Less is More

This blog is not a platform for my own writing. That said, and in the interest of championing the 300-character short story form, I'm proud to announce that I recently won a fiction-to-film contest with my matchbook story, One Way Out.

The contest was hosted by the Storymatic, a writing prompt/teaching tool/parlor game/toy that provides two sets of cards--one Characters, the other Situations--with which to generate stories. Submissions were judged by Chochkey Productions, an indie film company out of Bethlehem, PA, making movies, commercials and webcasts for the last handful of years. The rules were simple: use the Storymatic to write some sort of narrative (short story, script, novel excerpt, whatever), and the winning story will be made into a film. I submitted three matchbook stories. One Way Out won.

For the last year-plus, I've been using the Storymatic to write matchbook stories--lots of them!--to explore the limits, nay, the possibilities of 300-character narratives. On my own, I am grossly inept at generating new people and predicaments for each and every tale, but with the Storymatic, the characters and situations are endless. I always "play the hand I am dealt," blindly drawing two Character cards and two Situation cards to direct my story. Some stories come out flat, others cryptic or too reaching. But occasionally I hit pay dirt: the pieces click together, and, viola! a story. No matter the outcome, I love the challenge of "fitting" the Character/Situation cards into 300 little boxes (I use graph paper to compose my ditties). I now have nearly a 100 matchbook stories under my belt, one of which is presently being made into a movie (WTF?!).

When Eric Leadbetter, mastermind of Chochkey Productions, called to tell me that I'd won, I hooted 'n hollered and then asked, "Are you serious?" In a fiction-to-film contest, I didn't think my 300'ers stood a chance against a short story or a script or any other form that would likely provide more imagery than 300 characters could muster. I told him so, but Eric disagreed: "We think there's a real gem here. You've told a story while suggesting an entire world behind it. We like that. It gives us some license to fill in the blanks." Ah-ha, I thought. The super-short, very-suggestive story form worked to my advantage. Eric confirmed: "We got a lot of submissions: short stories, vignettes, full-length scripts, treatments, novel excerpts... We like yours because it tells a story, but it doesn't tell us how it should look. We think we'd have a lot of fun fleshing out the bones of this story." "Sounds good to me!" I said. What's more, with a $25o prize, I became the most highly paid writer ever at nearly $1 per character! Who says you can't make it at this game?

Here's my point: matchbook stories are stories: you can, and should, submit them anywhere. Of course, you should submit them first to Matchbook Story where they'll be understood and cherished more than anywhere else. There is room in the world for 300 characters. God knows more have been used for much less. For what it's worth, here's that story:

One Way Out

The hunter fell down the mine shaft. The miner found him. The hunter yelled up, "Help! I broke my leg!" The miner called down, "What's your name, boy?" It was his son's lover, JT. "Listen, JT. I have one condition. If you want out, you come out. What do you say?" The shot briefly lit the boy's face.

-kp

FIRES

The hottest stories from 2010...

To Light a Cigarette

They watch the BIC swirl down the icy creek, a stab of yellow bobbing with luminous truth. “Matches?” Sam asks, last farewell cigarette dangling, ready. Holt digs his pockets. “No.” Plan was to wrestle nic demons in the wilderness like Jesus. “How many miles back that liquor store?”

--Bruce Willey, Big Pine, CA

__________

The Last Cigarette

As he finally caught a first dim glimpse of the cave's fabled wonders, Roger thought he'd earned a smoke for his travails. As he greedily put a cigarette to his lips, he tried to recall Evans' warning about the place. Too late, he realized it might have had something to do with matches.

--Seana Graham, Santa Cruz, CA

__________

A Matchbook Memoir

The casino lighting was unkind. I tore a single match to light the cigarette that dangled from her mouth. Tiny words inside the matchbook cover caught my eye, and stayed with me as we stumbled inside her musty trailer. The story of a lonely man revealed in a matchbook. I hate people who smoke.

--Kathleen Parvizi, Scotts Valley, CA

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These Are My Prayers

Lady Summit, balanced a cigarette at the edge of her crusted mouth. She had no idea how to regard the news the post had left earlier that morning. "I am your son" the letter read. She repeated it several times. Her lips barly tracing the words. Smoke filled the air as a match was struck. A whisper.

--Carter Quick, Los Angeles, CA

__________

Almost Like Dad

Robert fires a needle. The splinter stings, but Ava’s fear is worse. “It doesn’t hurt. I’ll keep it,” she begs, lakes pooling in her eyes. He blows on the needle and anchors into her finger. Ava yelps. “It’s out, love,” he soothes. She soaks his shirt with tears. Her enemy and her hero.

--Lindsey Morrone, San Jose, CA

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Make a Wish

The fire started with one match, dropped casually, almost on accident. It took an hour for anyone to notice, and thirty minutes more for the fire engine to arrive. By then it was too late. You love fire. Happy birthday.

--Katie Sparrow, Santa Cruz, CA

__________

Woman’s Revenge

"Got a light?" joked the spelunker, as sudden dark embraced them both. The teen he was guiding said, "One match," though she had two. She'd light one for him to fix his hardhat headlamp by. Then she'd shoot him, put it on her own head, and have a smoke. She said aloud in the dark, "I like that hat."

--T.C. Marshall, Felton, CA

__________

A Tight Space

Planks above, dirt below. Elbows chaffed raw. Nails gone. I'd scratch with bone if I thought it'd help. Screaming for rescue, I can taste blood in my phlegm. There's barely room to move and it's dark but for the light of one match. Yes, oxygen dwindles, but as long as the flame's alive so am I.

--Josh Barlas, Santa Cruz, CA

__________

Non de Fume

Books and fire don't mix with kids now that the smoking age has been turned to eleven. Skip had a short wait the fourth time around, sweating with his box of sulfur and dirty stories, full of anticipation that maybe, just maybe this may be the resolution to the whole darn saga. He went next to the bar.

--Daren Commons, Portland, OR

__________

Little Girls’ Room

Coughing noises will make up for the lack of pissing sounds coming from your stall. Pull the spoon and syringe from your panties and the matches from you bra, toss the cotton ball when you’re done, return the cap to syringe, flush, and keep your eyes open while washing beside the fat-ankled lady.

--Teesha Garfield, Topanga, CA

__________

There’s Always Arson

The house was blown apart. Sir Bill and Lady Gloria were now domestic terrorists. Arson the salve of the divorce—see!: flaming panties and ignited Dodgers box scores dancing in the dusk like fireflies. Adultery. “Well?” said Gloria. Bill kissed her one last time before the flames finished it all.

--Joseph Mattson, Los Angeles, CA

Matchbook Story Issue No. 3

Susan McCloskey works at Bookshop Santa Cruz and is close to completing the licensing process for becoming a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist. She studied literature and creative writing at UCSC, before turning toward psychology. She believes in story, and says, "Matchbook Story was a welcomed reentry back to my own creative process."

ISSUE NO. 3 SHORTLIST

DATING

The flowers are eccentric, but I like his honesty. On our second date we attempted sex, but Elvis Costello interrupted foreplay. Our spit has the sharp taste of Irish Cheddar. He is balding. There are flailing strands of hair that I’ll need to trim for him. At the drop of a hat. All in good time.

--Dolores Meatyard, Suisun City, CA

__________

A DENTIST’S DREAM

I hold slides up to light: still-lifes of yellow syringes, gums, and sharp, shiny metal. Tooth dust plumes. Machines moan. A young man looks in horror at a picture of my family in the country: white polos, white teeth, khakis, my kids, my wife. I make a joke about falling in love.

--Will Vincent, Los Olivos, CA

__________

JOB INTERVIEW

He said he’d tell me about the job over dinner. The plastic cup he handed me, “something for the road”. The crackle of gravel as we drove someplace. Where is the restaurant? Dizzy, numb, hot breath. Footsteps. A bright light. “Can I see her ID?” I blame myself. I can never tell my boyfriend.

--Kathleen Parvizi, Scotts Valley, CA

__________

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

A card. From you. No return address. Unexpected, late, and over-filled with cheap, dollar-store glitter crap leaving me, once again, hands full of hearts, vacuuming stars and angels from the doormat.

--Heidi Alonzo, Watsonville, CA

__________

AFTER SALES

I ran sales for 22 years and the retirement party was unsettling. The day after, I bought a new bottle-blue BMW. White Ford sedans for fifty thousand miles every year damn near killed me.

--Doug Crawford, Los Gatos, CA

Pick of the Week Archive - August 2010

Bayside: April 25

DEP permits ring the lot; dozers push sand mountains and breakwater boulders to the Bay. 'Take that!', said holiday homeowners thru legal channels. Must Have August Beach. Asphalt crumbs remind the waves how good Billingsgate Island was; they lick their chops at the new food being plated on shore.

--Teresa Martin, Eastham, MA

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City Dog

Farmers adopted the city dog and took him to the country in the back of a pick-up truck. Whenever he got the chance he stood on top of the cab to get as far away from the muddy ground as possible. He barked at his new owners: Take a shower, take a shower. He bared his teeth.

--Christopher H., San Francisco, CA

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(Sorry, no story this week: I had to visit in-laws...)

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A Dentist’s Dream

I hold slides up to light: still-lifes of yellow syringes, gums, and sharp, shiny metal. Tooth dust plumes. Machines moan. A young man looks in horror at a picture of my family in the country: white polos, white teeth, khakis, my kids, my wife. I make a joke about falling in love.

--Will Vincent, Los Olivos, CA

"Day Laborer Love" - the author responds...

ONE: I wrote "Day Laborer Love" because relationships, all of them, have become almost totally subjected to and/or vassals of the systemic drive to accumulate wealth and power. How do you tell this story in 300 characters or less? A recent New York Times review of "AFTERSHOCK The Next Economy and America’s Future" by Robert B. Reich, provided rich examples that I would proffer to explain what I was trying to get at in my Matchbook short story. How do we survive living under different forms of neoliberal capitalism? Calling them "coping mechanisms, Reich wrote, "First, women joined the workforce, giving families a second income. Then husbands and wives put in longer shifts, creating a species of family called DINS — 'double income, no sex.'" Although I was not imagining "Americans" in general, I was writing of families who aren't even considered DINS because of the color of their skin and their income levels. The break up of the working class, the outsourcing of jobs and the lack of living wage employment, has transformed everyone into day laborers. Some may object to being labelled "day laborers" because they don't stand on street corners waiting or asking for work. Day laborers may work a few hours a day, maybe a week or two and even a whole month if they're lucky and survive on that. But they work two or even three jobs to survive. A day laborer is another name for a contingent worker, a contracted laborer, and a "consultant" that gets paid maybe more but still piecemeal and still maybe only for a few hours a day. A consultant, a contract employee is a day laborer regardless of the gilded concept or label you may prefer. And the soul is drained at work or work that barely pays for survival and all our relations suffer for it. The NYT review went on to remind us that as a result of DINS and other unfreedoms, we are sleeping 2-3 hours less per night than our parents in the 1960s. As a result new dependencies have emerged: sleeping pills, anti-depression meds. Americans spent an incredble $23.9 billion on sleep aids So we work more, make love less, sleep less, earn less, have less "free" time. How do we get out of this?

"Day Laborer Love" -- a reader responds...

Between living and surviving, I believe many of us steal such precious moments when we can. To feel alive, looking for contact with another human being, even if that contact is only physical, even if it's just sharing some words or just a glance of the eyes in the streets. What touched me most about this little match story, as Arnoldo calls it, is the tenderness mixed in with the most absolute weariness of the person who is telling the story. I was deeply moved by it in spite of the story being only a few lines. I'm still trying to sort through it... What I feel is the absolute exhaustion of life between labour, the survival mode of my parents as migrants and so many family members and friends, refugees I struggled with, and the folks I struggle with now in Mexico. It speaks to me of our unglamourous lives where we steal moments to write our romances in these little gestures at times. These are the love stories of those of us who can't take our girl out to the fancy restaurant or plan a surprise weekend for our guy. We live our loves through our shared exhaustion, our shared histories, our shared alienation sometimes, and hopefully our shared struggles. Our ways of loving are a part of our identity. The love and tenderness that come through to me in this short story are so regular that they are powerful. Despite the rather crude words used to describe the sex and the woman's body, what I feel most is the tenderness... and an almost edgy desperation to connect in the midst of survival mode. What a tribute to someone to say that one worked just to see them! What a tribute given the absolute weight of what work is in the prevailing economic system and at what personal cost one works! Thanks Arnoldo. Still reflecting on this one...

Mandeep Dhillon is a woman of East Indian descent, born and raised in Canada, and currently living in Mexico. She works as a social justice/community organizer, writer, and doctor, struggling in solidarity with indigenous communities in the movement for justice for migrants and refugees. She identifies most with anti-authoritarian movements to build popular power.