Andaleeb Wajid's Blog, page 9

Short story or novel

A quick look at the bookstore shelves today will show you hundreds and hundreds of new novels coming out every month. Authors are always penning novels hoping that this one might be it -the one that will push them beyond the boundaries of fame. But exactly how many books or collections of short stories will you find? A miniscule number compared to full length novels. This is indeed a real tragedy because short stories are such fun to read. You don't have to read them sequentially. You can pick up one in the middle of the book or the very last and put it down after you've finished reading the story entirely. Do you think that's possible with a novel? (I'm a bit of a purist by the way. I cannot start reading a book from the middle, even if it's a collection of short stories.)

I was around 20 when I first wrote Rendezvous at Tea, a short story that won me a prize at a local competition but it wasn't the first time I'd written a short story. I've been writing them since I was fifteen, showing it to friends and sometimes to teachers in the hopes of getting them critiqued. But Rendezvous at Tea turned things around for me completely. I understood the genre of the short story much better than ever.

Thanks to a few well meaning and older friends like Rehmat, Kavita and Daksha, I was soon surrounded with wonderful books, some novels and some collections of short stories. I read Jhumpa Lahiri's collection of stories, 'Interpreter of Maladies' long before it became fashionable to read contemporary Indian fiction (read- mostly penned by Bengali authors). I loved Jhumpa's style and her easy way of narration and yet she left each story with a sense of wonder at the end. Then I moved on to reading Chitra Bannerjee's 'Arranged Marriage' and this was again, before a majority of people discovered that she had written Mistress of Spices that was turned into the awful movie with Aishwarya. I must admit that Arranged Marriage was a far, far more superior book.

Daksha also lent me a book by Raymond Carver, one of the most well known short story writers in America. Unfortunately, I feel the book didn't deliver its promise to me because I couldn't understand most of the stories. I'd like to give him a chance again one day to read those books again and see what I make of them.

The point of all this is that, yes, I've been involved with writing short stories for a long time. Then why did I move to writing novels? By 2003, I had written around 7 short stories which really touched a deep chord inside. I tried finding publishers for them but that was when I learnt that in India, the market for short stories is not as good as it is for novels.

One publisher, Jamuna Rao of Dronequill actually suggested that I string my short stories together and make it into a novel. The idea at first seemed absurd but I was tempted with the thought of writing a full length novel. I started with a short story that I had written about feuding brothers and it was my favourite one so far. As I continued, the story began to take shape and I included one more story along the way. But after that, the book began writing itself and there was no place for any of the other short stories. That was how Kite Strings was born.

Today, there are publishers who still publish short stories. There's Penguin who brought out Kalpana Swaminathan's Venus Crossing (which won the Crossword Vodafone award last year) and Rupa, which publishes Shinie Antony's collections of short stories such as Barefoot and Pregnant (I yet have to read both) so there's still hope for short story writers. Another famed book is Lavanya Sankaran's The Red Carpet which also hit the jackpot with the general public and with sales. Unisun also runs yearly competitions with some fantastic prizes for the winners and they get to be a part of their anthology as well.

Today I feel that while a novel might get you fame and money (if you're lucky) the true test of a writer is to write the perfect short story.

Believe me, short stories are not easy to write. They have challenges of space and time and in around five to six pages, you have to set the scene, help the audience connect with the characters, throw in a problem and help the characters resolve it without losing the audience.

Words have to be used succinctly in a short story for these very time and space constraints. You can get descriptive but not in a leisurely way. The reader has to get your gist fast or they'll shut the book and move on to something else. See? It's not easy at all. With a novel, the reader gets comfortable knowing that you're going to spin them a story and you can take your time (not literally) but with a short story, things soon spiral out of control for you.

If you're a new writer, start with a short story but do move on to writing a novel as well. The short story is like the stepping stone for every writer. At the bookstore or library, look for short story collections and pick them up. See how the writer has crafted each story like a unique gem and learn. I intend to do just that. As soon as I finish writing my fourth novel of course!

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I've added a new page on the website called Short Stories where I've put up some of my old short stories. Take a look!

The First Line

There are various reasons for which a book gets picked up by a prospective reader. It could be that the jacket is enticing or the name has intrigued the person. It could also be that they have read the blurb at the back and find the book interesting. But the surest way to get your hook into the reader is to make sure you have a kickass first line.

Consider for instance some of these well known classics –

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way – Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

I am an invisible man. – Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

You better not never tell nobody but God. – Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. – Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

See what I mean? These lines capture your interest immediately propelling you into the lives of the protagonists and soon you're turning pages avidly, living the story with them, biting your nails through the action and unable to put down the book until you've finished it. (This may not be the case with many books as I myself am aware of it. Someone should coin another phrase about not judging a book by its first line.) Nevertheless, the first line is a tight hook that reels the reader in.

If you are a writer, the first line is where you probably get stuck. You don't know how best to start the book and since there's so much promise about the first line reeling in a reader, how do you make it work? All this can put quite a lot of pressure on the writer who is already worrying about writer's block and facing a lot of nervousness at even attempting a book or a short story.

Well, I do not have the answers. But I can tell you what I usually do.

Grabbing interest – Grab the interest of the reader immediately by making a statement which intrigues them. Obviously, 'it was a dark and stormy night' is not going to do it. You have your characters in your mind and a plot in place. Put them in the centre of the action on the very first page and start your first line from the anywhere in the middle. Today one does not have to chronologically give the reader a beginning, middle or end. Start at the middle and then continue to give the reader some background. Weave back and forth but just make sure you do not get confused or confuse the reader.
Shock element – Shock the reader by starting the book with something completely unexpected. See the first line of Kafka's Metamorphosis to know what I mean. Obviously you're going to read and see whether this man really has turned into an insect or the writer is just trying to trick you.
Dialogue – Depending on the kind of book you're writing, it can even start with a dialogue between two characters. This puts the reader bang into the middle of it and they're involved before they even know it. By the way, I've used this technique in Blinkers Off. It starts with this line 'Is it like Hum Aap Ke Hain Kaun?'
Intrigue – An intriguing first line promises the reader a glimpse into the book before they have even started it. The reader knows that something will happen to the characters shortly and they're going to be around to see that happen, if you're lucky. A quick aside here. My book Kite Strings was reviewed in Deccan Herald by Ms. Prema Nandakumar. We corresponded for a while regarding the review and she had mentioned that she was addressing a seminar on writing where she used my book as an example and I quote "Yesterday the inaugural talk went off very well and a 100-strong student audience liked it when I gave your novel as an example of getting the right symbol to put an idea across and how this is very important, as are the opening and closing sentences in any work of fiction." Naturally I was very thrilled. Also, when I had attending a creative writing workshop last year with students of Inventure Academy who had been given just the first chapter of my book, they all said that the first line caught their attention. Read the first chapter of Kite Strings here.

So far, these are the ways I know to capture the interest of your reader. Any other favourite first lines or techniques from fellow writers are most welcome!