Is 6S a Rule?

[Bernard S. Jansen]

I'm a bit of a drifter in the 6S community, so things may have changed since last I dropped by. Blog posts on the 6S ning site were about "What can YOU say in six sentences?", where "sentence" was defined by the rules of English, and "six" was defined by the rules of mathematics.

Is the "six" part not still a rule? I've noticed a lot of posts lately that are seven, eight, and more, sentences long.

Let's discuss...

[Sandra Davies]

I'm naturally one of the obedient, partly through timidity and partly in recognition that it's good manners to be so in a community. That said, tolerance is also a vital ingredient in any community, and rules is also meant to be broken (and I DO recognise the ungrammatical nature of that phrase, which is part of its charm), so the occasional digression doesn't generally bother me over much - I am more concerned to live by my own rules rather than impose them on others.

[Robert Crisman]

I think people should go by rules here and most do. But if some don't and Robert wants to say something I imagine he will. For the rest, I just make sure that my pieces stay at six.

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

One of the things the rule of six does for the writer is impose a discipline on the writing so that it is tight and lean. I follow that rule for myself. I guess each writer needs to figure out if that's an important rule for him/herself. If not, there are other places to post.

[Jeanette Cheezum]

Six tight and concise sentences. Makes a great flash. Most of us in this world have little time. If you can pull off a 6 that everyone likes, you're doing what Rob, and most of us like. It's great discipline.

[Robert McEvily]

Thanks for saying it all, everyone! Bernard, I'm not sure why there are pieces here longer or shorter than six, but it does happen, and when it does, I'm (sadly) forced to give a failing grade for math, no matter how good the piece. And math is half the grade here at 6S University!

[Joseph Lupoli]

My 6S e-mail submissions rarely get a reply one way or the other, Rob. So I'm guessing my English and math grades have been failing.

On the plus side, I found a way to quit smoking. My wife and I smoke only after sex. Unfortunately, I've been on the same pack since 1975. Even more troubling is that my wife is up to three packs a day.
Ba-da-boom-zing!

[jkdavies]

jo you kill me ;)

[Teresa]

I like the challenge of squeezing everything into six and have, "with a little help from my friends", stopped abusing semicolons...;-)

[jkdavies]

I've always only added 6's here, I'm a good girl, honestly! To the extent that a 7 would only be featured on my own blog...
But I still have some way to go to get over my semicolon thing ;)

[Joanna Lopez]

Hi,

I follow the rules. I don't know if we can go beyond the 6 sentences. I honestly like the discipline of writing in 6 sentences b/c I tend to have diarriah (Spelling?) of the mouth (like Stephen King) or should I say typewriter? lol.


Bye,
Joanna

[Robert McEvily]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Robert McEvily]

May 6, 2011 - Just wanted to give this topic a bump in case some of our new members are curious.  For your blog posts, "Say It in Six" is the general rule.