece is short the review should be as well.

I think concise is particularly difficult here because of the fact that one s dealing with writers, ha. I think we can all agree that what we have to say is painfully important and wothwhile to read. Aside, of course, from “I like it” reviews.

Gucci_piggy: You can skip then, and they aren’t too hard to pick out. If the word count is 6, skip.

well yeah but like you said I only get 20 skips a day and there seems to be that many written every hour

They will be a thorn in all of our sides for a while. When does this competition end? Hopefully it will slow after that.

8/13/2008. 16 days can’t pass fast enough.

There’s a new addition to our user “pages”: My Opportunity Submissions. Eat it up you six-word memoir haters! Bwa hahahahahaha!

Seriously, as annoying as many people like to “profess” them to be, they’ve brought a ton of new users to Urbis and increased site traffic significantly in what would otherwise be a slow season-Summertime. New reviewers often give crappy reviews because of just that—they’re new. ::Contemplates meditatively on own initial newbie reviews:: Ahhh . . . They weren’t that great. (Some would say they’re still not!)

So chill, people. The six-worders are ultimately allowing Urbis to expand and make lots of more moolah which will ultimately make the site better. (I’m looking for another “ultimately”.) I don’t think anyone would complain about how this site has improved their own writing and thusly, allowed it to expand. Oh, and it’s free? I’d write more, but I hear an annoying siren racing past my window. Must be a Waahmbulance!!

I’ll stow my soapbox back in the closet for now.

Curt…

You make wretches of us all. I still refuse to review while those little blighters are around, however. A pox on their houses.

Heh heh. I’ll be advocating for the devil occasionally. (That’s my night job actually.) Much love for the forum denizens.

I thought your night job was a street walker, Curt? Aren’t you quite the busy boy…

The Devil is one of his best customers!

Do’t be tryin’ to run off my hoe’s regulars!

Better start sowing more leg…it’s not like gas prices are goin down, and I got this big Caddy with dingleberries to be drivin, yo!

Wouldn’t dream of running off your garden tool’s regulars. Ho = street walker, hoe = garden tool. Or, at least that’s how I understand it. I could be completely wrong, which would put me under the radar of the evil dwarven people.

And I show plenty of leg. It’s not my fault they’re pale and look suspiciously like KFC’s specials.

He is! I tried to send him an Urbis invite in hopes of accumulating mad credits from his satanic reviews, but he messaged me back citing, “I already read enough from writers who promise me their souls to get their manuscripts made into best selling books that go on to become blockbuster movies. Sorry, gotta go. I have a meeting with Dan…” The email then mysteriously disappeared and I caught the faintest odor of sulfur.

On an unrelated note, it looks like there’s a sequel to The Davinci Code coming out.