Second Round Feedback - Sandeep

Hello people,

So, we come to the end of the second edition of IndiFictionWorkshop.

First things first, thanks to CS and TF for the original initiative, and also to the members who participated in this edition of the IndiFictionWorkshop to make it a successful one.

Thanks also to Deepa and Indolent Insomniac for the time and effort they have put in, despite the obstacles in their way, to provide their expertise in critiquing and judging the entries as per a plot and rules laid out by my whims and fancies.

It is not an easy job to critique so many 4000 word entries in such excruciating detail, and I am grateful for the support and understanding you two have provided.

Looking at the entries received, there has been such a wide variety of takes on the plot that I am sure all the participants who were initially hesitant about the dark theme will agree that even dark themes can be explored in a number of interesting ways, regardless of your individual style.

Hopefully, some of you will now approach stories involving blood, gore and crime with a lot more confidence, and enrich my pet genre with your talent.

Many questions have also been asked about why I had such weird rules for this exercise. The easiest answer would be to say that I did everything I could to throw the participants out of every comfort zone they inhabited. However, the story behind me giving out such a plot is as follows.

Since I am a commercial writer, I happen to know many people from the same field in real life. We formed a group, with the idea of writing screenplays for Mumbai’s theatre scene.

I was to co-write a screenplay with another writer. We had a complex idea which involved weaving two stories into a coherent whole, where each story could be enacted on its own, and the two could be combined into a common whole.

It was a nightmare.

There was absolutely no synergy between the two of us since one of us was weak with technique, and the other was weak with plotting. Other groups too faced similar problems.

After a month of rowing our individual boats in circles, we decided to embark on an exercise which would bring all the writers to a common datum in terms of technique as well as plotting.

We did a plot, which I had originally planned for this edition of the workshop, which involved transvestites, and eunuchs in a psychedelic sleaze setting.

We followed similar rules to what I laid out here.

At the end of the exercise, most of our objectives were met. We were more aware of our flaws and much more confident about our ability to tackle the most uncomfortable of themes.

When the IndiFictionWorkshop was announced, I realized that the same exercise could be replicated here too.

What I gave out was not a plot. It was a straitjacket masquerading as a plot, what with all the pesky rules.

The Rules:

1)      Your story should be written in the first person point of view. You may choose to narrate in either Bruce or Billy's POV.

Writing in the first person point of view isn’t something that comes naturally to most writers. It is much easier to write from an omniscient viewpoint where the reactions of the characters need only be shown, not felt.

Bruce felt angry.

I felt angry.

The first person POV immediately places you into the shoes of your character. It requires minute detailing of the stimuli being received by your character from his surroundings, and a coherent response to it consistent with the psychology of the character.

Anyone who has played a video game will know the immense difference it makes in, say, driving a car with a third person camera view, or driving it “through the windshield” camera.

Similarly, shooting games are so much more enjoyable when they are FPS “First Person Shooters”, because it places you squarely in the thick of the action. The gun is in your hands, not in the hands of a character. You pull the trigger, not a 3D image.

Also, in the few months that I have spent in the blogosphere, I haven’t read too many fiction pieces in the first person POV. Strangely, a lot of blog posts are.

Based on that, I felt a first person POV fiction piece would be beneficial as an academic exercise for writers who didn’t practice it too much.

Again, as an additional challenge for those confident of their first person POV skills, I let those who wanted to try and tell the story of the primary character through the eyes of a second character, use Billy for the exercise.

I let it be Billy, because he shared an immediate conflict with Bruce.

I let it be only Billy so that we could judge on a somewhat level datum because too many people attempting a first person POV through too many secondary characters would have us tearing our hair out trying to normalize the scores.

2)Your story should stick to the incidents given in the plot.

There shouldn't be any other major characters apart from Bruce and Billy.

This is obvious. It was just to keep the cast of characters within limits. So there would be Billy and Bruce, then a dead girlfriend, a guard or two, some thugs, a big boss… We have pretty much the same cast in all the stories.

3)Your story should contain a description of daily life inside an American Penitentiary.

This was inserted to force participants to also devote some of the narrative to the “surroundings” of the prison setting. A lot of entries have provided beautiful description of the bleak routine of a prisoner and the surroundings in which they play out. Obviously, it took a lot of thought and imagination.

4)Regardless of the POV, your story should have Bruce selecting one of the three options. It should also describe his emotions, thought processes and rationale behind choosing one of the three, and spell out what happens with/to Bruce thereafter.

5)The story should not have any loose ends when it concludes.

Self-explanatory. The last line was placed just to remind the participants to review the characters they had introduced and to ensure that there were no dangling stories left incomplete at the end of the narrative.

6)The story will be NO LESS THAN 2000 words. It will be NO MORE THAN 4000 Words.

If we are to write 80,000 word novels, we need to practice with higher word counts. Most blog posts end before they begin. Having said that I am sure most of you have novels being typed out on your computers. I toyed with the idea of having a 10,000 word upper word limit but decided that the judges wouldn’t have the bandwidth required to effectively judge such long posts within a reasonable time frame, while still doing justice to all the entries.

Now that we have the uninteresting part of my closing post out of the way, it is time to come to the part which everyone wants to read, the names of the winners of this edition.

Deepa and I beat our heads against walls to come up with the final three who would carry the baton in the next edition.

We first selected the top 7 entries, and immediately ran into differences, because that is how strong all the entries were.

After much reading, thinking, re-reading, screaming, threatening etc. Deepa and I have, to the best of our abilities, selected the following entries as our top three for this round.

 The first spot goes to Radha’s entry – 48 Hours.

The second spot goes to Medha Kapoor’s entry – A Rush of Blood to the Head

The third spot goes to Leo’s entry – 48 Hours

Congratulations! The three of you will conduct the third edition of IndiFictionWorkshop!

For the third spot, Rajrupa Gupta’s entry – The Perfect Revenge was also a strong contender, and were it possible, we would have selected two people for the third spot.

I believe every entry has received line by line attention, and lengthy critiques, and further critiquing is unnecessary.

I will, however, sketch out some thoughts on some of the entries that caught my fancy.

Radha

At first sight, I thought you had pretty much defeated my purpose in setting the plot in an American Penitentiary.

Introducing Hindu Mythology was a highly risky move and I was skeptical that it could be pulled off. However, you did exactly that.

The narrative was tight, the conversations were tense, and the technique was near-flawless. Also, the plot elements, like the discovery of the tunnel, the escape plan etc., that had been left to the imagination of the participants were well thought out and, more
importantly, very well executed with very few inconsistencies.

The dream sequence convinced me that this entry deserved the top spot.


Medha

You took on the tougher challenge of writing from Billy’s POV and pulled it off with astonishing felicity. Your narration gripped me from the get-go and never let up. It had such a rough edge to it, that I was hooked.The profanity that you have used doesn’t sound out of place or forced or vulgar. There is unapologetic violence. There are a lot of tense moments built up around the point where Bruce and Billy circle each other around the knowledge of the escape plan. There would have been a tight contest between you and Radha, but for the fact that you let some tense mistakes get in the way. That, and an ending a little crispier would have added to your case, but I was pretty much sold when I first read this entry.

Leo

I mentioned it in my critique and I will say it again, your entry was near-flawless. Entries like yours, if read patiently, can teach far more about writing than any critique. The classic Leo dreamy narrative, interspersed with a graphic rape scene, a truly evil
villain, and flawless technique, this entry was always a winner, regardless of what the Judges thought. However, we thought the same too. You are one ferocious and fearless writer underneath that genteel manner, and will shy away from no literary challenge, as is quite evident from this knock-out of an entry.

Congratulations once again to the winners!

I will share a few brief sentences about some of the other entries too.

Rajrupa Gupta: Your entry put up a strong fight. We did not hold it against you that your ending went beyond the point at which the prisoners escaped, since due to my oversight it was never posted on the official post containing the plot. The entry started off with a brilliant depiction of a prison. It was also a delight to see a prison scene culminate in a gory blood-fest!

However, there were some minor flaws in editing and language use. 

The Fool: The song was a nice touch. However, what I really liked about your entry was the undertone of religion and the biblical references. I would like you to write a sequel to the point where this entry ends for the benefit of your fans, yours truly included, because I really like reading TF stories. I could have identified it as your entry from a mile away.

The only flaw was a shaky start. 

C. Suresh: Yours was one of my favourite entries too. The line “She was brassy, foul-mouthed, slovenly and amoral but there was this peculiar vulnerability about her that made me want to protect her” will stay with me for a long time. Also, you have that rare ability to “sketch scenes” and have your writing run “in the moment” (Bruce fumbling with the keys, as Deepa pointed out). I will have to repay the compliment you gave me for ‘Strangers in the Night’ in that you have the ability to walk the minds of your characters with rare felicity, even if you are too modest to accept the praise. 

Jayashree: Your narrative was interspersed with brilliant lines that I paused to read over and over again. I suppose my critique must have made my appreciation clear. My only grouse was that you did not deliver the same punch in your ending, that you repeatedly kept socking me with in your narrative. Some minor editing flaws too.

Nabanita: I mentioned this in the critique as well. What made your entry a stand-out for me was your ability to get your readers to feel for your characters. It doesn’t matter if there is a brilliant death-scene if it only elicits a “Ho-Hum” from the reader. Your ability to create that emotional connect will be one of your strongest selling points. There was a good twisted ending too. However, the dialogues and Billy’s back-story execution were a little lacking.

These 8 entries made it to the top 7 in our individual lists. I believe we have provided quite a lot of feedback throughout the course of this edition, and it is time for us now to rest.

We will now move to Edition 3 of IndiFictionWorkshop, where I look forward to donning the mantle of a participant. Let us get this show on the road! Over to the winners!

P.S.
Once again, I thank everyone for participating to the best of their abilities. Any mistakes made during the conduct of this edition are all mine. I will now be responding to the responses to my responses!