What is the most important thing a story should have? For that matter, any write-up should have?
Readability!
Yes, when you take start to read something, you should feel, hey, how does this end?
If the reader gets this feel, the writer is successful!
I remember one of my favorite authors Sri Yandamoori Veerendranath had told in an interview when the journo asked him the best thing about his novels.
Readability!
The ability to get read.
Be it a story or a novel or an article or even the most dry 'white paper'!
This leaves the writer to choose the right words at the right places, like they talk about women (pardon the expression!) - right curves at the right places!
I have list of favorite authors. Each attracts me with one or the other specialty.
James Hadley Chase (Oh, when do I stop writing about him?) is one of my earliest favorites.
There is a reason. I had known the English of my text books in High School. Before that English was just one of the subjects during my Kannada medium schooling days.
I was wondering what the teachers were saying when I shifted from Kannada medium to English medium in 8th Standard. It was a nightmare year!
Slowly I found this 'monster' English is a 'Gentle Giant'. He is big, but harmless, and even friendly!
Where was I? Oh yeah! Chase. I fell in love with his works when I was free, waiting for my Engineering seat in Bangalore University. I was about 16 with lot of new 'feelings'! (I believe Indians of those days were getting 'matured' at least 3 years later than their 'American' counterparts!!!) and the cover page of Chase novel was very 'attractive'! Panther Edition used to carry a really relevant (to the story) picture and Corgi Edition started using very 'attractive' (Remember the curves!) cover pages!!
Naturally I was eager to 'read' them. (I mean the writing!)
This went on to such a craze that I finished almost all novels of Chase and was panting (pun unintended!) to read more.
Again need not get me wrong again. The novels were highly readable.
Take the example of Mission to Venice. Wow, Chase was also using the 2nd World War theme of Americans v/s Germans. It was a page turner and the book was (is) unputdownable.
The man is a master craftsman. Some times he used to be like Agatha Christie in some books which made us wonder who is the killer or the culprit. Some other times he was a la Alfred Hitchcock. We would know what is the plot and who are the baddies. All we were left to wonder was whether the murder was committed or the bank was looted or the culprit got away.
For the first time I came to know that even the transgressors have their own point of view for the crime they carry out!
I was so much carried away with the idea that it made me write one novel Kappu Nadhi (Black river) which is narrated by the culprit himself. Of course, I could not resist an Agatha touch by keeping the name of the culprit till the last word of the book (yeah, the last word).
In another novel Haasu-Hokku (ebb-tide), all the bad people have their own logic for their deeds.
Well, Sidney Sheldon is another novelist I like. I had this fascination of 'how to hide the gender of a character' like in English books. For example, his 'Windmills of Gods' had a character which we think is male, which is actually female!
I tried it in a book of mine called Panchaanana (Five Faces)
So, the influence is there from English and Telugu books on my novels. Still I declare that all my works are my own!
Yes, I am the first reader of my novel and I scrap the plot if it is not interesting to ME!
Readability!
Yes, when you take start to read something, you should feel, hey, how does this end?
If the reader gets this feel, the writer is successful!
I remember one of my favorite authors Sri Yandamoori Veerendranath had told in an interview when the journo asked him the best thing about his novels.
Readability!
The ability to get read.
Be it a story or a novel or an article or even the most dry 'white paper'!
This leaves the writer to choose the right words at the right places, like they talk about women (pardon the expression!) - right curves at the right places!
I have list of favorite authors. Each attracts me with one or the other specialty.
James Hadley Chase (Oh, when do I stop writing about him?) is one of my earliest favorites.
There is a reason. I had known the English of my text books in High School. Before that English was just one of the subjects during my Kannada medium schooling days.
I was wondering what the teachers were saying when I shifted from Kannada medium to English medium in 8th Standard. It was a nightmare year!
Slowly I found this 'monster' English is a 'Gentle Giant'. He is big, but harmless, and even friendly!
Where was I? Oh yeah! Chase. I fell in love with his works when I was free, waiting for my Engineering seat in Bangalore University. I was about 16 with lot of new 'feelings'! (I believe Indians of those days were getting 'matured' at least 3 years later than their 'American' counterparts!!!) and the cover page of Chase novel was very 'attractive'! Panther Edition used to carry a really relevant (to the story) picture and Corgi Edition started using very 'attractive' (Remember the curves!) cover pages!!
Naturally I was eager to 'read' them. (I mean the writing!)
This went on to such a craze that I finished almost all novels of Chase and was panting (pun unintended!) to read more.
Again need not get me wrong again. The novels were highly readable.
Take the example of Mission to Venice. Wow, Chase was also using the 2nd World War theme of Americans v/s Germans. It was a page turner and the book was (is) unputdownable.
The man is a master craftsman. Some times he used to be like Agatha Christie in some books which made us wonder who is the killer or the culprit. Some other times he was a la Alfred Hitchcock. We would know what is the plot and who are the baddies. All we were left to wonder was whether the murder was committed or the bank was looted or the culprit got away.
For the first time I came to know that even the transgressors have their own point of view for the crime they carry out!
I was so much carried away with the idea that it made me write one novel Kappu Nadhi (Black river) which is narrated by the culprit himself. Of course, I could not resist an Agatha touch by keeping the name of the culprit till the last word of the book (yeah, the last word).
In another novel Haasu-Hokku (ebb-tide), all the bad people have their own logic for their deeds.
Well, Sidney Sheldon is another novelist I like. I had this fascination of 'how to hide the gender of a character' like in English books. For example, his 'Windmills of Gods' had a character which we think is male, which is actually female!
I tried it in a book of mine called Panchaanana (Five Faces)
So, the influence is there from English and Telugu books on my novels. Still I declare that all my works are my own!
Yes, I am the first reader of my novel and I scrap the plot if it is not interesting to ME!
No comments:
Post a Comment