Becoming a famous writer

Catharsis (noun, uncountable, countable) (plural catharses): the process of releasing strong feelings, for example through plays or other artistic activities, as a way of providing relief from anger, suffering, etc.

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, © OUP, 2010

Thanks to my colleague Smita, I had the privilege of addressing a group of students in a creative writing class yesterday. It was a session on blogging, but ultimately, it turned out to be an interaction between eight aspiring authors and another. I told them I was just like them, I too am a writer in search of readers and publishers. In course of the discussion, the inevitable question cropped up: how does one become a “famous” writer?

Arundhati Roy

I said I didn’t know as I am lightyears away from becoming anything like that. I didn’t tell them, but I also believe becoming a famous author depends largely on luck, just as in any other field of creative work, from music to bank robbery. For example, The God of Small Things was rejected by three or more publishers before it was accepted by India Ink. Had Arundhati Roy been rejected by some more, maybe, we would never have had read a modern masterpiece. And I am absolutely certain that lots of equally fine manuscripts are lying in eternal sleep in cold dark drawers in various corners of the world, in countless pyramids of anonymity.

I also told them the story of an author who had taken a vow at the age of 23 that he wouldn’t earn a penny through anything other than writing. In the process, he didn’t take up a job and suffered tremendously. There are apocryphal tales that he even collected empty beer bottles in the streets of Paris at night to eke out a living. But ultimately, he managed to support himself financially when he turned 46, after his second novel came out. Who was he?

Well, the author was Gabriel García Márquez and the novel was One Hundred Years of Solitude.

I know, a Márquez is born perhaps once in a century, and it’s stupid to compare us ordinary mortals with the likes of Márquez. However, even ordinary practitioners of the craft can become writers only if we have a streak of Márquez in us. Yes, you will never become a writer if you don’t have a tremendous, overpowering urge to write, unless it is impossible for you to live without writing. It must become a kind of physical compulsion, like hunger.

And finally, let’s turn our attention to becoming famous. When I started writing seriously at the age of fifty, I wanted to become famous, to become another Rushdie or Amitav Ghosh. If anyone told you that they began writing without aspiring to be famous, they were lying. Yes, it is impossible to think of becoming a writer without the concomitant lures of glitz and glamour. And there is nothing wrong about it, it’s just one of the weaknesses that make human beings so endearing.  

In the last fourteen years, I haven’t lost my faith. I still believe I can become a decent writer. But the lure of money and stardom faded quickly as I discovered a fascinating truth: Writing is its own reward. The pleasure that you get when you think you have written a wonderful piece is unique, it is different from everything else, incomparable. Yet, it can be as fine as drinking the best of wines, as exhilarating as having sex.

And equally importantly, it helps you to come to terms with yourself. I’ll end this article with a real life story to tell you how wonderful writing can be.

Of the few hats that I wear, one is working as a content writer for a friend who runs a small firm that supplies its products to a large company, let’s say called ABC. ABC tries to squeeze every drop of blood from its suppliers, but being small, my friend doesn’t have a choice. Recently, at a vendors’ meeting called by ABC, I accompanied my friend to a sumptuous lunch. But I had no appetite for food after I heard the honcho of the company and his two sidekicks address the vendors.

Ah! What arrogance and what deep disdain for lesser mortals. We had to sit through a two-hour harangue that described how incompetent the participants were and how they could become better human beings. The speakers seriously didn’t believe there was any shortcoming on their part, that they could improve anything. Somehow, they had acquired an abiding faith that they had already reached the nirvana of corporate governance … there was nothing for them to do other than sermonizing the poor idiots sitting in front.  

I also noticed that arrogance is inversely proportional to the individual’s position in the hierarchy. If the big boss was plain stupid and arrogant, the second was sarcastic. The third was just despicable.

Since that meeting I was feeling a bit low. I was feeling bad for my friend, but more importantly, I was wondering why “successful people” could be so crass, so self-opinionated, so arrogant. Does it happen in all companies, or is it a malady specific to organisations?

I know without an iota of doubt that the answer is no, although it is largely true, because profit, that is, greed is the driving force behind capitalism. But returning to my original premises, I feel relaxed now. The depression is gone. Over the last hour or so, I have been coming to terms with myself while writing this.

Dear Young Writers, keep writing, writing can also be catharsis.

Gabriel García Márquez

Kolkata / Thursday, 21 January 2016

Notes to my students and me: Life writing!

As a teacher, I often learn from my students more than what I teach teach them. My learning happens in many different ways and it usually it goes far beyond the classroom.

Last night, I was checking some papers – essays written by my students. It was an essay they had to write in 40 minutes and they had to write at least 250 words. I found two scripts where the writers wrote far below their capacity because they wrote too much. They seemed to be in a tearing hurry to write whatever they knew and had to say on the topic. Should you do this, particularly if you have to complete the task within a given time-frame?

The answer obviously is a big NO. If you tried something like that, you would commit avoidable errors and have no time to check the work in the end. Besides, since you were trying to cover far too many points, you wouldn’t be able to develop them adequately or offer evidence to prove them. So your essay could well be a hodgepodge of semi-developed ideas and taste like uncooked biriyani. Whatever great ideas you might have would be wasted. Just as the finest basmati rice would be, if it wasn’t cooked properly!

So dear Students, whenever you have to write an essay, do write slowly. Write only as much as you can within the given time. Give your brain the time to process and organise thoughts and give your fingers the opportunity to write neatly. First, decide what the most important points are, and then think: how many of them can you write down neatly in the given time, leaving a few minutes for checking in the end? In any exam, it is the quality of your writing that matters primarily. The quantity matters too – but that’s far too secondary.

*

When I opened my eyes this morning, I was thinking about these answer sheets. Suddenly, my long to-do list flashed before my eyes. And then the penny dropped. Don’t we commit the same mistake in life all the time? Aren’t we trying to do far too many things than what our time and energy would permit? Is everything that I think is important really important? Can I have less worries and more peace? Less junk and more quality?

How many of the things to do in my list really matter?  Let me strike off half of them, for good!

Kolkata

Wednesday, 05 August 2015

Writing on writing 3

Writing in paragraphs

In the previous essay on this blog (Writing on Writing 2, Notes on how to write articles or essays) we have seen how we should plan our essay – think of the readers, identify relevant points, and put them in a structure. In this essay, I am going to discuss how we can convey our message clearly by writing sleek paragraphs. But before I go on, let me ask you a question. These are two images of the same article. Which one of them would you prefer to read and why?

 I am sure you would vote for the second image. You would prefer to read it because it is easier to read paragraphs separated by a blank line in between. But is the issue only about comfort of your eyes?

The anatomy of a paragraph

The answer obviously is NO. If you write in paragraphs, it is a lot easier for your reader to follow your arguments. And that brings us to the question: What is a paragraph? It would be a good idea if instead of reading the definition you define the term yourself. Please write down the definition of “paragraph”, or write it in your head before you read ahead.

…

And once you’ve done so, you’ll see your definition is very close to this: A paragraph is a section of a piece of writing usually consisting of number of sentences that deal with a single idea.

So that’s it. A paragraph is a packet containing a single idea. When you write, make sure that you don’t put two different ideas in a single paragraph.  If you follow this rule, you will win half the battle. In order to win the other half, let’s ask ourselves the question: What is the anatomy of a paragraph? To put it simply, does every paragraph contain similar sections?

The answer is: not always, but usually they do. And often, a paragraph has four sections. The main section is the single idea on which you are writing the paragraph. You write a sentence or two to describe the central idea of a paragraph. In all, a paragraph usually has the following parts.

1.       The main idea in a sentence or two, which is/are called topic sentence(s)

2.       Sentences leading to the topic sentence(s) or the main idea

3.       Supporting ideas – very often, they are evidence in support of the main idea.

4.       A sentence to establish a link with the following paragraph.

Please remember: this is only a general pattern. Every paragraph doesn’t have all these elements and neither do they always come in the above order.

Also note that the fourth element above is an essential ingredient of fine writing. It makes the difference between lucid writing and boring writing as it creates “curiosity” in the mind of the reader to continue reading and find out what lies ahead. If you don’t bring in this element consciously, there is every chance that your reader won’t bother to continue till the end.

Dissecting a paragraph

We are going to read a report on a cricket match between Bangladesh and South Africa. Here is the first paragraph of the report:

Of late, I’ve hated watching cricket primarily because rather than sport it’s now more of showbiz. An awful lot of hoopla is created around the game (at least in India) and public opinion is manipulated to ensure enormous TV viewership. And just as any business has ruthless practitioners who would break any rules – moral or legal – to maximize profit, cricket too has its share of con-men, a well-known fact that has just become official thanks to the recent indictment of some big names who ran the business in India. But last night, I loved watching Bangladesh destroy the mighty South Africans in Chittagong. And this is how it unfolded.

Can you identify the four elements in this paragraph? Here is my take:

Topic sentences	Of late, I’ve hated watching cricket primarily because rather than sport it’s now more of showbiz. … But last night, I loved watching Bangladesh destroy the mighty South Africans in Chittagong.
Introductory sentences	There are no introductory sentence in this paragraph
Supporting sentences or evidence	An awful lot of hoopla is created around the game (at least in India) and public opinion is manipulated to ensure enormous TV viewership. And just as any business has ruthless practitioners who would break any rules – moral or legal – to maximize profit, cricket too has its share of con-men, a well-known fact that has just become official thanks to the recent indictment of some big names who ran the business in India.
Connecting sentence	And this is how it unfolded.

Let’s now move on to the next paragraph of the story.

While returning from my workplace, I saw on my phone – South Africa was at a little over hundred for four. I didn’t think much of it as I expected them come out of the hole. After coming home, I casually switched on the TV. And was astounded to see the way the game was panning out!

As you can see, this paragraph has only two of the four elements, three introductory sentences and then the topic sentence, which is in bold. You will also notice that here the topic sentence is also performing the role of a connecting sentence as it creates a curiosity in the mind of the reader to check what happened next.

Your turn

Now identify the four elements of the following paragraph:

The softer sub-continental pitches are not friendly towards fast bowlers and Bangladesh had never produced awe-inspiring seamers. Yet, last night, Rubel Hussains and Mustafizur Rehmans of Bangladesh looked more like Mitchell Johnsons or Morne Morkels. They had such a vice-like grip on the South Africans – the batsmen seemed to be shaking in their boots. At one time, it seemed they wouldn’t last the 40 overs. And in the end, they scored only 168 for nine. I thought maybe, there is some demon in the wicket that is evading my untrained eyes.

Please scroll down to check the answer at the end of this article.

So as you can see, by following a few simple rules, you can write beautiful paragraphs that are not only easy to follow, but also make an impact. In the next essay of this series, we will discuss how to connect different parts of a piece of writing to improve coherence.

Cheers!

Kolkata

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Key to the task:

Topic sentence	They had such a vice-like grip on the South Africans – the batsmen seemed to be shaking in their boots.
Introductory sentences	The softer sub-continental pitches are not friendly towards fast bowlers and Bangladesh had never produced awe-inspiring seamers.
Supporting sentences or evidence	Yet, last night, Rubel Hussains and Mustafizur Rehmans of Bangladesh looked more like Mitchell Johnsons or Morne Morkels. … At one time, it seemed they wouldn’t last the 40 overs. And in the end, they scored only 168 for nine.
Connecting sentence	I thought maybe, there is some demon in the wicket that is evading my untrained eyes.

Writing on writing 2

Notes on writing reports, articles, or essays

Ask any young professional which part of their job they hate, nine out of 10 will say "writing reports". If you are one of the nine, this essay is for you. Trust me, when you’ve finished reading this, you’ll have a clear idea about how to approach the task of writing a report or an essay or article.

When you write or speak, it doesn't really matter what you are saying. What matters is what your audience is receiving. You may have some brilliant ideas that will change the course of history, but if your readers / listeners don’t accept any of it, your efforts are wasted. You might as well have watched a soap opera instead! Therefore, it is always a good idea to think what your readers might accept. To put it simply, think from the point of view of your reader / listener before you plan to present an idea in writing or speech. In this short essay, I am going to focus on writing in general and I’ll share with you some tricks that you can use to hook the attention of your reader and keep them engaged. First, I will check how you should select the contents of your essay. And then I’ll discuss how to organize your essay.

Our first stop on the way to good writing is to analyse the reader. This means you will have to ask the following questions: 

1. Will my target readers be interested in this? (If the answer to this is “No”, stop writing. Select another topic or think of a different approach.) 
2. What do I wish to achieve by writing this? (My aim). 
3. How much do my readers already know? What information / knowledge will be useful to them? 
4. What is the cultural and educational background of my readers? (This will largely determine your contents and what kind of language you use.)

Once you have got answers to these questions, jot down for whom you are writing and your aim or purpose of writing. For example, I am writing this essay for educated readers who need the skills to write essays etc. And my aim is to give them the essential points they should keep in mind to structure their thoughts clearly and cogently. My subsidiary aim is to keep it short so that an average reader can go through it in 10 minutes.

After you have jotted down your aims, think of / research what points (facts and ideas) will serve your purpose. Identify a set of points that will be adequate to achieve your aim(s). Keep them and discard everything else. 

Next, we will see how we can put the ideas (points) into a neat structure. Any written text has three parts: the intro, the middle, and the conclusion.

And this is what you normally include in these parts.

Introduction: 

1. A pithy sentence to capture the attention of the reader. 
2. Your aim, that is, what you wish to achieve; or even better, what benefit your reader can expect by reading it. Often, this sentence will give the reader a reason to read on. 
3. A brief outline of the contents.

The main body: 

     This can be organized in many different ways, and let me keep this for another essay.

Conclusion:  

1. Sum up the main points and highlight your main messages. 
2. A sharp punchy sentence containing your main message, something would create a lasting impression on the reader.

And that brings us to the end. To sum up, we have seen how we should select the contents depending on the perceived needs of our target readers and then we have examined how we should put our ideas into a structure. The ideas explained here is no rocket science. But most useful ideas in life aren’t. What is important is that we keep these ideas in the back of our head if we wish to become effective writers.

Kolkata 

Revised on Friday, 27 Jan 2016                                              [Picture courtesy Wikipedia]

LET’S REVIEW. Can you go back to the opening paragraph of this essay and check the following?

1.     Is there a sentence in this to hook the attention of the reader? Which one?

2.     What sentences in the intro give the outline of the essay?

3.     Think. Do you think sentences like these are required at the beginning of an essay or article? Why / why not?

[Answers below.]

===================

Answers to review questions:

1.       Yes there is: “If you are one of the nine, this essay is for you. Trust me, when you’ve finished reading this, you’ll have a clear idea about how to approach the task of writing a report or an essay or article.”

2.       “… I am going to focus on writing and I’ll share with you some tricks that you can use to hook the attention of your reader and keep them engaged. First, I will check how you should select the contents of your essay. And then I’ll discuss how to organise the contents.”

3.       The sentences are important because they give the reader a reason to read on. 

Good English, bad English

Anil Babu, a fine, formidable, and fearsome teacher of our school once narrated this story.

Two men got into an argument on a public bus. One of them was a dignified elderly gentleman, whom our teacher labelled as a professor. The other was an arrogant young fellow who, once again according to Anil Babu, could only have been a junior clerk in a merchant firm. Minutes after the argument began, when the professor was clearly winning the contest, the young man switched over to English. It was a common practice then, if Indians wished to sound authoritative, they spoke the king’s language. Perforce, the professor had to respond in English. And that turned the tables against him. He spoke in correct, grammatical English, but haltingly. And that was no match for the torrent of terrible English the clerk churned out. Finally, just as a drowning man clutches at straws, the professor said, ‘Have you read Wren and Martin?’

If you are an Indian over thirty and you've been in a school, you'd get the drift. For the rest of humanity, M/s P. C. Wren and H. Martin were the venerable authors of a grammar book that was a combination of the Geeta, the Koran, and the Bible for English teachers in India for generations. And it was the nub of a serious problem. Each chapter of the book contained a set of prescriptions about how to frame sentences. And the examples and exercises that followed usually had lines that no one would use in their lifetime. Indians were also taught that speaking "incorrect English" was sacrilege.

But English is such a funnily unfettered language! Speaking or writing it correctly is challenging to even educated non-native speakers. To make matters worse, out of the hundreds of hours of English classes in school in our country, not one was devoted to teaching how to speak. (Unfortunately, the situation hasn't changed in most of our schools even now.)

So, generations of educated Indians could hardly express themselves in the language, even when they needed it. And those who could treated the rest of their countrymen as dirt.

English is important in this integrated world, we can't live without it. But should we think of committing suicide if we made a few mistakes here and there while using the language? How important is it to speak/write correct, flawless English? Let me quote an authority on the language, David Crystal:

Many people now realize that labels such as ‘sub-standard’ and ‘broken English’ are just as insulting and out of order as any set of racist or sexist names. We have seen a move away from the linguistic subjugation of the prescription era, with people asserting their right to be in control of their language rather than to have it be in control of them. For many, prescriptivism has come to be seen as a bad dream from which we are only now beginning to awake. The operative word, in all these sentences, is ‘many’. We are only half way along the road, and not everyone is persuaded that it is the road that they ought to take. But … it is only a matter of time. A major step has already been taken in schools, where a renaissance in linguistic study has already begun to produce generations of school children who are aware of the importance and relevance of Standard English without seeing any need to dismiss or condemn non-standard English. – The Stories of English, Penguin Books, Page 534

A real writer? Quel rat!

“My chosen tools of trade, that is, written words, are fast becoming adjuncts to pictures.” – Pico Iyer in 2009


At the age of 23, a poor, insecure Gabriel García Márquez decided not to earn his living through any means other than writing. At that time, he had shown sparks of brilliance, but was nowhere near the epoch changing author that he would later become. (His first novella, Leaf storm was published five years later.) His earnings from writing were meagre, and he went through tremendous privation and hardship. "There are stories of his collecting bottles in the streets of Paris in order to pay for food." [Gabriel García Márquez - Raymond L. Williams, Twayne Publishers, Boston, p. 10] Marquez says that he could support himself financially only when he was 46! [Living to tell the Tale]

So if you are a young man or woman aspiring to become a writer, relax! It is going to take a while, there is no need to rush.

And for someone like me, who has taken up writing seriously a little late in the day, this significant fact is reassuring. There is no shame in not being able to make a living through writing. If it took a genius like Márquez twenty-three years, I guess if I can hang around for another, say, five hundred years, I will have become a successful writer.

But would I ever become a real writer? Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s begins with a hilarious encounter between an unnamed narrator – presumably the author in his youth – and an attractive young woman, who, in today’s parlance, can be called a freelance sex worker.

The narrator was a struggling author in the 1940s; Holly Golightly lived in the apartment below his in a brownstone building in New York. They hadn’t met each other yet. One night, she entered his bedroom from the outside through the fire escape, and started chatting as if she was an old friend. She explained her inappropriate entry by the presence of a particularly beastly client in her room, who had started biting her after consuming “eight martinis and enough wine to wash an elephant”. Unimpressed by the drab décor of the room, she asked, ‘What do you do here all day?’

Her host said he wrote “things”.

A little later, Holly enquired, ‘… Are you a real writer?’

‘It depends on what you mean by real.’

‘Well, darling, does anyone buy what you write?’

What a charming definition!

If you accept that definition, I might call myself a real writer (albeit of non-fiction) now. Last month, the publisher of my book Who says you cannot learn English? gave me a royalty cheque for all the copies of the first print-run. Yesterday, he delivered some complimentary copies of the second impression.

It is a self-learner’s manual for English written by someone eminently un(?)qualified for the job. I have had no formal training in English since leaving my school, which, incidentally used Bangla as the medium of instruction.

My father had taught me the basics of the language. But that was about all. Later, when I realized that the little English I knew was thoroughly inadequate as a survival tool in my job, I started teaching myself English. And I fell in love with this beautiful language .... But it was a long process, acquiring bits and pieces over a long period of time from authentic sources and from friends / colleagues ... and the process continues to this day. I wish someone had given me the book I have written now when I was 23.

A minor success, but a source of unalloyed joy all the same. I would like to share my happiness with you. The first five readers who wish to use the book and tell me so, will receive a free copy, delivered at their address. Please email me at santanusc@gmail.com if you are one of them.

But there is a catch, as is usual. You will have to write a review of the book!