 Drama: January 25, 2017 Issue [#8080] |
  Drama
This week: Talking Of Drama, the Technique Edited by: THANKFUL SONALI Library Class!  
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Yes, 'drama' is a genre by itself, but in reality, there is an element of drama in every genre, in every piece of writing. An interview with two authors, on 'drama' as a technique in their work.
Jane De Suza --
Author of: Happily Never After, The Spy who lost her Head and the SuperZero series
Andaleeb Wajid --
Author of: Asmara's Summer and When She Went Away |
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Dear Reader,
I asked two authors about using 'drama' in their work.
Here are my questions, along with their responses.
Jane De Suza --
Author of: Happily Never After, The Spy who lost her Head and the SuperZero series
1. How would you define ‘drama’, vis-a-vis your books?
My books are primarily in the humour genre. And in humour, drama plays a different role. It is the escalation of a conflict or a situation to a point where it’s ready to explode, and possibly where everyone except the protagonist knows it is going to. I use drama as a tool to prolong the thrill, in conversations and situations which tick, tick, tick... and you’re turning the page because you want to know what happens even if you’re running late to office.
2. Do you have to plan, to create drama, or does it just happen while writing?
I write in a free-flowing stream of consciousness, and not to a pre-planned structure. However, somewhere in the back of my head, there is a larger plan and rather like the revolution of planets, everything spins on its own axis, crazily. Of course, as a writer, I do extract the maximum use of drama – I prolong the opening of a door, I end a chapter on a cliff-hanger, I deliberately have one person walk out of a sizzling conversation, I leave misunderstandings hanging like a dew drop on a leaf.
3. What are the elements of drama – for the character, for the writer, for the editor, for the reader ...?
As a reader, I’d define drama as a page-turner. As a publisher, drama is possibly the ingredient needed to sell a book. As a writer, I’d say drama is a tool. Every character should have his or her own agenda. Every character should be pregnant with potential, with idiosyncrasies, with desires, with secrets. Situations can be trimmed of their mundane details. Conversations can butt into each other. Time can be played around with. In The Spy Who Lost Her Head, I’ve used the waiting of Gulabi, the main character, for another, to build up over many pages, so that the reader too is waiting along with Gulabi, feeling the insane anxiety of not knowing whether the man she waits for will come or not. A minute, in a novel, can be stretched over 6 pages. Writers can play God like that.
4. Do the definition and elements of drama vary across genres, cultures and locations, or do they remain the same?
But of course, the understanding of drama varies across cultures and eras. In Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, the drama is more internal and no wild car chases are needed (or possible, since the old man is, you see, at sea). The pace is creakingly slow, the description lengthy and yet the drama is unmistakable. Today’s readers do seem to need something happening on every page. What, doesn’t page 32-67 have a single action scene? Let’s just cut the lot out, should we?
Andaleeb Wajid --
Author of: Asmara's Summer and When She Went Away
1. How would you define ‘drama’, vis-a-vis your books?
In my books, drama is there to move the story along. It could be a twist at a crucial juncture or something completely unexpected.
2. Do you have to plan, to create drama, or does it just happen while writing?
Both happen to me. There are times when I do plan a dramatic event, for instance, in More than Just Biryani, I had planned the heroine's father dying right from beginning. But there are instances when something comes up that surprises me but I use it instinctively.
3. What are the elements of drama – for the character, for the writer, for the editor, for the reader ...?
For all of them, the simple answer is that drama is a way to move the plot forward, keep readers hooked.
4. Do the definition and elements of drama vary across genres, cultures and locations, or do they remain the same?
I think it means different things to different people. It's a subjective element definitely.
Thanks Jane, thanks Andaleeb, thank you reader!
- Sonali |
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