 Short Stories: January 17, 2018 Issue [#8704] |
  Short Stories
This week: Storyfying an Incident Edited by: THANKFUL SONALI back on Jan 4  
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| I was narrating an anecdote to various friends ... and thought ... hey, this is a proper story! |
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Dear Reader,
On Sunday, while in pursuit of art, I almost got run over by a politician in a golf-cart.
Um.
I was on the verge of saying 'gotcha' but desisted, out of modesty.
But -- gotcha, right ... ? 
You want to know what happened.
That's the whole point. Nothing very much happened!
Okay, here's what happened. I had gone for the annual picture market. That's this huge event that covers three roads and the entire arts college in the center. There are 1,400 artists and 400,000 visitors in a DAY. It's on one day a year only. The road is closed to any traffic, except the occasional policeman on a motorcycle and politician being driven around in a golf-cart.
Now, at the picture market, there are small things like bookmarks and greeting cards, 'medium' level things like sketches mounted on thick card-paper, and of course big things like paintings costing hundreds of thousands of rupees.
I buy the small stuff, mainly to send out to the members of the Snail Mail group right here on WDC, run by Elle - on hiatus  . So I wanted to get these greeting cards, which are reprints of paintings by one of India's most famous artists.
My friend, who was with me, is against my buying those. She's an artist herself and feels reprints don't do justice to the original. We have the same argument every year, and neither of us gives up. I want to buy those cards, she wants to stop me from buying those cards. So this year, I decided to outsmart her and side-step my way to the greeting card stall before she realised what was happening.
Except that the side-step was right along the path of a golf-cart with a politician in it.
(No politicians or golf-carts were hurt in the making of this story. My ego is another issue.)
After she had rescued me, both of us glared at each other and hissed, in chorus "SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ..."
ME: "Try to stop me from supporting art?"
SHE: "Persist in getting those reprints?"
We shrugged our respective shoulders. Then she gave a resigned sigh, and we bought the reprints. Four of them are already in the mail, incidentally, to four members of the Snail Mail Group.
So ... actually, nothing much happened. I stepped in front of a golf cart and didn't get hurt (ego doesn't count here).
But I just finished telling you the story of it, and you sure read it, right until here. And the small incident went deeper, giving you a background of my city's love for art and delving into my viewpoint on reprints v/s my friend's. So I used flash fiction to showcase two sides of an issue, as well. (In this case, it was a fleeting mention. I could've chosen to go a bit deeper in to this original v/s reprint issue as part of my story, with the stepping-in-front-of-a-golf-cart being the key consequence.)
If you're still here, please do leave a comment saying 'listening' in the feedback section below. While you're at it, maybe you'd like to tell me how much you appreciate my storyfying abilities. and perhaps mention an idea that this newsletter sparked off, that you are going to storyfy right now.
Pretty please, with pink pizza sauce. Just so I know this newsletter worked.
  
Cheers,
See images of Chitra Santhe (Picture market) here:
https://www.google.co.in/search?q=chitra+santhe+2018&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&... |
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Thank you for the responses to "No Evidence of Onions"
gingerlyme Onions are definitely the way to go. I would do my reveal at the end to avoid coming up with a poignant ending - not my specialty. Thanks for the newsletter and the food (onions) for thought!
Lilli  Great newsletter Sonali! I loved your letter and thoughts on "The Whole Shebang".
Quick-Quill  I loved this newsletter. This is a basic rule of writing a story and you brought it out in such a way to make it new. Sometimes we, as writers forget the importance of placement of clues. Some want to write prologues telling all the back story. It's far more interesting to write, "I don't like onions." The story progresses and finishes with the line, "Onions were never in our meals." A line that that in the beginning stays with the reader until it is answered at the end or somewhere throughout the story. Good job!
Zeke  She may have thrown the onions out after they affected her.
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