{"id":1044,"date":"2014-07-30T08:45:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T14:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/?p=1044"},"modified":"2014-07-30T08:45:01","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T14:45:01","slug":"segmented-flash-fiction-abbreviated-glossary-by-gay-degani-with-author-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/?p=1044","title":{"rendered":"Segmented Flash Fiction: "Abbreviated Glossary" by Gay Degani (with author comments)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gay<\/a>(Readers, in talking about my previous post with my friend, Gay Degani, she linked a segmented flash of her own and it’s…amazing. So I asked if I could reprint the story here and get her to talk a little about the story and its structure. I was hugely moved to learn the origins of the story and I think you will be too. Thanks so much, Gay, for honoring my blog once again!)<\/p>\n

~~~<\/p>\n

I wrote “Abbreviated Glossary” around 2009 or 2010, and I’m trying to remember what prompted me to do it this way. I know I didn’t want the piece to be too complicated–emotional scenes with dialogue–because the inspiration for the story was real. One of those “what if” stories where you take something from your life, something big, and change most of the details to create–well, a story not quite your own.<\/p>\n

Honestly almost everything I write comes from my life in one form or another. In this case, it felt like an offering, I suppose. It’s turning my life into something meaningful and it was cleansing. Perhaps this is how I forgive myself. Or perhaps it’s my way of writing memoir. I did lose a child to anencephaly back in 1980, but I didn’t want this piece to be about me.<\/p>\n

So segmentation worked. It allowed me to reveal a difficult situation without delving into all the emotion, all the self-blame, all the loss. I can’t find a draft of this story with any other structure so I must have been exploring “form” at the time, read someone else’s piece using this technique, and had an “aha” moment–that’s the way to do this story.<\/p>\n

The original version was done as chapters, each segment with its own Roman numeral. I called it “Five Chapters.” At some point, I decided to use words instead. This added another dimension and gave me a more distinctive title. That’s all I can remember about this, other than I work-shopped it twice, both times with male authors facilitating, and interestingly, neither liked it–at all. Thus Melusine seemed to me the perfect place to submit.<\/p>\n

(And here is Gay’s gorgeous and delicately wrought segmented flash, originally published in Melusine<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Abbreviated Glossary<\/p>\n

Want:<\/b><\/p>\n

I slide my naked leg between his thighs. Dev is trying a case tomorrow; he’s tired. But he owes me his touch, and I know exactly how to use my tongue.<\/p>\n

Pact:<\/b><\/p>\n

His lips disappear between his teeth when I break the news. He says he’s not ready\u2014no diapers for him\u2014but I know he is. I’ll do the hard part. I promise.<\/p>\n

Hope:<\/b><\/p>\n

My fingers knead the curve of my belly. Dev slips an arm around my waist and grins at his boss. Proud papa.<\/p>\n

Thrill:<\/b><\/p>\n

Dev can’t keep his hands off me, calls me sexy mama, but when he\u2019s not around, I fret. Eight months along and my bump so small.<\/p>\n

Rift:<\/b><\/p>\n

Skull bones don’t always fuse together, the doctor tells me. I call Dev, but he’s in court, won’t request a recess, even when I beg. The hard part, I see, will be losing both.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gay Degani lives in Southern California with her husband in an old Victorian house where parrots congregate at dusk in the oaks and camphors around her neighborhood.<\/p>\n

She has published fiction online and in print, including her collection, Pomegranate Stories. She is founder and editor-emeritus of Flash Fiction Chronicles, an editor at Smokelong Quarterly, and blogs at: Words in Place<\/a> where a complete list of her work can be found as well as her social media links.<\/p>\n

Three times nominated for Pushcart consideration and winner of the 11th Annual Glass Woman Prize, Gay has won or been a finalist in contests sponsored by Women On Writing, Glimmer Train, Writer’s Digest’s Short Short Competition, and Bosque (The Magazine). Her novella, The Old Road, has been unfolding in Pure Slush’s 2014-A Year in Stories project. Her suspense novel, What Came Before, is now available at Barnes and Noble online and Amazon.com in hardcover, trade paperback, and ebook formats.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Readers, in talking about my previous post with my friend, Gay Degani, she linked a segmented flash of her own and it’s…amazing. So I asked if I could reprint the story here and get her to talk a little about the story and its structure. I was hugely moved to learn the origins of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[347,382,657,892,949],"class_list":["post-1044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-flash-fiction","tag-gay-degani","tag-melusine","tag-segmented-flash-fiction","tag-story-structure"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathy-fish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}