300 word stories Created by Brady Dennis of

300 word stories Created by Brady Dennis of the St Petersburg Times

Brady Dennis was a night cops reporter in the Tampa bureau of Poynter's St. Petersburg (Fla. ) Times when he started writing "300 Words, " a series of short stories about ordinary people, in 2004. This year, he won the Ernie Pyle Award for human interest writing for his series.

What was the easiest thing about doing them? The easiest thing was my complete confidence in the people we would find. I believe that each person not only has a story to tell, but that each person has a story that matters.

What did you learn about writing short stories with a beginning, middle and end? I learned it doesn't take 3, 000 words to put together a beginning, middle and end. A good story is a good story, no matter the length. And sometimes the shorter ones turn out [to be] more powerful than the windy ones.

It's not enough just to paint a pretty picture. We must strive to tell them something about the world that matters, to be journalists and not simply storytellers. Hopefully, in a nontraditional way, "300 Words" does that.

Has it made you a better reporter? Absolutely. "300 Words" made me a better reporter by forcing me to rely almost primarily on observation. Notice that most pieces contain almost no quotes. I didn't interview people as much as I simply shut my mouth and watched and listened. We don't do that enough.

After the sky fell By BRADY DENNIS Published January 28, 2005 The loneliness of the overnight shift at a Suncoast Parkway toll booth: Lloyd Blair, 71, sits back and waits for the next driver to come by his station.

The few drivers on this dark, lonely stretch of the Suncoast Parkway in Pasco County pull up to the toll booth, hand their dollars to Lloyd Blair and then speed away. None of them knows why the old man sits here, night after night, working the graveyard shift. Well, here's why: Because years ago, on a freezing winter night at a party in Queens, N. Y. , he met a woman named Millie. Because he fell in love with her brown hair and wide eyes and 100 -watt smile. Because they got married, moved to Staten Island, had a son and worked for decades in Manhattan; she as an accountant, he as a banker. Because it had been their dream to retire to Florida, and so they saved all their lives to make it possible.

Because, just as they began to talk of leaving New York and heading south, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and they spent their time and money traveling to New Jersey, San Diego and Mexico in search of a cure. Because, in the end, they came to Florida anyway. Because they finally bought a house in Spring Hill, although she was too weak that day to get out of the car. Because she died nine days later on Jan. 5, 2002, a day "the whole sky fell, " he says. Because, after she was gone, he found himself alone and $100, 000 in debt.

And so he took a job collecting tolls. The drivers who pass by see a smiling 71 -year-old man with blue eyes and a gray mustache who tells each of them, "Have a great night!" They don't know the rest of Lloyd Blair's story, or that he keeps Millie's picture in his shirt pocket, just under his name tag, just over his heart.

What is a literary device you see Dennis using in this piece of writing?

Because years ago, on a freezing winter night at a party in Queens, N. Y. , he met a woman named Millie. Because he fell in love with her brown hair and wide eyes and 100 -watt smile. Because they got married, moved to Staten Island, had a son and worked for decades in Manhattan; she as an accountant, he as a banker. Because it had been their dream to retire to Florida, and so they saved all their lives to make it possible. Because, just as they began to talk of leaving New York and heading south, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and they spent their time and money traveling to New Jersey, San Diego and Mexico in search of a cure. Because, in the end, they came to Florida anyway. Because they finally bought a house in Spring Hill, although she was too weak that day to get out of the car. Because she died nine days later on Jan. 5, 2002, a day "the whole sky fell, " he says. Because, after she was gone, he found himself alone and $100, 000 in debt.

The man in the mask By BRADY DENNIS Published October 17, 2005 Waiting for the madness: Ashley "Stretch" Mc. Clellan, 24, rests before facing the bulls at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee.

Inside the locker room, the drifter drifts to sleep. He pays no attention to the country music blaring outside, or the bulls pacing restlessly, or the bullriders swaggering in too-tight Wranglers. They call him Stretch, a wild man, a bullfighter, the American kind, who paints his face clown-like and dresses in red and throws himself willingly into the path of angry beasts who have just bucked cowboys to the ground. When he was 14, the road called, and Stretch answered. He ran away from home and landed at an Oklahoma rodeo and has lived a hundred lifetimes since.

He's slept at truck stops, on the shoulder of highways, in the dirt beside livestock. He's drunk his share of Jack Daniels. He's been tattooed a half-dozen times in a half-dozen cities, dipped enough Copenhagen to roof a house with the tin cans. He's been arrested for fighting. He found a girlfriend in Utah named Kasey.

He's stared down a thousand bulls in a thousand nowhere towns from Tennessee to Texas, Montana to Mississippi. The bulls have knocked out his front teeth and broken his arms, ribs, ankles, tailbone, collarbone and kneecap. They've given him more concussions and stitches and joy than he can measure. "I live kind of different, " Stretch says, smiling toothlessly. Back in Kansas, the family never understood. His dad's a lawyer, his sister a dentist. His brothers turned out normal, too.

But Stretch, well, he lives kind of different. He owns two bags of clothes and probably won't ever own much else, except this: "I'll have a lot of good stories. " And maybe that's enough. Maybe, unlike so many people, he has found the place he belongs, in the ring with the other untamed souls, kicking up dust and mud. The drifter opens his eyes. Showtime.

What are some of the literary devices you see Dennis using in this piece of writing?

He's been tattooed a half-dozen times in a half-dozen cities, dipped enough Copenhagen to roof a house with the tin cans. He's been arrested for fighting. He found a girlfriend in Utah named Kasey. He's stared down a thousand bulls in a thousand nowhere towns from Tennessee to Texas, Montana to Mississippi. The bulls have knocked out his front teeth and broken his arms, ribs, ankles, tailbone, collarbone and kneecap. They've given him more concussions and stitches and joy than he can measure.

This is Mike “Schmitty” Schmidt , a student in a summer advising course at Michigan State University. The next slide has the 300 word story a classmate wrote about him.

The sign said “no jumping. ” He argues he didn’t see it before he flung himself off the gorge in Ithaca, New York that summer. It begged to be jumped. Then again, anyone who knows him knows he’s certainly not one who obeys the signs. That jump got Mike Schmitt (“Schmitty” to just about everyone), his first of three arrests in his 21 years. “Technically. ” A look at his police record will turn up arrests for an MIP and a minor driving with a BAC (of. 07, he’s quick to point out, but Michigan’s a “no tolerance” state).

That’s a bit about Schmitty. He’ll give more details between swigs of a Bud Light bottle at a local bar to anyone who wants to hear them. Then again, anyone who knows this kid knows he’s certainly not one to be judged by a police record.

Because a police record won’t turn up evidence of the six summers he spent all over the country in group work camps with his church (“kinda like Habitat for Humanity, ” he’ll inform you). It won’t tell you he was in Ithaca at one of these camps when he made that fateful jump. It won’t show his homecoming sash. His quiet donations to cancer research funds. His 1, 633 friends on Facebook. His award winning high school newspaper column on being a suicidal teenager.

Perhaps this explains the tat. Want to judge Schmitty? Look at his left calf. Look at it both ways. From one angle, the tattoo ink spells “change. ” Turn around, and it says “growth. ” Like Schmitty. It looks like one thing from a certain perspective, but becomes something totally different when you look again. Like a suicidal high-schooler in the homecoming court. Like an indiscriminating police record. Like an Ithaca gorge, just begging to be jumped.

High school samples: Carol Thompson Emily Green has found her own escapes. Escapes from her tyrannical father, escapes from his insistence that she stay close to home where he can be near her. He tells her that he’s afraid of all the crime, doesn’t want her to get raped. So Emily spends a lot of time at home. She writes songs and stories about characters like herself, in a place like Dow High. They grow up and go to high school; they go through awkward phases of heavy, unexplained emotion. You write what you know.

Lauren Lee Many wouldn't consider him a hero. A dropout, a burn out, a James Dean with a homemade haircut. At age sixteen, he left home for Colorado to "find himself". He vowed to not return to Michigan until he had done so. He left her home, alone, in tears. She would end up spending most of her middle school years without him, developing many of the same interests and hobbies to hold onto what she had left of him. Her love of abstract art and silkscreen printing. Him. Her obsession with American made brightly colored clothing. Him. Her fascination with photography and her dreams of going to Kendall College. Him. Her perfectionist ways and nothing but straight A's. That's in spite of him.

Sam Tzou