Databanks are essential but they cannot mint the currency of wisdom. So its relevance is beyond question even in our industrialized and technological age.Art is a part of life. Life consists of emotions; hatred, love, loyalty, infidelity and such emotions breed art. Art cannot be termed as mental voluptuousness or escape from real life. Nor is art resort of some mental freaks. Art is a battlefield where more intense wars of life are fought. It unties the mysteries of life and even death; and also attempts to make sense of much of incomprehensible. In fact, I would say, it teaches us the meaning of life.
Some people have made the maxim art for art’s sake their profession. Art should always have strong bearing on life. I don’t favor intoxicating art which leads to drowsiness of mind or senses.
It should convey a message. Art should talk of such experiences which wake up us to life. Whenever we read any piece of writing, we should feel elevated and our pain lessened, in spite of the literary work is written on the canvas of pain.’
This is the gist of my replies to the questions asked to me by Dr. Abid Ahmad Sahib long back when he had my interview on the ‘writing of short stories and my works’ for Daily Greater Kashmir.
I told Dr. Abid Ahmad that there is no formula for writing a short story. It has always been my belief that the art of writing is God-given. It is not something that can be acquired. Even a laborer can be a writer. It is not the privilege of any particular class. Yes some happenings do help this otherwise hidden talent comes out.
Any person who has got the talent of writing can write. Writing does not render one incapable of doing other things.
But it is also true that writing a short story is not easy, and then to understand it and go deep into the psychology of the writer and grasp what he or she does want to convey, which either he himself or she herself may not be conscious of, is more difficult. It definitely needs a sharp mind, skill and great power of intellect to write or understand a short fiction.
Short stories may be descriptive, narrative, and poetic or dramatic. It can have just sharp dialogue with almost no description at all. But the success of a short story is that it must engage. Although not necessary but to be successful, the short story must employ most of the same elements that a novel uses, like as, Premise, Orchestration of sequences, Dialectical approach, Conflict having thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis, Characters. The conflict should neither be ‘Jumping’ nor ‘Static’; it should be a ‘Rising’ conflict.
Short fiction demands that it should hook the reader in the first line, thus setting and characters are established quickly and efficiently. Every action must be there for a purpose. Loose writing spoils the story, so all the elements, approach, style, atmosphere and perspective need to be carefully taken into account, weighed and weighted. The writing must be to the point and words used must be catchy, narration interesting and scenes captivating.
Writer remains more comfortable with his/her mother tongue. If a person is kicked, he would not howl in any foreign language; he would spontaneously shout in his native language.
Mother tongue is the best medium of expression. Revelation to prophets would also happen in their mother tongues. Otherwise there were many scholarly languages in the world. And God was also able go reveal in any language He wanted.
It is both content and craft that make a writer excellent.
Everyone undergoes suffering. How to make one’s suffering universal is what makes a writer great. Pain has a universal idiom. Writer should write about it the way that reader identifies himself with suffering character and experiences the same pain.
A writer is basically extremely sensitive. Even a needle pricks his sensibility while to others even elephantine incidents make no difference. Tragedies make no sense to them. One kind of writing is compulsive, another is impulsive. Writing to be the genuine expression of one’s self should always be impulsive. A writer who writes under the fit of compulsion would invariably be hollow, shallow and superficial. It is not only craft that is required to be successful writer, even content is important. In fact that is more important. A writer should not bog down by the volume of words but find thumping phrases, polish them and archive thrilling and beautiful scenes in his/her stories.
Writing merely does not mean recording things as they happen. If one simply writes what one feels that is pure photography? Experiences need to be brewed in the purgatory of one’s mind and heart. Emotions are to be crisped in the agonies of life to make them communicable to others. One of the prodigious jobs of a writer is to make his experiences universal. Critic job is to examine that art which is born out of such considerations. Similarly, a writer should have his/her own distinction. His/her diction, treatment should be different than others. His/her short story should itself bespeak that I have been jotted down by such and such writer.
It merits a mention that form depends upon the nature of experience. Genre is determined by the kind of experience that is to be expressed. Whether it is poetry, short story or prose, experience itself asks for the appropriate literary medium for its expression. Form and content are integrated, they cannot be separated. That is the reason; writer is not able to write until form and content are organically united. With experiences, genres come spontaneously.
Short story writing has emerged from early oral storytelling traditions and then with the passage of time became a brief work of literature, usually written in narrative prose. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel, but generally the literary techniques are all the most same. Although in the modern era its latest versions are very much changed than those of traditional techniques which earlier were deemed essential components for a short story.
Short stories have no set length and there is no official demarcation as far word count is concerned. However, a classic definition of a short story is that one should be able to read it in one sitting that, infact, separates a short story from longer fictional formats. There are no hard and fast rules or set parameters to write a short story, that is why generally confusion in characteristics and distinctions between an anecdote, a short story, snippets of thoughts, essays reign. Short story is defined the work as part of the artistic and personal expression of the form so the short story writers have every right to resist categorization by genre and fixed form.
External changes and events which take place in the world and in the exterior of a writer, directly or indirectly influence and affect his or her emotions, so the ideas. These things continue changing his or her state of mind, so naturally such changes are reflected in his or her writings too.
Within the space of shortest word count, a short story writer weaves a story that usually necessitates to create characters, premise, conflict, dialectical approach, and drive the story to its ultimate conclusion — a difficult feat for everybody who is anybody in this field, to accomplish it with understanding.
Has our Kashmir valley created any master of this art of short story writing which, we can firmly claim is in no way less when compared to the world known short story writers? There are some whose memorable works have not escaped in the minds of readers and the profundity of these works is so intense that sticks with readers long after they’ve finished.
But we have to admit that we lack those critics here who have the potential, worth, competence and the ability in analyzing the things because prejudices, malice and little knowledge have decayed their brains, so their assessments cannot be relied on in determining the literature and its values. They cannot even distinguish between fantasy and reality? We have very much dearth of critics here so have been entrusting this task to ignorant and frustrated people. It has become a ‘fashion’ to present oneself as a person of great caliber and genius by quoting English writers and intellectuals. Ironically, ignorant of the writers of own land!
“Rahne ko ghar nahi hai, sara jahan hamara”.
(We don’t have a place to live, the whole world is ours)
I believe, there are some people who are just literary frauds; I know a few of them! 🙂
Nazir Jahangir is a freelance writer and columnist
