Give Us Fiction

by Brian Howard

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Published: Nov 19, 2008

"Fiction is often the best fact." —William Faulkner

Why, you may ask, does City Paper keep doing this writing contest? Why has a publication that dedicates itself to the gritty truths of urban life (i.e. John Oates) delved once a year for the last 23 into unabashed fabrication?

I'll admit that the further I've gotten from my college years, the less time I've devoted to reading fiction. And as a writer, fiction's always been elusive. As a kindred acquaintance once put it: "Wait, you're allowed to just make it up?"

Why do we still care about fiction? I'm not a fan of reality-based entertainment, but it strikes me that from news to documentary to television, much of what we consume is based in, well, something alleged to be reality.

"Ah, but is it?" says Patrick Rapa, City Paper's senior editor and resident short-fiction nerd. "Editing the 'truth' is one path to fiction. Also, when you take the stand in court, they make you swear to tell the whole truth, but there's never enough time to really do that. To my eyes, fiction is all around us, from Survivor, which manages to squish days worth of material into an hour and then stretch 40 days worth of competition into a dozen episodes, to court records which could never contain a 'whole' truth."

But why a newspaper?

"Short answer: Fiction has just as much potential for honest insights as so-called nonfiction," says Rapa, whom you are free to imagine wearing a monocle and sipping a gimlet. "Also, we spend 51 issues a year admiring and criticizing the arts. It's nice to contribute something to the culture once in a while. Anyway, most of Doron Taussig's articles are bullshit, I'm sure of it."

City Paper's writing contest tends to deal in short stories, a genre that is, depending on whom you ask, either perched at the top of the prose heap or crushed on the bottom, the work of hobbyists, or a low-pressure medium for novelists to work out ideas.

"The cynic might say it's the cereal bar, something you consume on the go when you don't have time to sit down for a proper novel-length breakfast," says Rapa. "I like to think of it somewhat democratically: The short story is just as worthwhile and admirable as the book. It all depends on the plot, the writing, the characters, the frequency of scenes in which people yell at each other in the pouring rain, the inclusion or lack thereof of sequences involving somber robots flipping their switches to 'off' after a job well done. Novels have their merits, of course, but they're not genetically superior to the short story. It's the motion of the ocean, people."

Over the last few years, we've placed various constraints on our writing contests. We've asked for first chapters of novels set in Philly, we asked for pulp, we even asked for "creative nonfiction." This year, we're kicking it old-school: Send us your best short story. Period. Submissions must be 3,000 words or less, previously unpublished, written by someone who lives or has recently lived in the Philadelphia area, and delivered to City Paper by Fri., Dec. 19, at 5 p.m. The winning story will be published in the Dec. 31 issue of City Paper, and the top three will be published on citypaper.net. We plan to hold a reading at some point, as well. Stories should be e-mailed to gimmefiction@citypaper.net or mailed the old-fashioned way to City Paper Writing Contest, 123 Chestnut St., Third Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106.

This year's judge will be the aforementioned Patrick Rapa. "I have no qualifications, other than that I'm a reader, sometimes an avid one, mostly of short stories," he says, modestly. In addition to his gig here, Rapa is the short-story-reading machine behind the lit blog ireadashortstorytoday.com, for which he has critiqued hundreds of short stories over the last four-plus years.

Any tips on what he looks for?

"Nope. Tell me a story. Lie to me."

(bhoward@citypaper.net)

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