I’ve written a number of times about 6-word memoirs/stories, particularly from SMITH magazine.

A cousin of the 6-word story has emerged, and a new Ning group is dedicated to the activity, as is a Flickr group, Tell a Story in 5 Frames. Five-frame storytelling seems to be primarily for use in classrooms, especially with children. The activity is “great for developing oral, written and visual language skills in students,” according to a wiki called Hey Milly (which also has lots of information on five-frame storytelling).

The Flickr group offers some background on what a 5-frame story is all about:

Tell a Story in 5 Frames has two important parts. The first part is creating and telling a story through visual means with only a title to help guide the interpretation. The second part is the response of the group to the visual story.

The Flickr group also offers these guidelines for the sequence of photos:
1st photo: establish characters and location.
2nd photo: create a situation with possibilities of what might happen.
3rd photo: involve the characters in the situation.
4th photo: build to probable outcomes.
5th photo: have a logical, but surprising, end.

Here are three sets of examples of 5-frame storytelling: