CHENNAI: What is the emotion you feel when you see the round-shaped traffic signals changing to heart-shaped, when you see a mother feeding her child on a metro train, a grandfather buying chocolates for his grandchildren from a petty shop, when siblings — who usually are two poles apart — come together to defend each other? While there may be too many sentiments, one shared feeling in all these scenarios is joy — the pure joy of how little occurrences matter in life.
Writing a book on this subject — joy and little meaningful moments in life — is Abhinaya B (Abhi), a writer. She spoke about her book, ‘The Script of Life’, at the Author Speak event. Under the aegis of Pegasus, the student book club of M.O.P Vaishnav College for Women, and the learning and digital literacy centre aka library conducted the programme in association with The New Indian Express. Readers and enthusiastic writers from various departments occupied the auditorium’s seats.
First step encounters
“In my previous book ‘Notes from Secret Santa’, the lead character Sano visits many places in and around the city. To give that authentic feel to the readers, I travelled to those places and observed the surroundings. When Covid happened and everything came to a standstill, I took a cue from the explorations and experiences I have had visiting those spots. Detailing them, I wrote the book, ‘The Script of Life’. For example, Jannal Kadai in Mylapore. I went there to experience the joy of waiting in a long queue and getting served yummy bajjis and idlis,” Abhinaya shared.
Adding these observations and including an emotional connection to the story are the key elements of writing. “The emotional connection could be a person, place or a thing. Through this, you connect your experiences to the story,” she said, adding that including popular figures or occurrences can be an option. “I was working on a book set in 2018, I mentioned Jagjit Singh’s radio and Sid Sriram. They were upcoming during that time.” This way, the book’s timeline is also known to the audience.
When the time duration is in place, the writer also understands the limit of his/her creativity. “Bridging creativity and reality is the core of writing. Reality connects with the readers, yes, but you have to place your interest in creating an interesting story with elements of existence,” explained the author. The next point Abhinaya stressed wasmaintaining the authenticity of characters.
The learning curve
One of the TV series FRIENDS’ characters, Phoebe Buffay, writes her 15th book on the life of Chester and Monique. Here, she notes down every conversation between the character, Chandler and Monica. Abhinaya says such references are no good. “One should not refer your characters to your close ones. You can get inspired by them and use their traits, but do not have the same characteristics,” she said.
According to her, “Writing is an individual’s expertise and voice. Write like yourself.” She quoted Ernest Hemingway, “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know”. The students’ responses resonated with these words and they responded, “I am a writer and I am always on the lookout for events and workshops dealing with writing,” shared Neelam Surana. She emphasised that through this session, she learned how to interact with the audience and keep them engaged.
Another student, Natvayi Karthikeyan, expressed, “I got more insights on writing and the creative process. The way she took us from how to form an idea to writing a book was with activities. While learning about the writing process, we also knew how to engage with the audience and promote our work.”
“The response I got from the students was overwhelming. Explaining pointers and then responding felt like the writer in me is validated. I hope writers are created from the lot so that we get to read more books from different perspectives,” Abhinaya, who is a self-published writer concludes.