The Critters : An international collaboration

Two years back, when I was writing a book called Chakra, Chronicles of the Witch Way, I met Grace.

I am a member of an online writing community and put in a request for a beta reader.  The rules were simple.  Both the other writer and I would critique each other’s work, chapter by chapter.  We would help each other, lend each other a shoulder to cry one, freak out, help each other when the inspiration dried out etc.

Grace responded to my mail.  All I knew was that she was American, a proof reader and was also writing a fantasy.  She very kindly agreed to beta my work on conditions of reciprocity.

And then the fun began.

Chakra is a tale about Japas and Japnis, people who have managed to harness their chakras (energy centres) which enables them to play with elements like wind, water, fire and air.  It is very vedic in flavor.  Grace belongs to the Bible belt.  She was fascinated by the concept of energy centers in our bodies.  She was writing a tale about an angel, a rebellious one at that!

At first we were completely at sea.

I sent her a chapter about Samaira and Sandeep (whom I had named Sami and Sandy for short.)  She got confused.  Why do they have similar sounding names?

Umm, we normally keep similar sounding names for siblings, I explained.

Confusing, she said.

I thought about it.  It was a valid point.  So my characters became Sami and Deep.

She asked me if she should name her main lead Matthew or should he be Matt.  He is rebellious, she explained.  I had no clue to how Matthew could not be a rebel but Matt could.  But to me Matt sounded good and I said so.

By the second chapter we were into each other’s work, but again the yawning cultural gap kicked in.  Angels are asexual.  It made no sense to me.  I argued, ‘How can you have a main lead who does not have human impulses?  How will a reader identify with a character like that?’

Thankfully it made sense to Grace.

I liked her main lead, Matt.  He was the badass who broke bones and healed them too!  Useful bloke to have around.  Hewas naked in the first chapter and needed clothes, and reminded me of Clark Kent when he fell down to earth.  Nice beginning.

She is a proof reader and every single typo jumped out to her.  And she was strict about POVs.  She never let me stray on them.  But it was not strictly work.  We discussed a lot of other things.  While telling me that the POV of my chapter jumped from one character to another and sweetly asked me if it was spring here.

Which of course led to an extended talk about the weather – it was autumn here.  I told her we had 8 months of summer in Delhi and she said she found 4 months that they had of summer hard.

Grace, I found out at that stage used French and Spanish as second language.  For us, whichever part of India we belong to, whatever our mother tongue is, we use English to communicate across state-lines.  We got to discussing that, and learnt a lot about each other.

We kept up a steady communication by mail; she celebrated Halloween and me Diwali.  By now, I knew that Matt was a guardian angel and she knew that I was writing about witches and warlocks (Japa and Japni I called them.)

She called back her first chapter and fleshed it out, adding conflict between angels.  It made the first chapter much more interesting.  I realized that our heaven is not simple.  Our gods and goddesses have personalities which may or may not gel with one another, it makes good stories.  Having one Almighty God makes heaven a very orderly place – and for an Indian, a bit alien.

Her main lead, Matt by now was a sexual being, and he had old angst, resentments and a huge chip on his shoulder.  I loved him, and suggested that he should be a teenager.  My characters were headlong in their adventure.  In short, we were being productive.   I kept on building the story, layer by layer; chapter by chapter, eager to know what Grace would make of it.  She was fascinated by the culture which to her was alien.

We had a brief hiatus sometime after December.  She was embroiled in a fight with her “renter” as she called the woman who was her tenant.  I kept pestering her for updates, fascinated by all the drama which involved lawyers and the fact that the tenant had not put up curtains.

Her guardian angel was in love with a female guardian angel of sorts who oozed sensuality.  I liked that.  One of my witches had gone mad and was being tempted to safety by a biscuit.  She laughed. We call them cookies here, she explained.

I learnt a lot from Grace, about POVs, about descriptions of rooms, of the scenes.  What does it look like?  How does poori taste?  What does it feel like?She always asked these questions and I tried to explain.

By April, my story was done.  She wanted to re-do hers.  We finally lost touch …

Or so I thought

In a few months, she got in touch with me again.  She had roped in three other writers, one from Australia, one from Africa, another from a country that I forget.

Let’s make a critiquing group, she said.

So we are at it again. The Critters as we call ourselves.  And I am learning a lot from other writers in the group, not only on honing and polishing my craft, but also gaining insight on how they live life.

This post is a part of Makemyhome activity at BlogAdda.com