I am honored that my short story “Fat Girls” has been published on Hobart. I’ve received some curiosity surrounding the inspiration for this story, so here are the ‘behind the scenes’, so-to-speak, below.

You may have read this in some of my About Me writings, but in 2011 I was in a fatal car accident. I survived, but was in a coma for a week. When I “woke up,” I was constantly falling in and out of sleep for another week maybe. Then, when I was consistently awake, food sounded disgusting to me for some reason (which was a new experience). I would only eat to stop hunger — once the hunger was gone, my body wanted to eat no more. On top of that, the only food that sounded remotely appetizing was fruit. So for a few weeks, all I ate was fruit, and very little at that. Then I slowly started eating other food, but still, only until I was no longer feeling hunger pains. This lasted for probably three months before I returned to eating more regularly.

By the end of those few months, I ended up losing about 20 pounds.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t even feel like I had lost weight for probably the first year. I remember returning to school for the first time after my accident and a classmate had said something about me losing weight. I didn’t know what she was talking about. Eventually, I’d come to realize that I did lose weight.

Eventually, I began to think that even though everything I went through was horrific, at the very least, I was kind of grateful that I had lost weight without having to do any of the work (and that sounds so awful but think about the culture that made me feel this way).

The thing is, I was never “fat” — and saying that makes it sound like “fat” is inherently bad, which isn’t true. But my culture taught me not to be it. To be anything but it, even if I looked at other “fat” woman and thought they were beautiful. So I tried losing weight, to be “skinny”, or skinnier, by eating a little less or walking more, but nothing did much for me.

Many of the things that happen in “Fat Girls” are very real experiences that people in the world have had when existing in their body image. I actually cut some of my own experiences out because beta readers said they felt too fake/fabricated (despite having actually happened to me in real life). This includes my (now) ex telling me that I was hot, but I’d be hotter if I lost weight (and was shorter). Originally in “Fat Girls,” this is how Tony broke up with the narrator, but I changed it.

After reflecting on having lost weight from a coma and how ‘easy’ it was to do it, to not realize you’re not eating because you’re knocked out, I thought about a world in which people did that intentionally and how it could be a story. I sat on this plot for at least eight years before I finally started writing it. Then I wasn’t sure where to go with it… so it sat for a little while more. I go to the gym, and that’s where some of the plot points I needed hit me. While this is a fictional story and is not about any one person’s experience, it is made up of many real experiences.

The same day that I closed my laptop and considered the story done, I was (coincidentally) at the gym and overheard two girls in the locker room talking about their pant sizes, if they felt like they looked like what the number told them they were, and how they felt about their appearance. The same day, I overheard someone else talking about their weight.

Parts in the story about the mom questioning what the narrator eats were inspired by someone’s blog post I read.

Emmy saying “Oof, I’m full. I should stop eating” is something I accidentally do.

Being hit on at the gym is another thing I’ve seen happen.

Men making comments about women, like the narrator’s Dad at the bar.

Mothers and grandmothers making comments about women, about how much someone weighs, has happened in my own family. “Maybe she shouldn’t eat as much. It’s not the dress’s fault.”

Woman making comments about women, looking at other women and judging them happens. All the time.

Heifer/Jennifer mentions “How to Get Skinny Fast” in Women’s Health magazine. This is a real article that I saw as I was checking out at the grocery store. I wrote the name down so I could use it in this story.

The narrator says, “I heard there’s health reasons and that keeps people from losin’ weight sometimes and I wonder if that’s me. Sleep. Genetics. Thyroids?” — I’ve heard these things, read these things, looked these things up even.

Men like Zillo, sexualizing, idolizing young girls. I was 12 the first time a man honked at me while he drove past me walking up to 7–11 to get a Slurpee.

And so many other small, cultural things that happen in this story are things that I and many other people are a part of and have experienced or done.

So I thought it would be interesting, to write a story that explored the life of someone so desperate to “just be skinny”, and to get all the perks that come with being skinny, that she would put herself through a coma to accomplish it. What would happen? What does that say about her? What does it say about everyone else? I did a bunch of research on which drugs would be able to sedate and not kill to accomplish this, and how one would even get access to that drug, and came up with “Fat Girls”.

In this story I explore my experience as a woman being inundated with imagery of what bodies are considered socially acceptable and beautiful, and the kinds of culture that perpetuates this imagery.

I don’t have any answers, but my hope for you is to read “Fat Girls” and walk alongside the questions. Do you have answers?

I am so excited to share that my short story “Fat Girls” has been published over on Hobart today!

This story has been in my head for over ten years, and has taken me two and a half to write and finish, but once it was done, I knew it was done. I also had a strong feeling that Hobart would be its home. It was inspired by a few things, and if anyone is interested in the “Behind the Scenes” story of what inspired this piece, let me know and I‘ll write a blog post about it.

But in the meantime: please, read this story.

I don’t have many answers, but I my hope for you is to read “Fat Girls” and walk alongside the questions. Do you have answers?

Shannon Waite has taught English and Creative Writing in Detroit. Her fiction has been published in PANK, Hobart, Oakland Arts Review, and elsewhere. www.shannonwaiteauthor.com

While writing stories that are a little gritty, or unhappy, or not considered ‘normal’ about society (broken families, disabilities, sexual experiences, among others), Victoria Lancelotta uses such beautiful language and striking images in her collection of short stories Here in the World that I fell in love immediately.

Here in the World by Victoria Lancelotta is a collection of thirteen stories. Each story is written from the first person narration of a woman (each story being a different woman) and her experience in the world, typically through the lens of relationships, more specifically her relationship to men/a man.

My favorite story was the first story, “The Guide”, starting off with “Listen. Here is a love story.” And then “We filed to the alter in doll-sized veils and patent leather shoes, heads bowed, our trembling hands folded and held chest-high, and before kneeling to receive the wafer from the priest…” The story then weaves the imagery of church and religion through a woman’s relationship to a blind man who is rough during sex, to which the narrator muses over the pain and guilt she feels in this complicated relationship. The story ends on “What could a blind man pray for, what thing that he would get?” I think this was my favorite story of the bunch (Lancelotta started off strong!) for the powerful imagery and lingering questions it left.

Her stories are not primarily focused on plot. Rather, I’d say they use the plot as a tool and opportunity to paint beautiful images with language and to present the reader with philosophical reflections in the questions and comments the narrators make. For example, in her final story, “Here in the World,” the narrator opens the story remembering what it’s like to be a young girl and get all the attention from boys who drive by as often happens when girls walk down the street. This experience of attention will thread through the main plot of the story which is that she is separated from her husband, soon-to-be ex, with whom her son still lives. She’s waiting for the son’s arrival to visit her new home, and she says, “I walk through all this carrying an invisible girl, buried under the flesh of a wife, a mother, an ex-wife by September, my hand out as I cross streets with an invisible boy, little outline just so-high when I saw him last, solid body, feet right on the ground outside that big other house with his father next to him.” What poignant language to reflect on these kinds of emotions and experiences so many women have either had, or can still relate to.

Lancelotta is a thoughtful poet and each of her stories uses this skill to create a universal longing, even among different stories. She threads main plots alongside thematic events that work together to create a bigger message in such a short space. The stories were beautiful.

I was drawn to some more than others (I particularly was less interested in her stories near the end which involved a few of the narrators living on the beach). I’m not sure why those types of stories appeal to me less — I can’t say it’s because that life is less familiar to me (because the dark urban settings that I love reading about aren’t exactly my life either), but maybe it’s because the connotation of such a life feels less taboo, despite the plot. Either way, I’d say the collection definitely includes some stories that are stronger and more vivid than others (as with most anthologies).

I would consider this mild transgressive fiction, which I discuss in my previous blog post, because it definitely incorporates transgression (like I said, politically and socially taboo relationships, actions, etc.) and at some points the abuse of the body (which I discuss here as a great technique for transgressive fiction) but because Lancelotta’s stories seemingly focus more on the beautiful language than the shock of the plot, it’s hard for me to define this as complete transgressive fiction. It’s mild. It definitely includes elements, and anyone who enjoys pretty language, deep reflections, and subtly taboo relationships, will love this book.

I bought this book by accident — I was at 2nd and Charles, a used bookstore, just browsing books. Couldn’t find anything by authors I knew who I hadn’t read yet, and they had a sale going on for buy 2 get 2 free, so there’s no way I couldn’t find more books when they were free books anyway. So I’m just pulling out book after book across a ton of different shelves and this cover image (along with the title) caught my eye. They say “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” but there was no way this was your average fiction book. I skimmed a story and was sold. I’m grateful I stumbled upon this and was inspired by Lancellot’s craft!

Mild transgressive fiction — I mention in my blog post “What Is Transgressive Fiction” that I considered a lot of writing to be transgressive fiction after first learning the genre some 15+ years ago. My introduction was through Chuck Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters and I’d never read anything like it. I assumed things even in that contemporary/conversational form, or remotely risque, must be transgressive fiction. Since reading and researching more, I now understand/define transgressive fiction as a text whose purpose is to explore/critique social norms through excessive or exaggerated transgression. This focus makes it difficult for a text to really fall under a different genre, as I talk about in “What Is Transgressive Fiction.”

But where does that leave the other writing that I read that feels similar to the transgressive fiction style, but doesn’t quite cut that definition?

This is where I’ve decided to coin the term “mild transgressive fiction”. It’s when a text breaks some norms, but is not focused on making a political statement through norm breaking. Or when a text is not intentional about having characters break (exaggerated) norms but instead acknowledges the broken norms that people don’t want to talk about or feel embarrassed by if they do.

For example, I will discuss a short story from Miranda July’s anthology No One Belongs Here More Than You. In her story “The Shared Patio”, July has the narrator describe a living situation in which a couple rents the first floor and she rents the upstairs floor. The narrator is concerned about the use of the patio and if the couple understands it is to be both of theirs. She marks the days they use it down on a calendar and matches her time on the patio to theirs. She eventually talks to the husband and enjoys the patio with him while his wife is at work. During a conversation, he has a medical emergency and the narrator, unsure of how to respond, instead dreams that they have a very intimate conversation, acknowledging some kind of romance, despite recognizing that he is still married. In reality, the wife comes home and manages to save her husband and the narrator sort of slips away, unnoticed again.

This story does not describe some blatantly shocking scene, right? There’s no rape, drugs, body destruction, nothing gory or disgusting. There’s no big critique on society. But there is transgression — it’s just subtle. The story is about a woman who watched her neighbors a little too close for comfort — stalkerish? Then she doesn’t try to help her neighbor when he’s dying (although he does survive by his wife). Then she continues to imagine him intimately, even though he’s married. All of these things go against accepted norms.

And I think this is where defining transgressive fiction can become difficult for people, because like I previously mentioned, a lot of stories involve transgression — but it’s hard to define those texts (like “The Shared Patio”) as transgressive fiction, and it’s because of this. Because they are what I’m calling mild transgressive fiction —stories that include transgressions, they acknowledge them, point out the ways in which they are wrong or uncomfortable, but are not necessarily a story about them, or not critiquing society through them, or not trying to create change through them. These actions are instead just a part of the story, or maybe about a theme unrelated to social norms.

The thing is, this kind of transgression is sneaky, but is more relatable. Way more people are going to have experienced paying too close attention to ‘a neighbor’, or dreaming of someone in a taboo way, than say murder.

My review for Here in the World by Victoria Lancelotta (coming this Wednesday!) addresses her stories as such texts, discussing ‘politically’ and ‘socially’ incorrect things, but in a more subtle way than other transgressive fiction.

This past Wednesday, I made a post about Bodies and Permissions: Breaking Rules & Conduct. In that post, I introduce the use/abuse of the body in transgressive fiction and why it makes sense. In this post, I briefly talk more about how bodies can be used to break boundaries and create social commentary in transgressive fiction, and provide some specific plot points and statistics that could be used in creating a story that uses the body as a tool.

Coco D’Hont (2020) discusses Chuck Palahniuk’s deviation from the term transgressive fiction, and his comment on how it is no longer received well or exists post America’s 9/11. D’Hont thinks transgressive fiction is still alive though and she critically explores transgression “As a philosophical concept, moving beyond simplistic definitions of the concept as an umbrella term for any type of shocking or socially unacceptable behaviour, or fictional renderings of this. Instead, transgression is explored as a mechanism which (re)develops central social ideologies” (D’Hont, 2020, p. 8).

I agree that transgressive fiction isn’t, or shouldn’t be, shocking for pure shock value. I suppose someone could write those stories, but I believe they’re way stronger when they have purpose behind them. What message is the author trying to send to a reader through this imagery?

And that’s where craft comes in. D’Hont (2020) explores a variety of craft choices that five transgressive novels employ. One that she discusses frequently is seen across the five texts: the use of the body. Like, she specifically calls out the body as a craft choice. As I mentioned earlier this week, body violation is common in transgressive literature — but it makes sense; it is one of the only things that we will permanently own during our lifetime and the act of violating our body disrupts that. This act can symbolize multiple forms of loss that are relevant to a variety of American ideals making it a strong example of transgression.

The interesting thing, though, is that even the other craft choices she identifies in transgressive fiction still revolve around the body.

She also explores constructed hierarchies through the use of an “other”.
In the novel Hogg, for example, she describes the character Hogg who is portrayed as physically filthy and running a rape business (which relates back to what I discussed in my post on Wednesday regarding the IBM layout of hierarchy).

Then, she discusses the ways in which the novels explore societal complexities.
This includes Beloved’s redevelopment of the perception of race and gender.

The body keeps coming up. It’s used to create pictures, meaning, and messages.

(Side note: D’Hont argues that these three craft choices demonstrate transgression’s role in shaping society, and how it calls attention to situations by creating exaggerated, aesthetic systems where the authors reveal, destruct, interrogate, and reform “the ideological structures of their extra-textual content” (p. 16) but that it doesn’t create change. The research I do considers how to use techniques like these three in combination with others to write stories that can create/impact social change. I haven’t yet discussed it on my blog — I will soon!)

In the meantime, here are some ideas for destroying/harming the body to get you started writing a transgressive story. As I offer plot points and statistics below, I do it in hopes that you may incorporate them into a broader discussion, rather than just a dark story for dark story’s sake. BUT I also recognize you’re your own author and can do whatever you’d like.

So here you go. Just a *few* examples of ways the body can be damaged or crossed to demonstrate transgression.

Examples/Plot Points

• Self-immolation or ‘necklacing’ — placing a petrol-soaked tire around a victim and setting it alight — (the individual is fully conscious and gas inhalation does not decrease the level of consciousness)
• Getting skinned alive (and then sell the skin on Ebay?!)
• A body being ripped in half by a rope
• ‘Sitting in the tub’ — laying a person in a wooden tub with only their head sticking out. Their faces would be painted with milk and honey and soon flies would begin to feed on them. Historically, the victim was also fed regularly and would end up swimming in their excrement. After a few days, maggots and worms would devour their body as they decayed alive
• Dissolved with sulfuric acid
• A woman filming herself in sexual videos with her infant daughter on her cellphone and sharing the videos online
• Cold aerosol burns (‘frosties’) are self-inflicted or peer-inflicted injuries sustained from the spraying of aerosol onto the skin. A frostbite injury occurs because of subsequent freezing of the tissues, commencing at approximately –2˚C to –10˚C and despite short exposure periods, these injuries are often severe. Cluster injuries occur as the result of a mutual ‘test of courage’.

Some Relevant Statistics

from RAINN:

• Every 68 seconds another American is sexually assaulted.
• 1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed, 2.8% attempted).
• About 3% of American men — or 1 in 33 — have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.
• From 2009–2013, Child Protective Services agencies substantiated, or found strong evidence to indicate that, 63,000 children a year were victims of sexual abuse.
• A majority of child victims are 12–17. Of victims under the age of 18: 34% of victims of sexual assault and rape are under age 12, and 66% of victims of sexual assault and rape are age 12–17.
• 48% were sleeping, or performing another activity at home
• 29% were traveling to and from work or school, or traveling to shop or run errands
• 12% were working
• 7% were attending school
• 5% were doing an unknown or other activity

(Visit the site for more statistics)

From NCADV:

• On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men.1
• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience severe intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner contact sexual violence, and/or intimate partner stalking with impacts such as injury, fearfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, use of victim services, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, etc.2
• 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. This includes a range of behaviors (e.g. slapping, shoving, pushing) and in some cases might not be considered “domestic violence.” 1
• 1 in 7 women and 1 in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner.1
• 1 in 10 women have been raped by an intimate partner. Data is unavailable on male victims.1
• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of severe physical violence (e.g. beating, burning, strangling) by an intimate partner in their lifetime.1
• 1 in 7 women and 1 in 18 men have been stalked by an intimate partner during their lifetime to the point in which they felt very fearful or believed that they or someone close to them would be harmed or killed.1
• On a typical day, there are more than 20,000 phone calls placed to domestic violence hotlines nationwide.9
• The presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide by 500%.10
• Intimate partner violence accounts for 15% of all violent crime.2
• Women between the ages of 18–24 are most commonly abused by an intimate partner.2
• 19% of domestic violence involves a weapon.2
• Domestic victimization is correlated with a higher rate of depression and suicidal behavior.2
• Only 34% of people who are injured by intimate partners receive medical care for their injuries.2
• A study of intimate partner homicides found that 20% of victims were not the intimate partners themselves, but family members, friends, neighbors, persons who intervened, law enforcement responders, or bystanders.3
• 72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 94% of the victims of these murder suicides are female.8
• 1 in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90% of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence.5
• The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $8.3 billion per year.6
• Between 21–60% of victims of intimate partner violence lose their jobs due to reasons stemming from the abuse.6
• Between 2003 and 2008, 142 women were murdered in their workplace by their abuser, 78% of women killed in the workplace during this timeframe.4
• Women abused by their intimate partners are more vulnerable to contracting HIV or other STI’s due to forced intercourse or prolonged exposure to stress.7

(Visit the site for more statistics)

With about 8% of the American population being blind, the other 92% of people will often first be introduced to other humans through sight. What does this mean? It means when I meet you, I first see what I think your gender is. What your skin color is. What your age is. If you use any assistance for disabilities. How you dress. If you have piercings or tattoos. Your size (relevant to height and weight). The kind of face you’re making (do you look pleasant or angry?) (among other things).

So now that I’ve looked at you, all of these things I just saw connect to previous assumptions I’ve made about people who look like that. This shows how “Human bodies are both biological and social in nature.”

Bodies and Permissions: Breaking Rules & Conduct

Now that I’ve used your body to assign you an identity in my mind, I decide what permission that gives me, and this, folks, is what makes bodies so usable in transgressive fiction.

Transgression is an act that goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offense. If I’ve determined how I should interact with you or what I am allowed to do to you or the ways I can treat you based on your identity (or perceived identity), this may not align with what’s fair to you. This may, in fact, be harmful to you and could be an “offense”, right? It could act against an expected conduct, like the conduct of just being a decent human being who doesn’t hurt others.

But by invading others’ bodies, by showing those bodies damaged or destroyed, in the way that transgressive fiction often does, those stories are sending a message about identity and permissions.

This website talks about identities and permissions with IBM (International Business Machines), a technology company. It’s not talking about humans at all, but it breaks down the definitions and boundaries from a technology standpoint so well that it coincidentally aligns perfectly with what I’m talking about! So even though we’re talking about humans here, I want to look at IBM’s discussion.

We start with roles:

“Role hierarchy --

Roles can be hierarchical. One role might act as a parent role to another role. This role hierarchy is provided by this query subject. It can provide the role details like ID, name, description; and it provides similar details for the parent role.”

And then we talk about how the hierarchy of roles offers details about identities:

“Identity role attachment

This query subject provides details about identities that belong to a role. These roles are associated to a project”

And then we start diving into entitlement and membership qualifiers. With membership qualifiers, they say, “The users, who qualify based on those attributes and values specified in the rule, are part of the role or are associated with that role.” So what happens to those who don’t qualify for the group? This is where using the body to create identities can turn transgressive–

How do people react to others who do not belong to their group?

IBM says that “Permissions are part of or are associated to a role. Permission can exist in a hierarchy.”

And often times, people will decide what permissions they have based on the identity they’ve assigned you.

So as transgressive writers, the body is a perfect tool for exploring the breaking of permissions, of transgressive acts, of autonomy and social structures.

Examples of using the body in transgression include:

Tampa by Alyssa Nutting
Explicit description of sexual acts with an adult woman using a child’s (multiple children’s) body for pleasure. This story makes us consider power, manipulation, and what does or doesn’t count as permission.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
The main character, seemingly put together and doing well (as an investment banker) by American standards, repeatedly brutally murders a variety of people in the novel. The horror of all this isn’t because of what the novel itself writes about, but the society it reflects.

Boy Parts by Eliza Cark
The easily hate-able narrator uses men’s bodies in her photography to flip gender roles and demonstrate her own self-destruction.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
The story shows multiple acts of violating/harming the body: male strangers fighting for the sake of fighting, using lye to create burns in the skin, the threat of death through project mayhem catastrophes… This book considers the body, consumerism, and what is important in life before we die.

Hogg by Samuel R. Delaney
This novel shows multiple characters who participate, graphically, in murder, child molestation, incest, necrophilia and rape among other things. All of which deal with power and permissions (/lack thereof) of harming another’s body.

And so many more.

Violence and sex are often used as tools in creating a transgressive novel because it’s easy to abuse the body. Use someone else’s body to harm them, hurt them, damage them — physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Many laws or social rules of conduct can be broken through these behaviors, which is why oftentimes transgressive fiction employs these acts.

What are other examples of body-violation in transgressive fiction that you can think of?

Check out my follow-up post with graphic ways the body can be used in transgressive fiction.