Is There a Secret to Writing a Perfect Story?

Oscar Landgren                                                                 2018-03-09

               Mukul Deva                                        Marc Nair

 

Here you are, sitting down in a somewhat comfy chair surfing the web in order to acquire the quintessential writing method that you will apply to your very new and first novel. However, you seem to have trouble finding the optimal method for your upcoming novel because there are so many to choose from. What do you do?

In my opinion, there is no optimal or exemplary method that will work for any piece of story writing whether that is a mystery or narrative poem. During Writer’s Fortnight 2018 hosted by UWCSEA East, students, including myself, listened to several presentations about people’s stories. In these sessions, I was able to attend to two writers who both had different approaches to writing. While it may be true that their genres are totally different as one writes thrillers and mysteries, and the other poems, there is still going to be different methods of writing; even though it is the same style or genre. However, it raises the question: “which method do I choose?”

Firstly, we listened to novelist and motivational speaker, Mukul Deva. During his presentation, he talked about his method of writing a story, specifically a mystery. He showed us this slide:

When Mukul Deva talks the ‘science’ of writing, he means “WHAT we are going to do” and ‘art’ in terms of “HOW we’re going to do it“. We were asked to create a murder mystery novel and we used this method to write that story. Firstly, we should underline the story outline which are the plot, setting, characters and incidents/events that take place. He believes that there should be no more than 5 POVs (point of view characters) in any novel, to make it easy. In a murder mystery novel, there should be around 4 characters where there are 3 witnesses/suspects, including the murderer, and a detective/cop. After that, we should accentuate the chapters by breaking it up in our planning. If we were to write our first mystery novel, we should try to aim for approximately 10 chapters. After that, it is all about the research into the story and the eventual validation of it. Finally, there is the writing of the story, the revision and editing, and finally the publication.

On the other hand, Marc Nair has an unusual approach to poetry. Marc Nair talked about how he has an “itchy eye” for themes, issues, messages, and culture which explains his diverse set of poems that cover many forms of art such as photography, dance, sculptures, paintings, etc. He described how a lot of his poems are based on what is happening in the media and how he often criticises issues by examining them at often unique angles. When he’s vocally performing his poems, he brings out and evokes a lot of feelings, emotions as well as elements of drama to captivate his audience about his messages, sometimes involving humour.

Furthermore, Mukul Deva told us that “there are no rules in writing”. Although this is, of course, true to some extent, it is a necessity that there are some obvious rules. Of course, you could write something really weird where the readers find themselves in the book without a plot or grammatically correct sentences, however, most people would agree on some rules. For example, most of the writing should be grammatically correct, except in extreme circumstances in which there is a purpose such as in dialogue; or there is some sort of clear structure or story, so the readers know what’s happening unless it is from any work by Pseudonymous Bosch. However, I assume he means that except for the obvious rules, you can write about anything.

Furthermore, even though his method seems to be a very good, valid and reasonable, this can’t work for all stories. He believed that this method is the best to start with for any new writer. Many authors and writers have different approaches, so saying that this unique method is the best, is definitely erroneous and invalid. Likewise, this method seems very generic as it is very similar to what we do in school when we are asked to plan and write short stories. In addition to that, his motivation to make money, although brutally honest, can be quite controversial as well. In other words, his motivation for money and his method can be controversial to other, making his method quite mundane.

Moreover, there are loads of methods to writing stories that can be found in published books or articles or teaching classrooms and even the deepest regions of the internet. According to an article published by the British Council, process writing is one approach. In order to follow this, one must first pre-write or brainstorm and then focus on the ideas so that you can start writing. Finally, one must structure the writing, evaluate and edit. However, during this method, one must also gain feedback from peers, share ideas with others, questioned and debate on ideas. In other words, this is more of a social approach to writing rather than an individual.

Likewise, it doesn’t just have to be writing novels, it could be poetry, persuasive piece, descriptive essay or business writing. Furthermore, a very popular writing method is called the ‘Snowflake Method’ which was designed by Randy Ingermanson. In one article on his page, he said that “there are a thousand different people out there who can tell you how to write a novel [and] there are a thousand different methods.”(Randy Ingermanson, 2018). He believes that good fiction needs to be designed so you need to “start small, then build stuff up until it looks like a story.

Therefore, imagine that you have a triangle which is basically your writing. As you build up your-story with more characters, writing, deeper meanings, themes etc, the triangle will get increasingly more complicated with more patterns, sides, and angles until it eventually becomes this a snowflake like this:

In other words, it is a sort of analogy that Ingermanson has used to describe his method where you keep on building it up.

In conclusion, there is no ideal method that will work across all works of literature. Marc Nair, who is a Singapore poet, has always felt that culture, themes, issues, and messages are significant as well as important in our daily lives. However, in order to truly understand the meaning of these issues, he scrutinizes and examines it at an unusual angle. Mukul Deva is assertive that his ‘art’ and ‘science’ method is a good approach, to begin with, especially when new to writing a novel. Academic and educational establishments such as the British Council believe more in writing as groups, especially for younger people while Randy Ingermanson believes in building up a story one by one. Despite this, a great quote from Randy Ingermanson from the same blog has explicitly said that “the best one for you is the one that works for you”. On one hand, this quote sums up the reality that there are so many methods and approaches out there so the best one is the one you believe works best for you.

On the other hand, it fails to bring up an important question and that is where that ideal method for you can be found? It seems obvious that you try several outs and pick the best, but it takes a lot of time. Due to the fact that both Mukul Deva’s method and the Snowflake method could both be used to write a mystery novel, it makes it extremely difficult for choose either one for the mystery. Perhaps the only way to find this specific modus operandi is to actually write the way you write without looking up any method. I am confident that many of the best writers from Mark Twain to J.K. Rowling to Chinua Achebe, did not search for a method and rather just went with it that would eventually develop into their own style. In other words, if you really want to be a prominent writer, you have to develop it in your own way and despite the hard effort, you must stay resilient to effectively construct it. To conclude, my question to you is: does a method like Mukul Deva inhibit creativity? In my opinion, it does inhibit some form of creativty, but it is limtided. 

Bibliography:

  1. “About Me.” Marc Nair. N. p., 2012. Web. 6 Feb. 2018.
  2. “Inspirational Motivational Speakers Singapore | Leadership Development Speaker Singapore .” Mukuldeva.com. N. p., 2018. Web. 6 Feb. 2018.
  3. “Approaches To Process Writing.” TeachingEnglish | British Council | BBC. N. p., 2011. Web. 6 Feb. 2018.
  4. “Effective Writing For The Workplace.” Writers Write. N. p., 2018. Web. 6 Feb. 2018.
  5. “Research Guides: Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: Academic Writing Style.” Libguides.usc.edu. N. p., 2018. Web. 6 Feb. 2018.
  6. Herz, Henry, and About Herz. “5 Powerful Writing Techniques That Bring Stories To Life.” The Write Life. N. p., 2014. Web. 6 Feb. 2018.
  7. Ingermanson. Articles, Overview et al. “How To Write A Novel Using The Snowflake Method.” Advanced Fiction Writing. N. p., 2018. Web. 6 Feb. 2018.
  8. “7 Techniques From Creative Writing You Can Use To Improve Your Essays.” Oxford Royale Academy. N. p., 2014. Web. 6 Feb. 2018.

Writing the Perfect Mystery

Writer’s Fortnight:

Today at Writer’s Fortnight, we listened to novelist and motivational speaker, Mukul Deva. During his presentation, he talked about his method of writing a story, specifically a mystery. He has participated in many writing sessions and has written many novels which have even been adapted into Bollywood movies.

Method:


(I, unfortunately, did not have a phone with me, but here is basically what he showed on the board)

When Mukul Deva talks the Science of writing, he means that “what am I going to do?” and Art in terms of, “how am I going to do it?“. We were asked to create a murder mystery novel and we used this method to write that story. Firstly, we should underline the story outline which are the plot, setting, characters and incidents/events that take place. He believes that there should be no more than 5 POVs (point of view characters). In a murder mystery novel, there should be around 4 characters where there are 3 witnesses/suspects and include the murder, and a detective/cop. After that, we should accentuate and outline in the chapters in our planning. If we were to write our first mystery novel, we should try to aim for approximately 10 chapters.  After that, it is all about the research into the story and validation of the research. Finally, there is the writing of the story, the revision and editing, eventually the publication. He told us it takes around a year for him to write a book where 9 months is devoted to validation and 3 months for the writing. However, it can take up to three months for the publication to occur.

Mukul Deva told us that “there are no rules in writing”. Although this is, of course, true to some extent, there have to be some obvious rules. Of course, you could write something really weird where the readers find themselves in the book without a plot or grammatically correct sentences, however, most people would agree on some rules. For example, most of the writing should be grammatically correct (except in extreme circumstances) or there is some kind of clear structure so the readers know what’s happening. However, I assume he means that except for the obvious rules, you can write about anything.

Furthermore, even though his method seems to be a very good, valid and reasonable method, this can’t work for all stories. Many authors and writers have different approaches so saying that this unique method is the best one, is definitely erroneous and invalid. Likewise, this method seems very generic as it is very similar to what we do when we are asked to plan and write short stories in school.  In addition to that, his motivation to make money, although brutally honest, can be quite controversial as well. In other words, his motivation for money and his method can be controversial to others. My question to you readers is, if you wanted to become a writer, would you use a similar method that Mukul Deva explained or something different? Why?

Quick Reference:

http://www.mukuldeva.com/

The Tale of Tiffin, Cancer and Dementia

Writers Fortnight:

Today, I recently listened to a Singaporean artist called Danny Raven Tan. I have gathered 4 images from the noun project and I will explain how these represent the ideas that came up in the presentation as well as the questions I would have liked to ask:

Tiffin:

I have used the Tiffin icon because it represents the art form and approach that Dany Raven Tan uniquely has. He owns a home gallery just like my grandmother in Sweden and has decided to call his gallery “Tiffin”. This is because he wants to bring art to the community and he felt that since Singapore has this unique attachment to food and a Tiffin is where you bring your food in, it was the perfect symbol to symbolize this. Furthermore, it is also a symbol of the love of community. I would like to ask you: What activity do you have a special cultural attachment to such as listening to music, eating (food) and playing sports, and why?

Faith:

During this presentation, I learned that Tan is a devoted Christian. Faith has been a huge source of influence and inspiration in his work. He believes that he needs faith, strength and wisdom to survive and cares deeply about God. When he was under chemotherapy, he said that he survived by believing in God, and having his friends and dog nearby. However, I do not hold any religion but it seems to be that Danny Raven Tan thinks deeply about religion and even his middle name Raven, comes from the biblical term for wisdom. In other words, Danny Raven Tan has effectively translated these big ideas into his artwork. Furthermore, I have realized that some individuals need faith to base their actions and opinions and also as a guide. This is possibly why many hold a religion. Finally, I would like to have asked him: what benefits do you think you have acquired from being religious? Also, why has religion played a huge role in your artwork?

Skull:

In terms of this image, it is not meant in the way of the question: what is the meaning of life/death, but rather the regrets we have. When listening to the presentation, Danny Raven Tan talked a lot about the regrets you, him and I have. Since he experienced the traumas of cancer and his mother having dementia, he must have had many bad experiences in his life. However, not only has it made him more accepting of life, but also made him think about taking more chances in life too. He believes that we live to die and he wants to leave good memories behind. Therefore, he tries as much as he can to do the things he wants to do because we never know when we die. This made me think of all the things I want to do and how I can achieve them. Finally, I want to ask you readers: what is the thing you want to achieve most in your life?

Continue reading “The Tale of Tiffin, Cancer and Dementia”

“Writing Against” the Orthodox Religion of Poetry

Hard News Article with a blend of some elements Op-ed and Feature articles:


Marc Nair, Singaporean Poet and Photographer

Marc Nair has recently visited the United World College of South East Asia East Campus (Friday the 19th of January).

Marc Nair is a poet and a photographer who is from Singapore. He has organized and participated in many artistic events as well as collaborating with many artists from around the world.

He has also published seven volumes of poetry as well being the co-founder and principal photographer in his online cultural magazine: Mackerel.

The title of his presentation was “writing against” referring to his approach to poetry and other forms of art. During his presentation, he did several performances where he would act out and read out his poems.

One of the performances was a poem that was written as a song lyric about cliches which he sang about.

He believes that more people should be “more supportive of artists” and described some of his struggles as a Chinese-Indian, where he believes that “radial quotas limit actions” and how “racial classification” determines the actions around us.

Marc Nair talked about how he has an “itchy eye” for themes, issues, messages and culture which explains his diverse set of poems that cover many forms of art.

He described how a lot of his poems are based on what is happening in the media. He also talked about how he often criticises issues and looks at them at unique angles.

When he is vocally performing his poems, he brings a lot of feelings, emotions and elements of drama to captivate his audience about his messages, sometimes involving humour.

Here is some of his work that he talked about during the presentation:


Spomenik: Poems and Photography by Marc Nair

One of his most recent works that he talked about in his presentation is this book which features photography from the Balkans.

He talked about how he wanted to photographs to “speak for themselves” rather than the poems to dictate the photographs.

It is a collection of photographs as well as poems to go along with them where he explores history, faith, war and culture.

This is one of his travels poems where he wanted to “[find] the frame” as well as to “circumnavigate” around trends and “memification” of travelling and experiences in order to become more unique.

Continue reading ““Writing Against” the Orthodox Religion of Poetry”

Mother and Daughter’s Poetic Adventure

During our Human Library Session at Writer’s Fortnight, we learned and listened to the story of a mother and daughter’s journey. Shweta Bhatnagar (Indian woman) wrote a children’s poetry book along with her daughter, Jiya, who illustrated the book. The book is called Colors Flollers, and the main character, Big Eyes, embarks on a journey through many themes and topics each with some kind of poetic writing. The protagonist story begins when she is very young and ends when she is eight years old. Furthermore, the book explores many themes and lessons throughout a child’s early childhood ranging from friendship, family, emotions, vacations and lots more. The book is also written in the first person and even combines the literary and visual elements of storytelling.

Shweta Bhatnagar 

When she was speaking about the book, she illustrates the crucial objectives that a poet must do to engage the readers/audience. She talked about evoking sensory images, emotions, feelings, big ideas, messages, stories, themes, ideas and turning the ordinary to extraordinary. She explicitly told us that there needs to be imagination before there can be created. In other words, even though we can think about lots of ideas, we have to be creative in order take these ideas into practice.

Shweta has been doing a great many things in her life, she used to be a journalist in India as well as in Singapore writing stories about issues around the world. She even when to study at MIT and has been an early childhood specialist for 8 years. She is even a classroom teacher and was a Television and Radio journalist. In many ways, writing stories was a fundamental part of her life so she decided to pursue this interest. With experience as a childhood specialist, she believed that she could create an effective children’s book that will captivate the audience. However, she wanted her youngest daughter to help her as she believed that if she drew the drawings, the children will feel like they could draw something like that, instead of the drawings being created digitally, which is what most illustrations are made from.

Jiya, the daughter, has many passions but she really likes to engage in activities that involve her hands, whether that is drawing or painting or playing sports. She has illustrated all the hand-drawn drawings in the book. She loved working with her mother on the book and they were very proud and excited when it first published. They are even planning on a new children’s book with similar ideas from the previous one.

The book was self-published and she decided to write in poetic form because, from her experience, children could learn more easily if words rhymed with each other just like Dr. Suess’ method. She wanted the children to be inspired so she went to schools across Singapore to read the stories to them. She wanted to be in the moment because she loved engaging with the children as well. She wanted the audience (the children) to ask questions and hoped to get a direct feedback from the children. Finally, she also wanted to create a lasting visual impression on them.

This presentation and speech were very interesting and she gave us tips as well. When writing stories, we need to present in a clear and coherent manner as well as bringing awareness to the word choice, themes and voice.

Steve Dawson and his Inspiring Techniques:

Writer’s Fortnight Session 1:

In our first session of Writer’s Fortnight (Tuesday the 16th of January), we listened to Steve Dawson’s presentation about interviewing techniques. Steve Dawson used to be a Chartered Tax Accountant but has pursued his career mainly as a sports journalist. He used to work at the Straits Times as well as ESPN but is now working for Fox Sports. 

I made a few questions before the presentation:

In addition to that, I made lots of notes in the tiny booklet:

In the presentation, he talked about the 5 (although also a 6th one as well that was not planned) techniques to interviewing:

  1. “Challenge your Interviewee”

    In this segment of the interview, he talked about how we need to “[get] the best stories” as well as answers from our interviewee. Therefore, we need to ask open-end questions that do not result in a yes or no answer. He said that we needed let the interviewee guide the interview, not the interviewer. As reporters compete with each other, there aren’t many chances for a journalist to ask questions. In order to get the best answers, journalists need to ask questions that will allow the interviewee to answer openly and they need to ask questions that will capture a particular angle of the story that is unique to others. Everyone will be publishing or talking about the same story so asking a question that gives the readers a different angle is crucial to get better at interviewing and being a journalist. However, I already heard and used this tip from previous experiences.
  2. “Set the Answer Free”

    Since asking good questions is one of the most fundamental skills of journalism, knowing how to phrase a question is crucial. He said that we should not “restrict the content of your questions”. For instance, if one would say: what are your concerns about losing a job? The question restricts the answer to only what the concerns are therefore this question would better phrased if it was instead: how do you feel about losing a job? This is more open. He also said that using the phrase: how do you feel about ‘something’, will almost always result in “tremendous answers”. It doesn’t matter if you use good articulation in your language and sophisticated vocabulary in your question, because it is not all about to impress people around you but rather to capture a good story. In other words, we do not want to define the story and we can’t set unnecessary parameters; expertise doesn’t matter here. I initially thought that I should sound like an expert or professional but I learned that doing so, may not be the best thing in every scenario.
  3. Don’t Interrupt

    When engaging in an interview, we have to listen. We cannot push our knowledge or opinions to the story itself because then it would be our story and not the interviewee’s story. In addition to that, we should not be overly critical of what they’re saying. Thus, avoiding to interrupt when someone is speaking is necessary and therefore we also show our respect to the interviewee.  However, I sometimes find it hard to listen in an engaging way and listening is probably one of the hardest skills to “master”. Although it may be tempting to interrupt, I think I should try to listen in a way that I am engaged.
  4. Be a Single Shooter

    When asking questions, we can’t ask two questions at the same time. For example: what did people scream at you, how did you feel when you won the race? Even though this question is an open question and would give a genuine good answer, we asked two questions at the same time. He said that more often or not, the interviewee we probably only answer the second question.  I have noticed that I sometimes do ask several questions at once. I have learned that I should really think about a good question that will really bring the story forward before asking it. Because I probably only get one chance to ask a question, I have to make it a good one.
  5. Listen

    Finally, this is perhaps the most important and significant technique and tips for interviewing. Listening is probably one of the hardest skills to be good at but it is absolutely crucial to journalism. Even if you have some kind of voice recorder with you, so your job as being a journalist is easier, listening carefully is necessary as you may have forgotten to ask a really good question, for example. In other words, “you have to listen in order to ask the follow-up questions”. Instead of asking the questions that you already prepared, we should listen so we can ask a question that would only apply to the interview by using the information we heard. We want to let the person dictate the story so we do not need to ask our prepared questions. When listening and asking the right questions we can “build a framework” in the story that will be really detailed and interesting. Furthermore, we cannot be a fanboy/girl when being a journalist and should instead act professionally. I have learnt a lot from these techniques and tips so I hope I will remember and apply them for the future.

Continue reading “Steve Dawson and his Inspiring Techniques:”