Writer's Secrets: How to get a plot from anywhere

No, not out of thin air. From somewhere. 
There are no unique plots, you know. Subconsciously or consciously, writers draw motifs and themes from the stories in our collective consciousness. Let me prove it to you by doing it right here, now. Okay? I'm going absolutely impromptu now, for honesty's sake. Let's start.

Jack and the Beanstalk. That's the first story that came to my head. So let's take Jack and the Beanstalk.

Jack goes to market to sell cow. Meets weird man who gives him beans. Mom gives Jack hell and throws beans out of window. Giant beanstalk happens. Jack goes up and steals things from giant and kills him. Becomes rich and lives happily ever after.

That's the basic plot. Now let's make the setting a planet somewhere, and make the story a sci-fi one.

Maya, who lives on the moon, goes to the Alpha Centauri market-planet to sell space-bike that her father built. Sells it for sack of peanuts, peanuts being exotic food in her home planet. Father grumbles and they have peanuts for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But in that sack is a special seed, the seed of an extinct species of tree. Half the galaxy is in search of that seed...

But you get the idea, don't you? A giant beanstalk of an idea sprouted from that simple fairytale. Infuse it with different variables and see.

Mark goes to comic con to sell old comics from his grandfather's collection. He meets cosplay girl who buys him lunch and steals his comics. Mark seeks her everywhere but she is one step ahead of him. In the process, he falls in love with her...

Now it's romantic comedy. Would anyone suspect that I lifted the plot from Jack and the Beanstalk?


Manas, who works for his uncle's ad agency, loses an account to a clever rival. He is sacked but resolves to take revenge on rival and become bigger than uncle, who thinks Manas worthless. But Manas fails again and again, and goes off to the Himalayas. He returns enlightened, and smiles when his uncle, who doesn't recognise him, falls at Manas' feet...

Jack and the Beanstalk becomes a spiritual book or a comedy. That will depend upon how you treat it.

Happy writing!

Talent, luck and all that rot!

Whenever someone tells me that I have got talent, I feel insulted.
Stand outside a gym, accost someone with rippling biceps, shapely lats, six packs and all, and tell him that he has a talented body, and he will biff you one. Poor chap has probably spent a decade building those muscles, and you tell him he's got talent.

I have got talent, too. A talent for fraud. Not for drawing or writing. I feel such a cheat since I wasn't born an artist. I had to learn the hard way. I have been drawing since I was in kindergarten, and even neglected my academic education in the pursuit of art. I filled notebooks with sketches, and irritated teachers by ruining my textbooks with illustrations in pencils, ink and chalk. I have even experimented with creative media: eyebrow pencils, talcum powder and vanishing cream on brown paper.
Was I lucky? No, I was only taken to task. Books meant everything to me, and I had access to books. I don't know if that was luck. Richer friends possessed many Blytons, comics and picture books, while I borrowed them from libraries. My wise father made me a member of all the four major libraries in Chennai, then Madras: the Madras District Library, the British Council, the Connemara and the one at the American Consulate. Those were my halls of learning. Oops, I forgot the School's! The school library was a big library and had the Childcraft series of books. Almost every principle of art I know and use can be found in its 'Look and Learn' volume.
 

And how did I forget Reader's Digest? I met Dali, Picasso, Millais, Monet, Courbet and many other greats between its covers. Old issues of RD were available in second-hand bookshops for fifty paise each. So many hours I spent learning from the masters. Who needs live art teachers? Let Monet and Dali teach you Art!

Every child is an artist. Do they remain artists? That is the question. The part of your self that hasn't matured, that part is still creative, and available. Ask a child to draw, and you will get a picture. Ask the child to sing; you will get a song. The child does not think about talent or wait for luck. The child creates, with confidence and passion.

But let the child decide. Surround your children with books, toys, people or music, and let them make a choice.

I remained an artist. I continued to draw. I wasn't given gifts. I plucked them off God's Christmas tree.

Gajapati Kulapati 2 - the Problem with Sequels

The GK prototype

Gajapati Kulapati was not meant to be published. Originally. Meaning, I wrote it almost impromptu, for the book reading sessions Tulika publishers were delighting children with, those days when they also ran this exclusive bookshop for children. I was Tulika's art editor, not the regular sort of literary editor, but the Tulikan space inspired writing, and I had playfully written short stories and stuff.

Sandhya Rao wrote a story and I wrote one. And a good time was had by all kids, including us big ones. Radhika Menon, head of Tulika, asked me to draw the pictures in a giant picture book to be used in the sessions. On your right, Folks! ==>

That was more than a decade ago. Gajapati saw the light of publishing day,eventually, and the book that Sandhya wrote is the bestselling 'Sunu Sunu Snail: Storm in the Garden,' illustrated with love and affection by, who else, me.

Coming back to the sequel problem. We all know what happens to most sequels. Not always as good as the first one. Rarely better than the first. I didn't want that to happen to poor Gajapati and his readers.
The first story took half-an-hour or an hour to write, I don't remember how long, but the second took two years to work up the courage to do it, and a week to write. I wanted to do it right the second time too. I guess that responsibility contributed to a block.
So the moral here, gentle folks, is that, when you do a fun book, don't be serious. Play while you play! For your patience, I thank you, and give you a sneak preview of two pages from the forthcoming book.

Wishes coming true - Gajapati Kulapati

Have you ever done a double take after realising something in life?
'Realise' as in 'cause to happen,' I mean here, not 'have understanding.' Do you remember the wishes you had made as a schoolkid? You would, if you have just passed out of college, but someone like me doing his half-century, or golden jubilee, has a memory like a sieve.

I had wanted to be an artist, but as I grew up and became 'mature,' I realised, ('realise' as in 'have understanding,' I mean, this time, not 'cause to happen,') that I would have to become an engineer like my father. Not unhappily, but was just being older and wiser.

I remember sitting in the school library, my favourite room in the school, with my friend Vijay Anand, who, leafing through my drawing book, said, "Ashok, you will be an artist."
"No, Vijay, I have to become an engineer."

One of my childhood dreams was to write and illustrate a book or a comic, but that dream went the way of all dreams. I studied engineering and drew pictures of lathes and milling machines.

But lo! I am an artist today, and have been that for 25 years. And 'Gajapati Kulapati' a picture book written and illustrated by that immature schoolboy, the boy who managed to thrive inside me in spite of the 'real' world, was published by Tulika Publishers. The book came out in August 2010, and shy me even did a book reading. I don't know about the kids who came to the launch, but I had a great time.

You know, that story was written not by worldly-wise me but that dreamy boy inside. Gajapati Kulapati lives in an idyllic village, where everybody is a friend and people only inadvertently hurt each other, if at all. That is the world I would like to live in.

Well, I have just finished illustrating the second book in the series, 'Kalabaloosh!' Tulika's bringing it out this year.

And what I had originally wanted to say here was, just 'Thanks.' I thank God, the Tulika gang, Vijay Anand the prophet, and that boy who sat beside him. I thank myself too, you know.
Gajapati Kulapati is available here, and here, and many other places.