Your Grief Story in 6 Words
Submissions welcome for longer stories also. An epic hug sent to you (albeit virtually) upon submission.
Legend has it that in a Paris restaurant in 1923, Ernest Hemingway’s friends challenged the writer to craft a story in just six words. The novelist responded with:
“For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
I’ve come across this Hemingway story many times throughout my life, as an onlooker, really…but this time I cite it in the context of my own grief.
My beautiful son died at 20.
It has taken me forever to write those words, despite the fact that words come to me fairly easily. After he passed, I couldn’t talk on the phone. I couldn’t write nor send emojis for weeks, not sure why. Maybe I just couldn’t trivialize anything. I could neither be chirpy nor casual. I must have come across suddenly bitchy to everyone who received an emoji-free message from me and had no idea about my personal tragedy.
On a postcard that I slipped into his coffin, I wrote: “Words are potent. This is all I have today. In a box in your room there are more. In my heart, even more so. Thank you for being my son. I love you always.”
With grief, I’ve come to realize, no one has an iota of a clue as to how you’re feeling — unless they too have lost someone they loved deeply. If they did, then they would never ask ¨How are you?” after the fact.
A most painful question to answer.
No two stories are the same. Everyone grieves differently and every day is different.
So, share yours, however pointless it may seem to others. Writing is saving my life right now. I hope that what we start will give you some comfort, some reprieve from feeling you’ve gone crazy. Every meaningful thing worth sharing is built on some strange foundation or other.
Let’s start ours with 6 words.
Submission Guidelines (or Provisos or whatever)
- What we’re looking for: Honesty and kindness is paramount. If you’re here we know we already have something in common.
- Writing guidelines: Style, editing and format.
- Submitting Your Work: How to start writing with us (and for you).
1. What We’re Looking For
If you’d like to have your work published at Grief Playbook, there are a few things that you should know.
Firstly, one single truth should underpin every article:
We are here for you. It would ideally help you get past today, this week or this month. Many writers will probably never know that they were there for me. I found stories and parables that got me through my abyss of that moment. If we’re lucky, someone else finds your words a comfort.
But we are here for you.
2. Writing Guidelines
Below are some tips for enriching the experience of your words and truth.
Style
Try simplicity and honesty. Our tone is conversational and relaxed. If you have to cuss, cuss. I (very) occasionally swear like a sailor.
We believe in good writing, but good writing as something that’s accessible and easy to understand. It would be ideal not to have long, complicated sentences that people have to read several times to fully understand.
While these have their place in academic texts, we believe that readers looking to improve their grief experience will not be in the frame of mind to have to decipher archaic words that only seven people on the planet can actually define.
But back to my first point, we are here for you, and if you want to ramble, that’s ok. It really is.
Editing
Kindly do your own editing. We’re happy to help with prose and framing ideas occasionally, but misspelt words and grammar errors are easy enough to fix on your own. Simply put, if we’re going to take the time to work through and publish your piece, please do proofread your work before submitting it…
Because of this, I recommend running your work through Grammarly. When we receive a draft, it would be ideal not to see more than a couple of critical errors, and Grammarly will help you fix these easily (and for free).
The free version of Grammarly will help you with:
- Spellchecking: Grammarly detects correctly spelled words used in the wrong context. You can stop worrying about misusing homophones like lose/loose, affect/effect, lie/lay, there/their/they’re, and many other commonly confused words.
- Grammar checking: Grammarly can fix hundreds of complex grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement, article use, and modifier placement, to name just a few.
Format
- Use an eye-catching cover photo that you have the rights to. You can find such photos, license-free, on Unsplash, Pexels or Pixabay. Feel free to use your own photography, too. Just make sure to reference yourself as a source in the caption of each image.
- Ensure that your subheadings are capitalised and are separated using Medium’s in-built separators. Have a look at the formatting we’ve used in this article.
- Please. Don’t promote. If you’re looking to sell or market products, Grief Playbook is the wrong place to do so. Leave out all promotion and CTAs. Except your other articles. We may decide to add in our own CTA to your article, but this won’t impact its truth, or chances of it being discovered and distributed.
External Support
Do you want millions of people to find your words?
This may not be the best space for you. But you never know, virality happens by design, and occasionally by accident or incident. Whether you decide to submit or not, it may help to know that some of Medium’s best-performing articles are those that draw upon external support and evidence from research, philosophies or approved theories.
These references may make your article more compelling, giving readers confidence when applying the information you’re providing to their own lives.
There’s no right or wrong, but it seems some best-performing articles are the ones that are supported by at least some theory/evidence. If you’re going to hold anything up as absolute truth, just be sure to support your arguments.
Or DON’T support it with research, we genuinely don’t care beyond being here for you and for others with the need for the same emotional safe space.
Submitting Your Work
To submit your work for publication,
- First, reply to this post with Your Grief Story in 6 Words. If that’s all you want to share, that’s fine.
- Then, for any other article you’d like to share, please follow the form embedded below and we’ll get back to you as quickly as possible if your piece will be published.
- I don’t care how old your article is, whether it’s a draft or published story. SEO is not a priority, we can get qualified traffic to your writing because thats what I do for a living.
