How do you write short-short nonfiction?
I need to write an opinion, narrative of only 80 words in length.
Examples: write about your fondest childhood memory/comment: homework should be banned, etc.
How are short-short pieces like this structured in order to be both complete and successful with so few words?
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4 answers
Eighty words isn't an essay. It's a few sentences - a paragraph or two. Enough to express one short idea, but not to develop or explore it.
You should therefore have a clear idea of what it is you want to say, and say just that. If you wish to provide an example to illustrate your point, pick one that would be familiar to the reader, and thus fit into one sentence.
Background, conflicting interpretations, discussion, consequences - no room for that.
(The above is exactly 80 words.)
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Any piece this short has to assume a lot of knowledge from the reader.
Therefore: write your piece like your would a conclusion to a longer piece, while leaving out any summarizing you may normally do.
Restrict yourself to the core knowledge you want to impart without necessarily supporting it directly.
And, as always, close with a particularly snappy or thoughtful line.
[[The above was 62 words. You don't have much more than that!]]
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You can most certainly write a nonfiction of 80 words, but, as Galastel says, it won't be an essay. An essay is an argument. It martials evidence in support of a point of contention. You can't do that in 80 words. In 80 words you can pen a proposition or an anecdote or an aphorism, all of which would be unexceptional at that length. This answer is a proposition. It cites no evidence. It clocks in at exactly 80 words.
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I think it is pretty easy, even as a true story. Pick your story, and try Intro, Complication, Try, Resolution. One or two sentences each. Here are two 80 word solutions.
When I was ten, my allowance was three dollars a week. It didn't go far. One day, I saw the house on the corner had a yard full of leaves. I knocked on the door, and told Mister Jacobs I'd rake his yard for three dollars. If he had a rake. And bags. He did. He came out to help me bag the leaves! I raked four yards that day, and had fifteen dollars: First time I ever felt rich.
We have to get up too early to catch the bus, and go to classes all day, and then take the bus home. By then we have worked nine hours, and then we have to do an hour of chores at home and then do two hours of homework with no help! Children shouldn't have to work twelve hours every day. Practice problems should be done in school where we can get help from a teacher. Homework should be banned.
These are examples, so you can see the structure, even in 80 words.
In the first; Fact. Problem. Opportunity. Proposal. Success. Victorious Conclusion.
In the 2nd, two sentences outline the existing time suck on kids. The harm caused by the problem (children shouldn't have to work that hard). How it could be done differently and better (in class with a teacher's help). The Conclusion (Homework should be banned).
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