Phil Halton's Blog, page 4

How to Outline a Story with Index Cards

I began writing seriously with screenplays, and learned about using index cards to outline a story from my writing partner. Screenwriters have been using them for years, but I use them whenever I am writing a story that is too long or complex for the outline to easily fit on a page. They’re also particularly useful in that stage of writing (or rather planning to write) when you have lots of ideas, but you’re not quite sure how they all fit together.

While I like the tactile quality of the physical cards, as well as being able to lay them out on a big table or pin them on a cork board for reference, there are other options too. Well known writing software like Scrivener and Final Draft both allow you to create “virtual” index cards, and there is even an app that does nothing but let you write and organize with virtual index cards – “Index Card – Corkboard Writing.”

But how do you actually do it?

There are likely as many ways to use index cards as there are writers who use them, but rather than give you a “system” that may or may not fit for you, I’m going to describe how and why they are so useful.

A good story flows well from plot point to plot point, without “dragging” or “sagging” in between. While a novelist typically has a bit more license, in a screenplay that is limited by the acceptable run-time of a film, plot points happen with near Prussian precision. Taking this same approach when outlining a novel never hurts, in my opinion, even if when writing it you allow yourself to go down some interesting rabbit holes. Index cards are a useful method to help you create a well-balanced story, whose structure maintains tension and interest throughout.

In the Three Act Structure, the Second Act is as long as the First and Third Acts combined. I actually prefer to think of it all as four Acts (included 2a and 2b) all of equal length, but you get the picture. To achieve this structure, I decide on a total number of chapters (typically 20 or 24, though yours will vary based on the total word count goal and the size of your typical chapters) and divide these between the Acts.

In a 20 chapter story, I then have 5 cards/chapters in the First Act, the same in the Third, and 10 in the Second. At an average of 4000 words per chapter, this gives you a typical 80,000 word novel. I begin by jotting down the key plot points on the bottom of the index cards in the right positions in the layout. You can see what this looks like in the diagram below.

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(This same method works when writing a short story, but in this case each card represents a scene rather than a chapter, or when writing a film, where each represents a sequence.)

This gives me a framework to start thinking about my story. I can then start to brain storm major events and jot them down on an index card. If I think of minor ones, I can start to add them as well, but at this point I write with a thick marker to remind myself not to get sucked into the details – I’m still thinking high level. As I get ideas, I may not yet know where they fit in the story, and that’s OK. The index cards let me rearrange the story quickly and easily, to try different things. Sometimes what I think will be the climax ends up where I start the story, and that’s OK.

Using this method, I have a 30,000 foot view of my story and can see how much material I have for each part. I can adjust the material as needed to give the story the right flow, and experiment with using different occurrences as my major or minor turning points. At this stage, everything is fluid and open to change.

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As I start to solidify my story outline with the index cards, I start writing more details for each of the chapters on them (sometimes flowing over to the back as well). If I have a sub-plot that I want to weave through the whole story, this is a good time to do that because I can jot down a sentence or two in each chapter where I want it to appear. This lets me sometimes weave a handful of ideas through the whole story without detracting from the overall structure or flow.

When I am certain that I have the structure right, I go through and number the cards (and therefore the chapters) and collect them together into a pile that sits on my desk as I write. Each card guides me through writing a chapter, and if I want to look backwards or ahead, I can see where various things fit into the overall structure. I try to be disciplined about updating the cards with additional details that come to me as I write, so that when I am done the cards are an even better representation of the novel as a whole, to help me with editing (which invariably has a stage where I revisit structure to make sure that it works as well as I thought it would when I planned it).

There is a lot of material on the web that gives a detailed “system” for using index cards or other methods to outline a story, but I think that you have to try different things to see what works for you. I’m always a little suspect of those “killer” story worksheets or methods for writing that seem to prey on writers who aren’t sure where to start. There has been little new discovered about story telling since Aristotle, and everything you need to know can be found in your local library – through reading. Only practice will tell you what really works for you. 

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Watching The Mandalorian as a Writer

A caveat to begin with: I’m not a huge Star Wars fan. I’ve watched the movies, and enjoyed them, but I don’t have a deep knowledge of the Star Wars Universe or a huge emotional investment in it. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that when I watched the first two episodes of “The Mandalorian,” I watched it as a writer rather than as a fan.

Star Wars is obviously a huge cultural entity that has been successful beyond all expectations when the first film was made. It paved the way expansive, multi-film series that followed, with all of the merchandising and spin-offs that they entail. But none of this was ordained, and many of those involved in the making of the first film had doubts about its success. In fact, the first film may have been saved in the editing room.

The original film, and arguably the original trilogy, don’t form a complex story. Many of the characters are two-dimensional, there is very little explanation of the very complex setting, and the story is almost laughably straight forward. In some ways, these things all contributed to the stories’ success. They were simple, but they resonated because they were well told.

The more recent first trilogy, widely seen as missing the mark, tried for a complexity that just didn’t work. They added a tremendous amount of exposition and back story that was unnecessary, and frankly uninteresting (Patton Oswalt has some hilarious things to say about that).

A particularly bizarre complication that was planned for the movies–Jar Jar Binks as a hidden Sith Lord–was even pulled due to fans’ reaction to the character. What these films missed was that the very roots of the Star Wars stories was a sub-genre of science fiction known as “space opera.” Extremely formulaic, it was very much akin to other forms of pulp literature, and early works were sometimes just science fiction re-do’s of Westerns. George Lucas originally intended to make a film in the Flash Gordon universe, but unable to obtain the rights, he created his own. This whole genre of stories work because of their simplicity.

And so now to The Mandalorian. Even though only two episodes in, it feels like it will be a hit to me for much the same reason as the first films. While they had their roots in space operas, The Mandalorian is clearly a thinly updated television western. I may be over-reaching, but I saw nods to classic western films in the first episode as well, such as the use of the machinegun in “The Wild Bunch” and the final shoot-out in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

The stoic and laconic nature of the standard Western hero is taken to new heights by the main characters refusal to remove his helmet, ostensibly part of Mandalorian culture. I might argue that this takes things too far–Pedro Pascal is a hugely talented actor, and in the Star Wars universe it is the bad guys whose faces are obscured by masks, not the heroes. I’m curious to see what they do with this, as we might just be building up the tension before he does take off his mask, or playing with the idea of the anti-hero. It’s a simple thing that has potential to add a lot to the story.

And so what can we take away as writers? I think that there are two key lessons.

Firstly, a story doesn’t have to be complex to work, it just has to be told well. This means hitting the key plot points at the right times, allowing us to build and release tension in a way that is satisfying.

Secondly, the choice of genre shouldn’t be a given even if you are writing in an established universe. The structure and expectations of genre can be bent and twisted almost to the breaking point, but they give us a framework to work with that can work with almost any material (A master of this is writer China Mieville). Put simply, genre is a tool for writers to use, not a constraint.

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My Writing Superpower

Since starting to write full-time, I’ve discovered that I have a writing superpower. The most surprising thing about it, though, is that it isn’t really about writing. You almost certainly have this superpower, too. Let me explain.

Any creative work is hard. Steven Pressfield calls the thing that makes it hard “resistance.” It’s that force that keeps you frozen as you stare at a blank page, makes you leap up from your chair to clean the house, or keeps you locked in a job you hate instead of committing to your life’s work.

Of all the people who say they’d like to be writers, only a fraction of them ever come up with an idea of what to write. Of the people who have an idea, only another fraction ever sit down and start to write. Of those people, a smaller fraction ever finish a piece of work – whether that’s a poem, short story or a novel. Of those who finish, a smaller number take the hours to edit and polish that work into something presentable. And an even smaller fraction ever show that work to another living soul. See the problem?

My writing superpower isn’t a consummate grasp of grammar, a masterful ability to write dialogue, or superior skill at writing description. It’s not really about writing at all. It’s just that when it’s time for me to write, I sit down and write. If I don’t feel like writing, I write anyway. If what I’m writing is terrible, I put it aside and try something else. Resistance knows that I’m going to be writing, no matter what, and so more often than not it stays at bay.

It’s a fallacy that you should wait for inspiration before you try to create. Self-discipline, the kind that keeps you working on a regular schedule, is how artists start and finish projects. This is just as true whether you write eight hours a day, fifteen minutes a day or every Saturday morning. 

And in fact, discipline has allowed me to harness resistance to increase my creativity. The most common form of resistance I encounter now when working on a project are ideas for other projects, seemingly to distract me from what I know I need to do. Plot lines, story settings, even characters and dialogue all lodge themselves in my mind, hoping to tempt me away from my current project. Not finishing a project is a common way to fail. But rather than give in to temptation, I simply capture all of these good ideas in a separate file and get back to work. I have a folder of potential stories that will keep me working for the next hundred years. That’s how discipline became a superpower, not merely a great skill to have.

Discipline doesn’t sound like a very artistic word, but it’s what separates the professionals from the amateurs. 

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Queen Soraya: Afghanistan’s First Feminist

Afghanistan and feminism aren’t often thought of together, unless using the country as an example of one of the worst places in the world for women to live. But buried in Afghan history there is a women who deserves to be lauded as one of the world’s early feminists. Her name is Soraya Tarzi, and she should be better known outside of her home country.

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Born in exile in Syria in 1899, she was educated by her father Mahmud Tarzi, who was an intellectual, a poet, a political philosopher and a functionary in the vast bureaucracy of the Ottoman Empire. They were members of the Barakzai tribe, the same larger tribal confederacy as the Kings of Afghanistan. Amir Habibullah invited the members of the Afghan intelligentsia exiled by his father to return to the country, and so Tarzi moved his family to Kabul. He was accepted into the Royal Court as an advisor, but also began to publish a radical newspaper that advocated for modernization along the lines of what was occurring in Turkey under Kemal Ataturk and in Persia under Reza Shah.

Soraya developed an affinity with the Amir’s son, Amanullah, and her father became a mentor to him as well. Soraya and Amanullah married in 1913. When he ascended to the throne after his father’s assassination in 1919, she became Queen.

At that time it was common for the Amir to have many wives, beyond even the four allowed in Islam, as well as a harem of consorts. They were neither seen nor heard outside of the palace walls. Amanullah reversed this and did not take any other wives, nor did he keep a harem. Queen Soraya appeared publicly with him throughout the country, had an active role in court discussions, and was made the Minister of Education. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in education by Oxford University in recognition for her work.

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Under her direction the very first school for girls was opened in Afghanistan, offering a secular education rather than a religious one. Now known as Lycée Malalai, this school was reopened in 2003 and continues to educate girls in Kabul to this day. She also influenced her husband who created new laws that banned child marriages, gave women the right to choose their husbands, made education for all children (boys and girls) mandatory and imposed taxes to discourage polygamy.

Queen Soraya also established an organization, headed by Amanullah’s sister, to advocate for the rights of women and to provide a venue for women to complain about mistreatment or abuse.

Most dramatically, in 1928 during a speech by her husband discouraging the practice of women wearing hijabs, niqabs or burkhas, she publicly removed her veil and then made a speech of her own to the astonished tribal and religious leaders. Her example created opportunities within Afghan society in the capital that did not exist before, although her influence in the countryside was much more limited.

When an uprising threatened to depose her husband in 1929, one of the rebels’ demands was that he divorce Soraya and send her into exile. Instead they both fled the country, first to India and then to Italy, where they lived until their deaths in 1968. They were returned to Afghanistan and are buried side by side in a royal mausoleum in Jalalabad.

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Although relatively unknown outside of Afghanistan, she is a hero to the women of that country for what she accomplished and for the future of which she dreamed.

And because I think that children should read stories about real princesses who accomplished things, not just the Disney kind, check out this terrific book about Queen Soraya.

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Review: The Artist’s Journey

Steven Pressfield’s latest book on writing, “The Artist’s Journey,” is both a wake-up call and a how-to for creatives of all stripes. Using the structure of the “hero’s journey,” he describes how to overcome resistance and become the artist we wish to be.

The idea of the “hero’s journey” was popularizing by Joseph Campbell’s 1949 book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” In it he identified the common features of myths across cultures and time periods, distilling them into a structure of 17 stages. Many students of literature or film are familiar with it as a tool to analyze narrative structure, or a means to structure our own stories.

Pressfield takes this structure and applies it to the real life struggle of becoming an artist, tying it to his own concept of the “Artist’s Journey.” Drawing examples from mythology and pop culture, as well as his own life, he lays out a convincing argument for what it takes to be an artist.

At the end of the hero’s journey, after having overcome self-doubt and a series of trials, the hero returns home with a “gift for the people.” This could be Prometheus returning with fire or Luke Skywalker with knowledge of the Force, it’s all the same. Applied to the life of an artist, the journey represents all the struggles inherent to committing to completing a piece of art, and the gift for the people is the work of art itself. The hero and the artist returns home having changed.

In his book “The War of Art,” Pressfield describes in great detail what he calls “resistance,” those forces that prevent us from completing (or starting) our work. He examines all the different things that distract or frighten artists away from pursuing their work, and notes that in every case these “enemies” are self-generated. He takes this further in his new book, reminding us that all of an artist’s strengths are self-generated too.

Having made the hero’s journey, Pressfield suggests that now we must make the artist’s journey, which allows us to open the pipeline to the muse. An artist’s talent, no matter what form their art takes, boils down to just one thing: shuttling between the ordinary and the extraordinary world, and recording what they find. It is this act, reaching beyond the vale of consciousness to access material from the unconscious, that is so frightening to would-be artists.

“…only when the pain of not doing it got greater than the imagined pain of doing it did I somehow find the ball to pursue what I really wanted…”

– James Rhodes, pianist, from “The Artist’s Journey”

Although many of Pressfield’s thoughts on art and artists tend towards the esoteric, one of the things I like best about his writing is that he shuttles between the mystic and and the mundane so easily. He knows that part of being an artist is also about craftsmanship, as well as having the mental toughness to both start and finish projects in the face of adversity.

If you are looking for inspiration to get started, or to get you out of a slump, look no further than “The Artist’s Journey.”

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Four Famous Bookstores

I am an admitted bibliophile and so have trouble walking past a bookstore, any bookstore, without at least taking a quick look. But in all of my travels, there are a few bookstores that really stand out, and as I thought about them together, I realized a few reasons why that are perhaps not that obvious. These four bookstores really stand out in my memory, amongst the hundreds I have visited over the years.

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El Ateneo Grand Splendid

Set inside a converted turn-of-the-century theatre in Buenos Aires, it was declared the world’s most beautiful bookstore by National Geographic in 2019. With vaulted ceilings that soar overhead and gorgeous frescoes painted on the ceiling, most visitors seem to pause just inside the door to take it all in. The stage, the former seating area, and the balconies are all filled with bookshelves, giving it nearly 22,000 square feet of floor space. At the back of the stage is a cafe, and there are chairs scattered throughout the store where readers can curl up with a prospective purchase.

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City Lights Books

Founded in San Francisco in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin, this is one of America’s best know independent bookstores, as well as being a well known publisher. They were instrumental in the publication of the work of many Beat authors, perhaps most notably Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” It was America’s first all-paperback bookstore, and has a very long history of selling and publishing anti-authoritarian and avant garde material. A jumbled store literally packed with books, it has a policy of allowing customers to sit and read as long as they like, and has one of the best poetry collections of any bookstore in the country.

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Shakespeare & Company

An English-language bookstore on Paris’ Left Bank, it has occupied several different locations over the last hundred years. in the 1920s it was a gathering place for the “Lost Generation” of writers, and others – including Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford, James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The sympathetic owner, Sylvia Beach, promoted aspiring authors and even loaned them money to support them as they finished their work. Beach also acted as a publisher, particularly where a work was controversial – she was the first to publish James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” The shop has recently expanded to include a vegetarian cafe next door.

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Boekhandel Dominicanen

An independent bookstore that was once part of a chain, it is located inside of a cathedral built in 1294 in Maastricht. When its use as a religious space ended in 1796 due to the revolution, it fulfilled a number of very mundane purposes such as a stables and a bike shed. In 2006, it became a bookstore, and is easily one of the most beautiful in the world. The vaulted ceilings allowed the designers of the book store to build up, using the space in a way that incorporates the original design. Frescos on the walls and ceiling can be viewed from the second story of bookshelves, and there is a cafe inside that lets you sit and read or just soak it all in.

What ties these store together

Thinking about all four of these bookstores, it became obvious to me why they are so well known, even cherished. They are not mere retailers, but something else entirely. City Lights and Shakespeare and Company are active supporters of authors, giving them both somewhere to publish and reach an audience, well as sustaining them through the act of creation. They are the nurturing ground for literature, as well as a magnet for those who appreciate it. And El Ateneo and Boekhandel Dominicanen take this appreciation to entirely new levels by elevating the written word, through their grand settings, to remind us that within the dusty volumes on the shelf are works of art no less fabulous than an impressive statue or painting.

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The City & the City

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As you likely already know, I like to write reviews of backlist books that I think are important for people to read. A lot of what I’ve reviewed is connected to Afghanistan, the setting of my recently published novel. In this case, I want to draw your attention to one of my favourite novels, which incidentally also has a lot to teach writers. 

“The City & the City” by China Mieville was published in 2009, and was made into a BBC Two mini-series last year. The novel was highly acclaimed – it won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the Arthur C Clarke Award, the World Fantasy Award, the BSFA Award and tied for the Hugo Award for Best novel, among other honours.

But hold, you might be asking yourself – is it a sci fi or fantasy novel? And therein lies part of the lesson Mieville has for us. If I had to assign it to a genre at all, I would say that it is neither sci fi or fantasy. To me, it is clearly a work of noir or pulp fiction, heavily influenced by the police procedural.

Mieville himself both dislikes and embraces the idea of genres. His oeuvre as a whole has been described as “new weird,” harkening back to writers like H.P. Lovecraft and publications like “Weird Tales.” He’s been quoted as saying that he wants to write a novel in every genre, though his works both adhere to the strictures of genre while also mixing them, and in doing so breaking down the barriers between them

You get a sense of Mieville as a person by a glance at his resume. He is both a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Marxist. He ran for Parliament as a member of the Socialist Workers Party, but became a founding member of the “Left Unity” party. He has a PhD from the London School of Economics, and as a writer, but make a living as a novelist. He practically defines the term “polymath.”

What first attracted me to “The City & the City” was the philosophical idea at the heart of the story’s setting. The story begins in the city of Besźel, a fictional place somewhere in Eastern Europe. What makes it unique is that the city occupies much of the same physical space as another city, Ul Qoma. At some point in their history the two cities split from each other, and now some parts of each city are considered “total,” or entirely in one city or the other, while others are considered “crosshatched,” where the overlap. Citizens of each city are trained from birth to “unsee” the other city and its inhabitants, even though they may be sharing the same streets. Those who “breach” between the cities are disappeared by a shadowy police force, ensuring the separation of the two cities. The video above is a tourist guide that explains the concept in a bit more detail.

While some have said that this element of the setting is an allegory for East and West Berlin, I don’t think so. In that divided city, the boundary was physically absolute, and there was little cultural difference between the two sides. I think that the story of Besźeland Ul Qomaalludes instead to many different conflicts in the world where there is division, but also a sharing and overlapping of culture, such as in Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia or in Jerusalem and the West Bank. But it is also an allegory for the conditions of almost every modern city, where we ignore the things we prefer not to see, be that the homeless who share our spaces or the “tourist traps” ignored by locals.

But Mieville is able to transcend the genre that his setting might suggest, because it does not drive the story. At its heart, it is still a police procedural, where Inspector Tyador Borlú investigates a murder, and the novel works in every way as such. The twist and turns of Borlú’s efforts to solve the mystery are satisfying regardless of the setting.

What makes this such a great book, though, is neither the setting nor the plot. I believe that it is the themes that Mieville is able to explore throughout the novel- such as the concepts of personal identity, othering, corruption, and post-modernism. These themes are what elevate his work to the novel of award winning art, although he skillfully uses the story and setting, as well as elements of all the genres that this novel touches on, to do so. And so the lesson here for writers is this: don’t get bogged down with the idea of trying to write within a genre, or defining yourself as a genre writer. Plots are important to drive a story, but they are not the story itself.

Themes are what make a work interesting, because they explore that thing that is at the heart of every great story in ways that setting and character and plot cannot: themes expose the truth.

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Traces of Alexander the Great

Afghanistan has suffered from many invasions over the millennia, but perhaps the most famous of them all is that of Alexander the Great and his armies. I was familiar with this episode in history before I first visited Afghanistan, though my knowledge grew as I walked the ground. Something I began to wonder, however, was whether there was any aspect of that history that still remained to be seen today. Did Alexander’s passing leave any marks that have survived over two millennia?

Although the most invaluable source of information I had were my Afghan friends who were all too eager to share their knowledge of the history of their country, there is another source that bears mentioning. Nancy Hatch Dupree was an American historian whose work was focused on Afghanistan. She lived in the country from 1962 until she was forced to leave by the Soviet invasion in 1979, and again from 2005 until 2017. Her tourist guide book, “An Historical Guide to Kabul,” is the definitive source on the country’s sights. Despite having been written in 1970, I found it immensely useful to understand the country’s cultural history.

The Achaemenid Empire

First, some history.

Alexander’s invasion of Afghanistan was actually only a part of his greater war against the Persian Empire. Darius I had conquered much of modern day Afghanistan and compelled it to become part of the Achaemenid (or First Persian) Empire. Darius divided his conquest into satrapies – Aria (based around modern Herat), Arachosia (stretching between Kandahar, Lashkar Gah, Bamiyan and Quetta), Bactriana (Balkh), Sattagydia (Ghazni) and Gandhara (including Kabul, Jalalabad and Peshawar). Many of these divisions are based on intervening mountain ranges that still confound travellers there today.

Alexander fought Darius III from 334 to 331 BCE, finally defeating him utterly at the Battle of Gaugamela (near modern day Dohuk, Kurdistan, Iraq). Darius III fled, and was imprisoned and then stabbed to death by one of his commanders, Bessus. With the death of Darius III, Alexander proclaimed himself the heir to the imperial throne, though Bessus claimed the same. Bessus, who had been the governor of Bactria, took the royal name of Artaxerxes V and retreated to his home. It was to defeat Bessus/Artaxerxes that Alexander invaded the easternmost provinces of the empire in 330 BCE. He remained there until 326 BCE, at which point he launched his ill-fated invasion of India.

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Alexander’s Campaign in Afghanistan

Chasing after Bessus, Alexander first accepted the surrender of the governor of Aria, before following the royal road northeast towards Bactria. Although the route of that road has been lost, it is likely that it follows at least some of the path of modern Highway 1 just due to the terrain. He was soon forced to turn back, as the population of Aria rebelled and he was forced to return to defeat them in a brutal campaign of destruction.

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The Modern City of Herat

The last holdout to defy Alexander in Aria was the city of Artacoana, which Alexander besieged and defeated. Shortly after his victory, he created a military garrison nearby, which he named Alexandria Areion. The exact location of Artacoana is unknown, but it is believed to be in the vicinity of the modern city of Herat. Alexandria Areion was built on the ruins of a Persian fortress that Alexander ordered to be destroyed. At the heart of the city lies a citadel built by the Timurid ruler Kart Malik Fakhruddin in 1305 CE. Although local custom is that this citadel was built over top of the one built by Alexander, to date no proof of this has been found.

[image error]The “Citadel of Alexander” in Farah.



Alexandria Prophthasia

From Aria, Alexander then travelled southeast, again possibly following the track of modern Highway 1. This region was known as Dragiana, and here he “founded” the city of Alexandria Prophthasia, building a citadel and leaving a large number of Greek soldiers, mercenaries and their families to secure the region. Dragiana was a well-organized and heavily populated Persian province, and so the settlement that Alexander founded would have been alongside an already existing town. The exact location is unknown, but it is thought to correspond with the modern settlements of Farah, Zaranj or elsewhere. An ancient fortress on the edge of Farah is known locally as the “Citadel of Alexander,” but its use stretches back at least 2500 years, long before Alexander’s arrival, and there is no evidence to tie it to him.

[image error]Old City of Kandahar as photographed in 1881.



The Modern City of Kandahar

From Alexandria Prophthasia, Alexander’s armies travelled eastward to another well-established city, Arachosia. This truly ancient city was already large by 2400 BCE, its culture linked to the Harappan and Indus Valley civilizations. Of all the cities “founded” by Alexander in Afghanistan, this is the one that is most commonly known as such, as “Kandahar” is thought to be a corruption of his name in Greek: “Iskandar.”

Old Kandahar, in the western portion of the city, certainly dates back to the era when Alexander invaded. As with the previous settlements he created, he is reported to have built a citadel and garrisoned it with Greek troops and their families. It is possible that he built his citadel on the foundation of an earlier Persian fortress, and that it was improved multiple times by successive conquerors before finally being destroyed by the Persian army of Nadir Shah Afshar in 1738. In any case, nothing in the ruins today appears to date from the time of Alexander.

[image error]Image of the Ashoka tablet from the Kabul Museum.

Visiting Kandahar, I was shown proof of this by an Afghan friend of mine, eager to demonstrate the city’s long history.  He showed me a photo of a stone inscription that had been found in Kandahar, written in ancient Greek. He did not know what it said, but it seemed proof of the Greek origins of the city. My own research has revealed that this stone is very significant, but not in the way that we thought. 

It is a fragment of a list of the 14 edicts of the Emperor Ashoka, who ruled most of modern day India and Pakistan from 268 to 232 BCE. Ashoka was a Buddhist, and the edicts dictate that his subjects are to live in accordance with Buddhist thought. The fact that it was written in Greek indicates that the population of Kandahar still contained members of the garrison that Alexander left there (or their descendants), but the engraving is not linked to Alexander himself. It was part of the collection of the Kabul Museum, but was lost when the museum was looted during the civil war.

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Kalat-i-Ghilzai

Alexander continued to march through Afghanistan, turning northward towards where Bessos had gathered his supporters. Although it is commonly said that he “founded” cities at Kalat-i-Ghlizai (modern day Qalat) and Alexandria Caucasus (near modern day Bagram), it is more correct to say that he established garrisons beside existing settlements. The fortress that dominates the skyline above Qalat is possibly built on the site of Alexander’s garrison, though the ruins found there today are much more modern and there has been no archaeological link found. The garrison near Bagram was built next to the ancient city of Kapisa, which had been settled since at least the 5thcentury BCE, and later became famous as the centre of the trade in wine. The garrison’s location is unknown, but it may have been at the location of a rectangular earthwork found about 3 km northeast of Bagram air force base.

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The Modern City of Balkh

In June of 329 BCE, Alexander’s army reached the capital of Bactria, the city of Bactra (now Balkh). Settled sometime between 2000 and 1500 BCE, it was known in Arabic as the Umm Al-Belaad or “Mother of All Cities” due to its age. When Alexander arrived, Bactra was a major, cosmopolitan city. It was a major centre of Zoroastrianism (Zoroaster himself lived and died there), and later Buddhism as well. An ancient Jewish community also existed in the city when Alexander arrived, with tradition stating that the prophet Jeremiah was buried there (in the 6thcentury BCE). Visiting there myself, an Afghan friend pointed out a collapsed section of city wall that he swore was where Alexander’s army had breached it. This is unlikely to be true, as contemporary chroniclers say that the city surrendered to him without a fight.

The town today is a mere shadow of its former self, as the city was destroyed in 1220 by the hordes of Genghis Khan and never fully rebuilt. The ruins of the Bala Hissar to the north of the modern town do not seem to predate the Kushan period, long after the Greek kingdom established here by Alexander’s troops had been extinguished, and so the location of the ancient city that surrendered to Alexander is unknown.

Bessus fled Balkh ahead of Alexander, forcing him to cross the Oxus river to the north to give chase. Alexander did not meet Bessus in battle, however, as he was betrayed by his own soldiers and handed over to Alexander as a prisoner. Bessus’ exact fate is unclear, but whatever the means and location, Alexander had him put to death as a pretender to the Persian throne.

Alexandria Oxus



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Contemporary records describe Alexander as founding the city of Alexandria Oxus in 328 BCE, though given his previous record, it had been thought that this meant adding a Greek garrison to an existing city. The location of Alexandria Oxus was not known, until the discovery in the 1960s of a set of ruins in a remote part of northern Takhar province at the confluence of the Panj and Kokcha rivers, both tributaries of the Amu Darya (as the Oxus is now known). These ruins included ramparts over two miles long, a classical theatre that seated 4-6000 people, a massive gymnasium dedicated to Hermes and Herakles, and temples to Zeus and others. It would have sat at the crossroads of trade through the region, and is also in an area where both gold and gemstones are mined. Scholars have argued about whether this Greek settlement is Alexandria Oxus or a later one, but sadly the site has been extensively looted, and so it may not be possible to settle the debate. It is agreed that the city was destroyed by Kushan raiders around 145 BCE.

Alexander’s Departure

Returning to Afghanistan after a successful campaign against the Scythians to the north, Alexander intended to continue to grow his empire. What he found instead was that the Sogdians and Scythians who he thought he had subjugated continued to rise up against him, leading to a series of fruitless campaigns in modern day Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Eventually, he delegated the pacification of the region to a subordinate commander, and turned his full attention to the invasion of India instead. When that was unsuccessful, he turned back towards home, dying in Babylon in 323 BCE.

Despite my efforts to research Alexander’s campaign and to visit the locations of significant events, I’ve discovered that there is almost no trace of his passing remains. The real lasting influence of his campaign through Afghanistan was created by the Greek soldiers and families he left behind to garrison his empire, whose culture lasted for another three centuries after his death. These garrisons created a syncretic culture that gave the world the Greco-Buddhist style of sculpture, architecture and wall-painting, later examples of which still exist in eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. Successive regimes in Afghanistan have tried to erase some of the country’s pre-Islamic culture (the most famous example being the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban), but the remnants of Alexander’s army actually created an incredibly import and interesting part of world history that shouldn’t be forgotten.

If you are interested in reading a fictional account of Alexander’s invasion, I highly recommend “The Afghan Campaign” by Steven Pressfield.    Although told from the perspective of a lowly foot soldier, it give an excellent feel for the campaign and its challenges as a whole. To learn more about Greco-Buddhist art, I’d recommend “Buddhist Art: An Historical and Cultural Journey” by Giles Beguin.  

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The Link between Walking and Creativity

“All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

There is a link between the act of walking and creativity that, once many writers discover it, becomes a key part of their artistic practice. Countless writers, from J.K. Rowling to Ernest Hemingway, count walking as one of the most effective aids in their toolbox to either generate new ideas or break through writer’s block.

Although this has long been part of writing lore, more recently, it has also been proven to be scientifically true. A much quoted study from Stanford University found that walking boosts an individuals creative output by about 60% – though of course that comes with caveats. Many of the details of this study can be found in the very engaging TEDx talk below.M

Somewhat counterintuitively, the study found that the most important factor in boosting creativity was the act of walking itself – whether outdoors in a pleasant environment or indoors on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No matter the environment that the walking took place in, the results were the same. Intriguingly, participants who were pushed in wheelchairs along the same route as the walkers enjoyed none of the benefits.

The caveat to the study, though, is that the researchers were focused on only one aspect of creativity – brainstorming. Other creative work that required greater focus, examined in a later study, did not show the same benefits from walking.

It’s not understood exactly why walking produces this effect on brainstorming, but it is theorized that there may be a link to the way that our brains evolved as upright, bipedal walkers. This form of walking requires alternating use of the left and right hemispheres of the brain as each controls different sides of the body. Creative writing (and other creative pursuits) also require both sides to work in harmony. The logical/left hemisphere of the brain is involved in things such as language and memory, while the right/creative hemisphere is often associated with originality and insight. Both elements must be involved in order to brainstorm and express new concepts.

Science aside, within the history of the arts there also exists the idea of the “flâneur,” an archetype of 19thcentury literature found in the works of Charles Baudelaire, and popularized by the philosopher and essayist Walter Benjamin.

A “flâneur” is variously translated in English as a “stroller,” “meanderer” or a “loafer” – someone who wanders more or less aimlessly, observing life. In the original context of practicing “flânerie,” this meant wandering the streets of Paris, observing both the eternal and the transient aspects of urban life. A more modern version of this idea would be the street photographer, whose keen skills of observation and presence in normal life allow them to find extraordinary images amongst ordinary things.

And it is perhaps in this combination of two activities – walking and observing – that creates the most fertile ground for an artists’s creativity, beyond just brainstorming. Being an acute observer is a foundational skill for a writer, and the more of life one can experience, the more opportunities there are for observations that can be drawn upon. An interesting book written about the long history of writing, thinking and walking is “The Art of Wandering” by Merlin Coverley.

Western culture puts a lot of focus on productivity, and so particularly when we are working to a deadline, it can feel like the right thing to do is to simply work or try harder. We’ve all had the experience, though, of this producing the opposite effect. Perhaps, then, this is the wrong approach, and when you next find yourself with writer’s block, have the discipline to put down your metaphorical pen and consider going for a walk instead.

I can personally attest that practicing the art of flânerie has led to some of my best ideas. 

“I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understand the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering.“

– Henry David Thoreau

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Review: Moth Smoke

Mohsin Hamid’s 2000 debut novel “Moth Smoke” is a rare example of transgressive South Asian fiction, and does an incredible job of showing how the conflicts within a society come to be mirrored within individuals as well.

Unlike Mohammed Hanif’s satirical look at Pakistani society in “A Case of Exploding Mangoes,” none of the characters in “Moth Smoke” are the least interested in religion. This simple fact undercuts nearly everything that a Western audience has come to expect from countries within the “Islamic world.”

Moths destroyed by the flame

The story follows Daru Shezad, a junior banker who is socially a part of the elite society in Lahore that he cannot truly afford to join. When he loses his job, the begins his descent into jealousy, drug addiction, adultery and murder. The wife of his best friend, with whom he is having an affair, is also pulled downward, both risking being burnt up like the titular moths attracted to the flame.

Daru’s insecurity, financial and personal, as he exists on the fringes of elite society mirror that of Pakistani society as a whole. Daru describes Pakistani divided into two groups – those sweaty masses who exist without air conditioning, and the elite who create an air conditioned world of homes, car and offices in which they can defy nature itself. At a national level, he paints Pakistani society as flirting with their own destruction, again like he and the moth, by testing a nuclear device aimed at “winning” any future conflict with rival India.

The reason that Pakistani society is failing in the novel, both at a national and an individual level, is selfishness. Just as Daru’s decisions are aimed at gaining immediate and maximum pleasure, the consequences be damned, great swathes of society are shown to be doing the same. The entire Pakistani elite have essentially opted out of the functioning of Pakistani society – driving 4×4 cars rather than investing in public road maintenance, attending foreign universities rather than supporting local ones – leaving the masses and the public institutions that they rely on to fend for themselves. Hamid makes it clear that the only result of this strategy is that central budgets get smaller and the state gets weaker, until it inevitably collapses.

Hamid’s unique point of view

Hamid was himself educated abroad and splits his time between the US, Europe and Lahore. This allows him to give us an insiders view of elite Pakistani society in Lahore, but with an outsiders insight and cutting wit.

“Moth Smoke” is well worth a read if you are interested in transgressive fiction, modern South Asia, or just a nuanced character study of those whose moral superiority is match only by their own moral failings. You can read an excerpt here, or find it for sale here.

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