“Constraints drive innovation and force focus,“ according to 37Signals in their popular “Getting Real“ book. If that’s true, then Copyblogger’s Twitter Writing Contest, announced a couple of weeks ago, should have had writers brimming with creativity. The task? Write a short story in 140 characters. Not less than 140 characters, exactly 140 characters. That’s no easy task, but the contest still fielded over 300 entries. Today, Copyblogger revealed the winners。

　　“精练推动创新”，37Signals 的一本倍受欢迎的书《Getting Real》有这样一句话。Copyblogger’s 的 Twitter 写作比赛也是这种精神的体现。比赛要求写一篇140字符的短小说，不多不少，要刚好140字符(正好是一条 Twitter 短消息的字符数)，有300余篇作品参赛，Copyblogger 发布了获奖名单。

　　“Being constrained to exactly 140 characters will spark your creative juices and force you to focus stringently on word choice, sentence structure, and even punctuation,“ said Copyblogger’s Brian Clark in introducing the contest last week, echoing 37Signals as he did. Luckily, it seems to have worked -- the winning entries are tightly wound, beautifully constructed masterpieces that challenge readers to fill in the blanks。

　　“限制在140字符可以激发你的创造力，促使你在遣词造句上力求精练”，Copyblogger 的 Brian Clark 在比赛前这样说，最终，一个叫 Ron Gould 的一篇科幻小说获得一等奖，这是一篇紧凑的，有着优美结构的杰作。

　　The winning entry comes from Ron Gould:

　　“Time travel works!“ the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way。“ I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill。

　　“时光旅行是真的”，纸条上写道，“然而你只能单程回到过去”。当发现那是我自己的笔迹时我不寒而栗。

　　The spirit of the Twitter Writing Contest is reminiscent of Hemingway’s famous six-word story: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn。“ It’s said that Hemingway called those six words his greatest story ever, and two year’s ago WIRED magazine brought together a group of best-selling authors to compose their own 6 word masterpieces。

　　这次比赛让人联想到海明威的著名六词小说，“For sale: baby shoes, never worn。”(出售：童鞋，全新)。据说，海明威将这篇小说看作自己最伟大的作品。两年前，连线杂志曾找来一批畅销书作家让他们每人写一篇六字作品。