A weekend workshop will discuss and dissect the art of saying a lot in just a few words
Maragaret Atwood at a session
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These words, which, it is claimed, were written by Ernest Hemingway is perhaps one of the most powerful examples of how much can be said in a few words. But never did this find more currency before social media ate away our attention span and twitter came up with the champions of 140 characters.
Chintan Ruparel of Terribly Tiny Tales
Apart from the usual celebrities, with pictures of their pouts, a set of people emerged who were getting the much-coveted attention with their words. Witty, vitriolic, stupid or angst-ridden; if the writing was powerful, social media took note.
Now, to prepare young writers to make more out of this format, British Council Library is organising a workshop, Tiny Tales that focuses on expressing more in a few words. As they put out, “In today’s world, the trend is to use the briefest of words, sentences and characters to express a world of meaning.” The trend has caught up so much that the literati, who otherwise marvel at tomes, also tried their hand at this few words dash and some of the results were stunning. Like Maragaret Atwood’s words: Longed for him. Got him. Shit — were received very well.
Realising the potential of this phenomenon, Mumbai-based Terribly Tiny Tales, who were 140- character story page on Facebook, evolved into a company which now has over 500 entries every day. For writers aspiring to explore this format, Chintan Ruparel, co-founder, of Terribly Tiny Tales, says that it is all about the power of your prose.
A grab from the Terribly Tiny Tales page
“One needs to respect the attention span of the reader. The film Piku was three-hours-long but because it was so tightly written no one felt the length,” he explains.
He agrees that it is a different sort of challenge to write in a really short format but he says that there are actually no rules and no right and wrong way. “One needs to keep doing it to get it right,” he says.
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