Six word story

A writing competition

It has been great to see how this writing challenge has captured imaginations, resulting in over 1000 entries being submitted.

Creating a powerful story in the sum total of six words is a writing genre that was popularised by Ernest Hemingway who famously wrote 'For sale, baby shoes. Never used.' He went on to say it was one of the best stories he had ever written.

Our under 16s winner is Molly of Romsey (right) who wrote

"Valentines Day. Bunch of flowers wasted."

Molly receives a parcel of books courtesy of our sponsors, Borders of Southampton.

Beatrice Murphy of Winchester (right) was chosen by our judges as the adult winner for her entry

"Over burnt lasagne, he confessed adultery."

Beatrice receives a Borders gift card to the value of £50.

The Judges were impressed with the range of creative stories produced under the confines of just six words. Different genres were explored including science fiction and crime, love stories and horror. The judges thought the winning stories were particularly visual, the scenes could be easily imagined. They were well constructed with each word chosen wisely and like all good stories do not end with the full stop but allow the reader to keep imagining the consequences.

Here are some other highly comended entries. Thank you to all those who took part.

• 1471. No new calls to return - Juliet England, Reading
• All I knew had been taken - Hollis Williams, Winchester
• Note to self, keep it zipped - Judith Heneghan, Winchester
• 'Reply to all' was his undoing - Nicola Clarke, Farnham
• Astonishingly the sample contained no DNA - Gillian Whitford, Romsey
• Magically the snow drifted revealing everything - Hazel Kennedy, Southampton
• Until that night I loved her! - Yaz El Hakim, Southampton