Workshops

A career in writing – what does that mean?
As part of UGC’s STRIDE (Scheme for for Trans-Disciplinary Research for India’s Developing Economy), the English department of Fergusson College invited me to talk about making a career in creative writing. What I loved was that I didn’t speak just to students of the English department; it really was trans-disciplinary!

What would a talk on a career in creative writing involve? For me, first, it would involve demystifying the publishing process. Secondly, to use a word that the organiser used, it would need to deglamorize the life of a writer. If you’re talking about a career and not a hobby, writing is not about penning down your thoughts and expressing your feelings. No. It’s not the random poem here, or the the snippet of deep, philosophical thought there.

Okay, so you write poetry. When did you last buy a book of poems? Does your answer help you understand whether writing poetry is sustainable as a career?

How do you go about the querying process? What kind of timelines are you looking at? If a publisher pays me an advance of ₹15,000 for a book that is three years in the making, you can do the math and see whether it adds up to a career.

It’s lovely when you can feel new ideas dawning on listeners as you speak. To a great extent, that’s how I felt.

“I read barely any contemporary Indian writers, and I think that should change,” said one.
“I understand that beginning a letter with Respected Sir/Madam is not inclusive, so I won’t do it.”

Do you see what I mean?

Yes. Each time I invite a guest to speak to my creative writing programme, I realise that the session is as much for me as it is for the children. As a writer, I am often caught in a capitalist circle, writing with a clear goal in sight. What is the purpose of a piece? What do I want my audience to feel?

Yet, sometimes, writing is just writing. The arts are interconnected and once in a while, we need to be reminded of that.

When we were children and teens, Veda and I spent hours talking about art, music and literature. We read Shakespeare and made notes (which I probably still have somewhere). We discussed Giotto and Matisse, Van Gogh and Gaugin. Veda painted and drew; I didn’t. When Veda was ten (I think), she started playing the guitar and we began to listen to classical music together. We talked about Vivaldi and Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven. We thought about and spoke about music appreciation.

And all this came together in the creative writing workshop she conducted for us yesterday. She played snippets of various pieces for us, and in a beautiful, organic way, the children travelled from emotions to scenes and stories. We listened to Vivaldi, Schoenberg, Mussorgsky and Telemann. Veda led us to a little written exploration as we listened to the last of these.

What person or people come to mind as we listen? Can we find the beginnings of a story in music? It made me think. Just like in some kinds of stories, when the music comes to an end, we feel like we’re back in the same place, just slightly changed in some way.

Art

Some people, like Kandinsky, could see colour as they listened to sounds. On the other hand, people like Mussorgsky wrote music when they looked at paintings. Veda shared seven paintings with us and we explored all kinds of ideas and thoughts.

Movement

Finally, Veda guided us through a series of movements leading to what is called Tadasana, or the mountain pose. Feeling our feet firmly on the floor and our hands reaching for the sky, she asked us three questions. What makes you feel stable? What does grounded mean to you? What are you reaching for?

For me, above all, this workshop was about writing for the sake of writing itself, not for any other purpose. Writing is exploration. It connects us to the world around us. It need not tell a story! It could just make us aware of ourselves, our emotions, and our feelings.

White Socks Only is a stunning piece of literature and art, a charming book about a curious child eager to find out whether something she’s heard is true. I revisited this book purely for the purpose of teaching it, and there’s just so much to explore! Of course, the obvious choices would be to visit the themes of racism and segregation. But as a creative writing trainer, there’s much more.

The book opens with the young narrator wanting a story, and not just any story, her favourite story. And she knows just how to get her grandma to tell that story – by asking if she may go to town alone. She knows what the response will be – she may not go until she can do some good there. But she also knows that this will lead to the story of the time her grandmother sneaked out, went to town–and unwittingly did some good there.

Without revealing why her grandmother went to town and what happened there, I can only say that it’s a beautiful story that always makes me smile. Whether I’m teaching diction, word choice, figures of speech or grammar, it’s the perfect story to read. With adults or children, with young writers or a book club … yes, I’ll say it again. It’s perfect. Here’s what we explored during my writing programme this time.

Structure and Narrative Voice

White Socks Only is a story within a story, and both stories are first person narratives. It is ideal to teach the advantages of using the first person narrator. Importantly, I like to teach the idea of making a conscious choice while choosing whose voice to use to tell a story. What would a shift in perspective involve?

I often also tell children about how I wrote Sisters at New Dawn in third person before realising that telling the story from Kannagi’s perspective would work much better. Yes, it’s a middle-grade book, over 30,000 words long. Even so, rewriting it was well worth it because it fit so much better with what I wanted to do with the story.

Dramatic Irony

During this edition of my creative writing programme, I introduced the idea of dramatic irony. Once more, I realised that an activity that works brilliantly with one group of children can fail miserably with another–that’s what happened with my dramatic irony activity! The good part, however, was that I found a video to help me explain the idea better. Then, during the story writing module, we read White Socks Only. And the children were able to identify dramatic irony perfectly in the story, even commenting on how the narrative voice makes dramatic irony possible!

Word Choice

When we introduce concepts like ‘show, don’t tell’, we need to keep coming back to each word we write. In White Socks Only, we have words like ‘hobbled’ and ‘slinking’. What do these synonyms for the word ‘walk’ tell us about the character and context?

White Socks Only is just one of many resources on the wonderful Storyline Online, which is what makes it particularly easy to use in class!

What an enriching scriptwriting session we had with Lav Kanoi on Saturday! Ah, there’s nothing like a guest session to bring a fresh spurt of energy to our creative writing programme.

“What is a story?” That’s the question Lav began with.
I like the question. What is a story, really? As we talked about it, we came to the realisation that a story can be anything. Can’t it? But that leads to the question, is there anything that a story cannot be?

The discussion that followed led to the idea of form, which brought us to the idea that various forms – a song, a play, a story, a film script – are different because they serve different purposes. 

One thing led to another, and through all the excited exchanges, one conversation stands out.
“A play wants to be performed,” Lav said. “Sure, you can read it. But reading a play is incomplete. It wants more. It’s like a tape. It wants to be put in a tape recorder–wait, do you know what a tape recorder is?”
No one said ‘yes’, no one said ‘no’.
“Ah. A CD! Do you know what a CD is?”
“Yes! A computer disk!”
“And what does the disk do?” asked Lav.
“You insert it!” one child said.
“Where?” asked Lav.
“Into a CD player!”
“And what’s on the CD?” asked Lav.
“Um … a movie? Or a song? Something.”

So much for the simile. CDs aren’t sitting around wanting to be played. Tapes aren’t sitting around at all.

Despite it all, the point was conveyed. Lav ended with a fun activity (during which he also pretended to be the Cheshire cat) on Alice in Wonderland, inviting the children to convert an excerpt into a script. We’ve broadened the activity now, taking suggestions from a couple of participants. I’ve asked them to do anything they wish to with the excerpt, playing with a form of their choice. They can write a dialogue or a monologue, a song or a poem. If they want, they can create a video, do voices, record an audio script, anything! I’m waiting to see what they come up with!

What an enjoyable writing workshop we had yesterday with Dr Shayani Bhattacharya! Every guest session is fun, and I keep realising that when a teacher plans a session, it is meticulous, detailed, excellent!

We discussed what we research, how we research and why we research, but then we went on to something that’s important to all of us as writers – how we share research findings. Sure, you’re fascinated by time travel and wormholes. You read everything you can about them. How can you get your readers to be interested in the same things? When Shayani stressed the idea of finding our unique voice, my heart gave a little leap. It’s so useful when a guest speaker brings up something I’ve addressed time and time again during my writing programmes!

I also loved that Shayani explored the relevance of research in the context of both fiction and nonfiction. Bringing the workshop to travel writing, we spoke of travel literature of all kinds – from travelling through the forest in Little Red Riding Hood to more obvious choices like Around the World in 80 Days and Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

What the participants loved about the workshop was that every aspect of it was interactive. For instance, here’s just one of the four jamboards we created together.

Travelogues, maps, advertisements, travel tourism, travel blogs, journalistic articles … there’s so much we can write if we just research. Shayani left the participants with a writing assignment, and I’m waiting to read what they write! Like one of the participants said in the chatbox after we’d figuratively explored the earth, the solar system and the galaxies beyond ours through travel writing, ‘Thanks a whole universe! It was so cool!’

So many tiny things happen during workshops! Here’s a quick roundup of things that make me smile.

Whispering

During one of my sessions, a child raised his hand. I quickly summed up what I wanted to say so that I would not lose my chain of thought, and then asked him to speak.
‘Actually, I want to talk to A,’ he said.
Amused, I nodded to him to go ahead.
What he wanted to say to A was utterly and completely unrelated to what we were doing.

And that’s what made me realise – at online classes, whispering has to happen with the teacher’s permission!

I like

The protagonist of The Vampire Boy is Kris, a vampire who hates blood. With that in mind, I asked the children to come up with sentences about themselves, telling us two things: one, something they like that their friends also like, and two, something they like but their friends don’t. My favourites?

My friends like troubling my parents, and I do too!
My friends like jumping on the sofa, and I do too!

And the surprising ones:
My friends like ice-cream and chocolate, but I don’t.
My friends like drawing, but I don’t.

Bringing Things to Life

I also love the spontaneity of workshops! In The Vampire Boy again, Kris’s friend Bo cannot spin on one leg without falling on her face. We read that and instantly, the children got to their feet to try it out.

I can hop in a circle on one leg. Does that count?
Anyone can stand on one leg!
I can spin on one leg!

We read of Kris carrying a bottle of A- blood to school, and the moment I explained what that was, three of the children disappeared. They had to ask their parents – immediately, of course – what their blood group was!

The Chocolate Touch

And then, of course, was this lovely thing I shared on Instagram, but not on my blog.

When we read The Chocolate Touch, I asked children to design their own chocolates, name the company that manufactures it, and add any other details they like.

Here’s what followed!

Children will be mischievous. They will always, always try to find ways to fool their teachers. The most common excuse during virtual sessions?
“I lost connection.”

Much as children like to believe otherwise, teachers can tell when children aren’t attentive. They stare at the screen and their eyes glaze over. At my book club, I know they aren’t reading along. For one, they shouldn’t be looking at the screen at all. If they’re gazing at the screen, they’re doing something else. Of course.

But when I ask them a question linked to what we’re reading, pat comes the response, “Sorry, I lost my connection. I don’t know where we are.”

So, yesterday, I told the children, very casually, to raise their hands immediately if they lose track. “Don’t wait until I ask you to read. If you lose your connection and can’t find where we are, raise your hand!”

I could see the bewilderment. A new plan was needed, and fast!
“But on my screen … I don’t have … There’s no ‘raise hand’ button on Meet!”

“Your real hand,” I said. “Just put your real hand up.”

The idea was clearly new to the child.
My real hand? Really?
Ah, virtual world problems.

We just finished reading Sandy to the Rescue, the first of five books we’ll be reading at this edition of my book club. One of the joys of reading the hOle books at the reading programme is that the length is perfect. We have enough time to read and do activities during each session, which, for me, is what a book club is about.

In Sandy to the Rescue, six-year-old Aftab hides first under the dining table and then in the bath tub.
This made me ask the children, “Where would you hide? If you had to smuggle a friend into your house, what would be a hiding place?”
We discussed the storage cupboard, a balcony with newspapers (ideal for a little cushioning) and under the bed. I then led them to another activity – finding a hiding place for something a little smaller, like a secret note, perhaps. What could they write in the note? That led me to an unexpected discussion because one of the things I told them they could write about was what they’re afraid of.

“I’m afraid of God,” said one child.
I could see that this was a new thought for several of the others because they were thinking of other things that, maybe, they thought were more trivial.

Even so, one child said, “I’m afraid of dogs. I don’t like it when they come close.”
Unexpectedly, a child piped up, “Oh, I’m more afraid of zebras! Dogs are nice. Zebras are frightening.”

Before I had the time to process this, a fourth child said, “I’m afraid of cancer. It is the scariest thing in the world.”
Somehow, the conversation around cancer continued, with one child saying that cancer has a cure, so she’s not afraid of it.
“But cancer kills people!”
“But it doesn’t have to. You can fight it. Anyone can fight cancer.”
“No, it is frightening, and–“
The conversation went on until one child asked, “Could we stop talking about cancer?”
And we did. But that didn’t stop me from thinking about it.

Immediately, another child said, “I’m afraid of floods. Floods are the scariest of all.”
And that’s a thought that hadn’t struck me. Why is she afraid of floods? I asked her if she had ever seen a flood and she shook her head. But what causes that fear?

After the session was over, I began to think about what scared me as a child and what scares me now. Are we so frank about what really frightens us?

Yesterday’s guest session was full of stories! While we are familiar with Long John Silver and Davy Jones’s locker, how many of us are equally familiar with Kanhoji Angre and the pirates of the Malabar?

We began with a discussion of myths, legends, and historical fiction, and this, I think, is an important idea that is well worth repeating. A myth is not history or historical fiction. It is a story created by human beings in an attempt to make sense of the world. Even if a myth helps us understand something about the time when it was created, it isn’t a true tale.

A legend is not true either! My mother, Dr Radhika Seshan, told us the story of the emperor Jahangir and his bells of justice. Legend says that a donkey rang one of the bells one day, and Jahangir proclaimed that a donkey deserves justice too. Is the story true? We have no idea, but legends are often built around people who slowly, through stories, emerge as beings larger than life.

What, then, is historical fiction?

Historical fiction has a very sound foundation in fact, based on evidence. This is what makes it difficult to write. If we write about Kanhoji Angre or Ram Koli, we need to understand their times and set our stories accordingly. We need to know about the boats they used and where they lived. We cannot make them use Mediterranean ships! We also cannot change the course of history.

What, then, can we, as writers, imagine? We can imagine their conversations. We can imagine what went on in their heads. Kanhoji Angre was clearly a strategist. How would he have planned his course of action? Would he have been afraid the night before an attack? Or excited? The emotional and mental aspects are ours to play with.

I’ve given the children who attended the workshop a couple of writing assignments based on yesterday’s session. I can’t wait to read them; I’m sure they’ll be fun!

Mark your calendars – the next workshop is on illustration and will be conducted on the 19th of June! More details as soon as I open for registration.