#MOSAIC CRACK SERIES#
“I’ve been thinking about series of shorts, the hows and whys of them-maybe because I don’t have great answers, or because my answers are liable to change. ”Īnother writer who makes brilliant use of fragmentation is Scott Garson (see two examples of his work below). To me, each piece has to be distinct and pulse all by itself, but also be energetic and propel the reader from one piece to the next until it builds and culminates into a whole that shines and is alive. If I can sense blanks, I leave placeholders and write the missing pieces, either about the interplay of characters, or informed by more research and thinking about music, artwork, aspects of place. I type those pieces, move them about and it is magic when they cohere. Once I have momentum and have made the best of it, I look back at the pieces and circle those that could sit close and feed each other.
Sometimes they are fed by looking at artwork online, reading poetry, or research. They are scraps and pieces, disjointed, uneasy. Since then, it has become my favourite to write, because to me it best reflects the way we remember our lives, these fragments…I write into a segmented flash with pen and paper.
#MOSAIC CRACK HOW TO#
“I first learnt how to write segmented flash from Kathy Fish through her Fast Flash course back in early 2017. I asked her to share a bit about her process with this form (see two examples of her work linked below): Meaning is created via patterning and juxtaposition.Īustralian writer Melissa Goode is a true master of flash fiction. The fragments work in conversation with each other. The writing must make its mark quickly before moving on to the next section or segment. No one moment is deeply or densely rendered. The form is well-suited to flash memoir or personal essays. In terms of texture, the fragmented form has a flickering, Polaroid quality. You choose the ones with the most verve or potency or significance, or emotional charge, right? Of course you do! And you discover there’s lots you can leave on the floor.
#MOSAIC CRACK FULL#
Full of regret and wanting your story back, you begin to carefully pick up the scattered shards, but you’re only allowed to choose three or five or eight of them. Imagine your story is a vase that, in a fit of pique, you smash against a wall. Segmented structure lends itself well to telling stories that cover an expanse of time and/or geography in a small space. The form mimics the way the brain processes memories-especially memories of a strongly emotional nature-thus giving the reader an authentic experience of a narrator pondering past events.
The brain is momentarily freed up to react, insinuate, infer, connect, gather, intuit, deduce, ponder, and, importantly: feel.īy its use of white space and the elimination of bridges and transitions, fragmenting is a means of practicing concision up front, something I am a proponent of, and talked about in my March newsletter. So in that tiny pause between fragments a lot is happening inside your reader’s head. The human brain unconsciously processes about 11 million pieces of information per second. (Consider how filmmakers make use of jump cuts to deftly and artfully advance the storytelling in movies.)īut why write a story in fragments? What does it achieve?Īll flash invites collaboration with the reader, but the segmented form especially so. Imagine a series of fragments or pieces that are loosely connected by theme, character, image, story, etc. It's a story told in pieces that somehow form a cohesive whole. There are jumps in time, sometimes changes in point of view. Unlike the breathless one paragraph, the mosaic or fragmented form makes use of white space. If you’re not familiar with this form it may help to skip ahead to the recommended pieces I have linked below to see what they look like and how they read. I’ve also included some recommended reading and, as always, there’s a fun prompt for you to try toward the goal of creating your own fragmented story. I’d like to go into more detail here, sharing some wisdom from a couple of masters of the form. I touched on the segmented/fragmented form briefly in my last newsletter.
#MOSAIC CRACK CRACK#
“There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” ~Leonard Cohen
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