On Being Writer

Writer is a person who has something to tell the world but offline. He is an introvert in show business. His observations of the outside world stimulate tsunami of thoughts that he arranges systematically in order to convey meaningful message back. He spends lots of time in solitude and he does enjoy it.

There is a story in every creation, destruction or even a minor internal or external change. Story is eternal and survives beyond generations. Creative people such as artists, musicians and writers have skills to encapsulate story in their masterpiece. All the creative outcome e.g. painting, music, novel etc. have story in its souls. Writers are great story tellers.

One who loves reading and spends time reading would one day become writer. Writers are voracious readers. They keep on searching book they ever wanted to read and failing to get one results their first book as a writer.

A thought - fed by observation, research- grows in fertile mind of writer to become a story. Research on the topic is necessary to be done before presenting the story to the world be it fiction or non-fiction. It must be supported with factual analysis and data, if it a non-fiction and it must make sense and should be logical, if it is fiction.

To be a writer is round the clock job. A writer’s mind keeps on working even when he is not writing. Most of the writers take notes the moment thought strikes to them. That moment could be in shower, in market or in dreams. Some writers write their dreams down and sometimes one of them results start of a novel.

Professional writers have their office space and they follow a routine to work. This helps them to avoid destruction and write regularly. A writer’s den is also necessary to help him strengthen his imagination. Ability to imagine is like a muscle, the more one uses it the more it strengthens.

Even most successful writers need editors. Writers finish their first draft quickly before thinking of arranging the sentences and grammar. They leave rest to editors.

Writers are self-motivated people. Writers believe in their talent and the only reason they write is because they love to write.

- Amit Roop

Plot and Characterization

For centuries, people are debating about the characters of Ramayana and Mahabharta that they actually existed. In the contemporary fiction, people think that Malgudi is located somewhere in south India. This is because the characterization was such beautifully sculpted that it looks real and God knows could really be.

Whatever the truth is but to make your story success your characters should look real. Observe people and create your characters like them. The best way could be – while outlining your character’s personality trait, visualize someone from your friends and family circle. Start building your characters and keep molding them as per your story’s need. Readers connect with the real characters and care for them. Writer’s motive should be to achieve reader’s empathy for his characters. 

Here are few points to help craft a character:

Start naming your character that matches the role and it should be as per the era to which story belongs. For instance, Natasha can be apt name for an urban girl working in fashion industry and living in Mumbai. The details can be further divided in two parts: External physical appearance and internal personality trait.

The character might have a reason for his name. How old he is. What he actually does or used to do for his living. Is he frail or have a well-built physique. Write on complexion, color of his eyes and hair. Write about Parents details including occupation. Write the details about siblings if any. Think about other important details and include in your story. 

The other important details are about his hopes, dreams, fear, family values, having special reverence or grudges for someone etc. This character will have strengths and weaknesses, hidden talent, introvert or extrovert, mysteries of his life, unfulfilled desires and religious background etc.

Remember not to expose all these details at once. Try to reveal slowly in scenes as story moves. 

Many times personality traits are revealed in flashbacks and interior monologues. Try to align the scenes with the desires of the characters, even better if they are mutually conflicting.      

Seeds of thoughts:

Write down the names of your family members and then describe their physical appearances along with internal personality traits. Try to include neighbors as the story propagates. Describe the surrounding; the nearby temple, park and market of your locality. Don’t forget to write about the Neem or Peepal tree. Describe about people’s hidden talents and hidden desires. Try to include details and make them real as they are.

- Amit Roop

Editing – Deliver the thought correctly

The core capability of creating the artistic masterpiece seldom gets appreciated. What actually does is the thought which has been depicted in the artistic creation. 

Thought is important. Write it down completely and have your first draft ready. Even most successful writers have several mistakes in their first draft so expect to have the same in yours also. The next step is editing. 

Wear the cap of editor and frisk every word for mistakes. Editor is the person who has a command over the language but lacks the desire to create something new. So the perfect job for him is to help writer correcting his draft.

Writer should review his work before submitting it to editor. 

Review to ensure your writing says exactly what you have written it to. It must make sense even if it is piece of fiction.  

You have written on the topic you are aware of; now research to verify the correctness of it.

Rewrite long sentences to make them short.

Remember the fundamental rule – Don’t tell the story; show it. Underline the narration in your story.

Rewrite that to have dialogues spoken by characters and move the story. Minimize the narration to have it at the beginning to provide the back ground of the story or to take reader in the flash back. If it has lots of flash back, try to replace it with characters and dialogues.

Whether it is fiction or non-fiction, you will always try to make some point or communicate some thought. Avoid mentioning it more than twice in the entire story. Respect the reader; trust his intelligence and resist your craving to explain no matter how complex point you are making.

The most fatal, difficult to figure out mistake is of POV (Point of View). Don’t jump POV in one scene. Don’t ever write what cannot be observed from the POV of the character you are writing from. Consider the given example:

He walked down the memory lane and remembered all the good time he had. Oh all that had lost! I cannot let tears cover my blue eyes as these eyes had given her love to feel entire sky is for her. She promised me to never leave me alone in this nasty world. 

Focus on the sentence – ‘I cannot let tears cover my blue eyes…’ One cannot see the color of one’s eyes even in interior monologues. This is a POV mistake. If you are switching POV, mention the explicit break by

- ***- ***- and then write the next scene.

Your story should have the optimum proportion of time spent on characters, events etc. based on their importance. Milkman selling milk; maid cleaning floors; watchman, gardener doing their respective jobs will be part of your story but if you are investing time on any of these characters that means they will play significant role in some part of it. Remember to engage reader on the character only if it is really significant.    

Review your dialogues and cut before they grow to become speech if you really don’t want it to be. Keep changing the turn of the dialogues like tennis ball. It helps in retaining the energy flowing through the dialogues and keeps it tied with the reader.

Even grammatically correct sentences sometimes confuse writers for aesthetic placement of words. The solution is to speak it loud; if it doesn’t sound good, rewrite and again read it, speak it loud unless it sounds good.  

And she combed her hair on the way to office. And he came out of office to smoke. She fluttered her eyes in order to seduce him. There are so many habits of our characters. But do keep a check on repeating the same words to make your story look real. There are other instances of onomatopoeia writers tend to write to make readers feel what actually is happening. Review to minimize these effects.

Try not to repeat fancy words, idioms, adverbs, figure of speeches, sex scenes, action scenes unless it is really necessary.

There are so many guidelines. There can never be strict rules in writing because time has proved that once the rules are broken, somewhere history is written and the outcome is really worth all the efforts of writing. All these should be left on the wisdom of writer which rule to follow and which he dares to break in orders to create history that will eventually force more rules to be written.

The last one is to make your writing readable. Readers do select the work of notable writers but even more they prefer to choose the book that has enough white space suitably broken paragraphs, easy words that don’t force reader to refer dictionary, smaller sentences that doesn’t force reader to reread.

Go on write, review, rewrite and achieve the masterpiece. Remember, there is nothing worth presenting to the world that have not been worked on to make it presentable. In writing, it’s editing.

Seeds of thoughts:

Read the work of notable writers and observe whether they have followed these rules. Complete your story, and then rewrite is following these wherever applicable.

- Amit Roop