Forget about the Six-Word Story, How about the Five Emoji Story?

Blogging, family, humor, lessons learned, writing 1 Minute

I’ve previously written about the potential beauty and simplicity (and challenge) of writing a six-word story, and today I discovered, thanks to WordPress Discover, a fun, but challenging twist to the genre – the five random emojis story.

Friends James Hannaham and John W. Bateman created a game where one of them texts five random emoji to the other, and the recipient then creates a micro-story.

Here’s an example:

So I thought to myself, in honor of World Emoji Day, I can do that. I later asked my wife and son to send me a text message with five random emojis. Here is what my son sent me:

🔠✅🆚📨⏳

I stared at those symbols for a long time and realized this is harder than I thought.

Here’s the best story I could come up with.

After I learned my ABCs and the teacher gave me her approval, she thought I would be up for the challenge of writing an entire letter. I told her to give it some time, I’m only in kindergarten.

My wife sent me the following five emojis:

🏊‍♂️ ✈️ 🍌 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 💕

Once again, it was difficult to come up with a story, but here we go:

He was up for the challenge. He would swim across the Atlantic; she would fly. Fueled only by bananas, he finally made it to England, where they lived happily ever after.

I’m not sure how much time the two friends, James and John, spend on this game, but if they are anything like me, there’s probably a lot of headbanging on one side of the message, and a lot of evil grinning on the other.

I’ll leave you with the following:

🤓

That’s how I feel, now that I’ve finished this blog.

*image from Sky News

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

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16 thoughts on “Forget about the Six-Word Story, How about the Five Emoji Story?”

  1. I would love to write short ditties about the subjects your son and your wife proposed through their emojis! Because the immediate story that came to mind and each case was entirely different than what you came up with. How fun!

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      1. OK! Never thought you’d ask😉 I love this kind of stuff. The hardest part was not in the writing, but in the logistics of how to get this to you in a comment! To go back to the post, I had to take a screenshot of each emoji sequence, text it to myself, and then cut and paste to this post response! Here goes:

        That woman of the night compelled him to the written word, something he had always loved and never had the time to do. She was the catalyst, and he, the shining object of his own desire.

        He wrote the perfect love letter, checked it twice. Instead of sending it and having to endure the pain of waiting or possible rejection, he never let it go beyond a thought in his head.

        When she went to the gym for a quick lap around the pool before jumping on her business flight, little did she presume she would step on a banana peel and end up in the hospital with a concussion. But you know, it really drew her husband closer to her than he had been in years. He called her his rosebud amongst the thorns. And this time, she did not chafe with irritation at feeling placated.

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      2. Wow! You are good at this stuff, and so fast! Goes to show you there’s at least two sides to every story, or in this case, emoji. Thanks for sharing your stories.

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  5. Six word story was already hard as it is… but crafting a story based on six emojis? Well done, sir! I would probably have a hard time thinking up something… but it does look interesting. 😀

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