storytelling

My First Love

Posted on February 27, 2014February 28, 2018 By csoundar

Discovering your first love after many years is not in any way the same as meeting your first love, the one that got away. At least for me, when I have met those who got away, I have been relieved – almost thinking it was good I got away.

But when it came to storytelling – it was a joy rediscovered. My love for stories came from the oral tradition. My grandmother and her sisters told me folktales, epic stories and stories of their lives that kept me rooted to the spot for hours. Listening to radio plays after dinner, growing up without any TV and the confidence of all the women in my family to make up stories was a gift that I treasure.

My mum made up stories all the time. She wrote plays and made us act in them. When we threw tantrums as kids, stories stopped the tears. My aunt could remember even today anything told to her ever. If my grandmother was busy, she narrated the same stories in the same voice to us and unknowingly she was following in her mother’s footsteps.

I grew up in an Indian joint family surrounded by story-lovers and book-worms. I started without any plan to tell stories when I listened to a story and entered a competition without any preparation when I was seven. I won the first prize for storytelling. Who would have thought? My dad was so proud that he made me tell the story to every guest who visited us for the next few weeks.

When we were growing up, we had two months of summer holidays where the sun scorched the life out of everything and all the kids preferred to be outside. So we were all bundled together in one of my mum’s siblings homes or ours. So we took turns spending a week in each of her sister’s place or at my grandfather’s or at ours. Six to seven kids, different age-groups and riot control with stories.

That’s where I started practicing stories. My mum’s sisters didn’t tell stories. They told us take naps or read books or do holiday homework. So it fell on me to keep everyone occupied. So I told stories, some were retellings I had heard from my grandmother and some were made up.

As the summers came and went, I ended up creating a tree with strange beings, surely inspired by The Faraway Tree, had characters run homes in hollows, made them go on adventures.

Slowly I started writing them down. As we grew up, our summer holidays were filled with classes, extra-curricular stuff and no joint camps with cousins. So I ended up writing more, creating a street newspaper with friends and stopped telling stories.

In my early 20s, my uncle had young kids. And again the stories started. The toddlers were told that I could tell stories and whenever they visited or stayed over with me, they woke me up at all hours, demanding a story. Those toddlers are in their 20s now and I am sure they love stories still.

Since the need for career was more omnipresent than arts as a vocation, I ended up going to work, long hours and feeding my muse with writing and not telling.

Until recently, I had not considered storytelling as something I could do. I loved stories from the past and folktales. I loved trickster tales and I collected books with obscure tales with a passion. But I never attempted to tell stories.

An astute man told me 8 years ago that I should tell stories. Gerry Hausman was insistent that I was born to tell stories. I ignored that for many years. And then I signed up for a course –a weekend course for beginners. And I was hooked. It was like coming home.

But reality is so different from the dream you have. I started telling stories, did one gig in a bookshop, started collecting stories I could tell. But there was a danger of just letting it die.

So I signed up for another course to tell stories. Sandwiched between a magician and a puppeteer, in the same room as therapists, teachers and story lovers – I kindled the fire again.

Now the urge is real. The need to tell stories is as strong as writing my own. And as if the planets aligned, my friend opened a bookshop and she has agreed to let me tell stories. I have bravely signed up to tell stories in schools.

It has taken decades to find my way back to my first love of stories. All I ask of myself – bring the wonder of stories to young people just like my family gave me that gift.

You can find out more about my storytelling at http://thestorytrain.blogspot.co.uk

The train is moving with the power of stories, fuel it now!

A Random List – Writing Picture Books

Posted on January 3, 2013February 28, 2018 By csoundar

When writing picture books or any fiction for that matter, many of us learn from doing. We go to courses, read books, listen to editors and accomplished writers. There is always something new to learn, whatever level you are at.

In that spirit, here is a collection of articles from the Internet where different authors have commented on writing picture books. Their advice / suggestions are typically based on what works for them. So as a reader you have to think about how it applies to you. While some basic wisdom applies to all, the power of creativity is to know when to break the rules. That’s when it moves from being a science into an art-form.

So here are some interesting and informative articles I put together. If you have your own secret links, do share on this blog post with the rest of the world. The links below are in no particular order.

Also remember there are some market differences. While British editors prefer to see manuscripts that span 12 spreads, Americans editors look for 13.5. As these articles from the US, UK and Australia, do make sure you still follow the guidelines of the publisher you are interested in. At the end of the day, there is no alternative to good research and good writing.

http://www.ianbone.com.au/pdfs/PictureBook_IanBone.pdf

http://www.marisamontes.com/writing_picture_books.htm

http://www.memfox.com/so-you-want-to-write-a-picture-book.html

http://www.wordpool.co.uk/wfc/art/wfcpicturebooks.htm

http://www.robynopie.com/articles/writingforchildren_howtowritepicturebooks.htm

30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/writing/writing-tips/36

http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/27-FE2-HowToWritePictureBook.html

http://www.leeandlow.com/p/20tips.mhtml

http://marilynsinger.net/onwriting/what-makes-a-good-young-picture-book/

http://www.denisevega.com/2012/12/19/writing-picture-books-short-sweet/

Posted on February 23, 2008February 28, 2018 By csoundar

My interest in writing came from my love of listening to stories and telling them. My grandmother and her sisters, then my mother always fed me with stories every night in a decade where the only entertainment was the radio.

I listened to made-up stories, folktales, movie stories, and stories about my father growing up. I still remember a night-out during a trip, one of my mum’s cousin started telling us ghost stories. All of the good stuff must have rubbed off because I started telling stories when I was 10 or 11.

I had a huge fan following amongst my younger cousins – bless the days when holidays were spent in each other’s homes for a week or more.

I perhaps stopped because life interrupted my telling. School, college, work and growing up meant very little time with nieces and nephews.

When I started teaching creative writing, I got another eager audience and I started to tell a story a week after class. They were all ghost stories as Singapore is so much into that genre.

But in front of an audience, I almost always chicken out. Though I love making jokes, noises and voices, I have turned into an adult who can’t goof around.

So this month I joined the Storytelling Circle in London. I’m going to beat my fears with training, learning and a lot of practice.