By Jonathan Cardew

This blog post explores Ernest Hemingway’s iceberg theory of fiction and the impact of brevity on readers. Placing Hemingway’s minimalist fiction techniques from Death in the Afternoon (1932) alongside theories of composition pedagogy, this post underscores the need for teachers and students to craft their work with concision and clarity. The article ultimately provides concrete advice on concise writing strategies and shares several outlets for further reading and study. 

Is the following…a short story?

For sale: baby shoes, never worn

If you said yes, continue reading this blog article. 

If you said no, continue reading this blog article. 

Iceberg Theory

Though apocryphal and likely a story he never actually penned, the above six-word piece by Ernest Hemingway is cited often as a powerful example of brevity in prose. Whether this is or is not a short story doesn’t matter. What matters is the impact on the reader. And I would contend that the impact is great (at least it was for me when I first read it). 

In essence, Hemingway’s “story” hints at tragedy in the form of a classified ad. And the story–or the text we can read–is only the tip of the iceberg.

This iceberg metaphor is important not only as a general principle of brevity, but also as a key element of Hemingway’s own fictional framework. He argues that the text of a story is merely the “tip” (his theory of omission). All the action, dialogue, mise-en-scène, and characterization hint at a greater story at play–a much larger world beyond the confines of the paragraph. In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway (1932) writes:

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eight of it being above water. (192) 

In this case, Hemingway’s “Baby Shoes” short-short is the merest of mere iceberg tips, with the rest of the story existing below the depths. 

Basically: power by omission. 

Flash (fiction)

I often share this story with my students, and I’m delighted to find that they almost always love the innovative nature of the short-short prose form. They appreciate it getting to the point. They appreciate it doing so with guts.

Otherwise known as “flash fiction” or “micro fiction,” the short-short story has enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent years, with an abundance of journals, competitions, and publishers popping up around the world. The form is deceptively simple: write a story in 50 words, or 100 words, or 500 words (typically, flash fiction weighs in under 1000 words). Keep it concise. Use negative space. Find the absolute best words. Don’t use many.

Easy? Not really!

Engaging? Impactful? Yes, absolutely! 

Less is more

As a writer of this form, I attempt to incorporate “flash” strategy and ethos whenever I can into my composition courses. While I might not be teaching a fiction class, the rules of engagement remain the same: I challenge my students to get more from less. I challenge them to get to the heart of things–be it a thesis statement, a verb, or a description. Yes, there are word counts to meet, but are they meeting them with filler and fluff? Are they distracting the reader with extra material? Are they unintentionally creating “semantic barriers” (Siavhundu, 2025, p. 5)?

Verbosity is one such barrier. Students of writing can conflate elevated vocabulary choices with elevated intelligence, but clarity and conciseness are much more prized in academic and professional settings. 

Can they summarize an article in five words or fewer? Can they use an active voice and choose powerful verbs over phrasal verbs? Can they trim a thesis down to a single sentence?

Can they use white space to create movement and energy?

Cut it in half?

One specific exercise that I have students try is the “cut it in half” method. Developed by the flash writer and teacher Nancy Stohlman (2021) this exercise requires a writer to decrease a text’s word count by half–and then another half, and then another (if possible). The task hones one’s writerly editing sensibilities, but it also asks an essential audience-based question: does the reader need this, or this, or that? 

And as Hemingway suggests…invariably, the reader does not.

Nothing wrong with Dickens, but…

Sometimes, a long and rambling sentence (à la Charles Dickens) is what we want. Sometimes, a long soak in a bath of prose (a novel, a trilogy, a cycle) is what we crave. Wordiness can be luxuriating and even illuminating, but most of the time, it is not what we need (and by “we” I mean both the writer AND the reader). And not what the story needs, either.

There are purportedly one million unique words in the English language. 

We don’t need to use every last one of them. 

Further Reading…

A definition of the form (sort of): https://uwm.edu/creamcityreview/jonathan-cardews-flash-is-not/

A great teacher and resource: https://www.kathy-fish.com/?page_id=33

A journal dedicated to brevity: https://100wordstory.org/

References

Cardew, J. (2019). Flash is not. Cream City Review. https://uwm.edu/creamcityreview/jonathan-cardews-flash-is-not/

Fish, K. (2026). The art of flash fiction. Kathy Fish: Writer-Teacher. https://www.kathy-fish.com/?page_id=33

Hemingway, E. (1932). Death in the afternoon. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Siavhundu, T. (2025). The 15 Cs of effective communication. PM World Journal, 14(8), 1–11. https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/pmwj155-Aug2025-Siavhundu-15-Cs-of-Effective-Communication-2.pdf

Stohlman, N. (2021). Flash exercise: Cut it in half. 100 Word Story. https://100wordstory.org/flash-exercise-cut-it-in-half/ (Original work published 2020)

About the Author: Jonathan Cardew is full-time faculty in English and Rhetoric. He is the author of A World Beyond Cardboard (ELJ Editions, 2022) and In Andromeda (Paper Bill Press, 2026). An avid writer of flash fiction, his stories appear in Passages North, Cream City Review, Cincinnati Review, and Instantaneas de Ficcion.