I was at the Indian Language School, Ilupeju on Friday, 10th with Jude Dibia, to talk about writing and reading. Some structured questions were thrown at me and I'm presenting them here this way. This is my opinion, and please, don't think I'm teaching anyone how to write, basically. But just the way I approach writing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“For every reader that dies, a viewer is born”
Chump Change, David Eddie
What prompted me to become a writer?
I will start by saying that as soon as a reader is born, a writer is made. When you read a book, there’s certain scourge that purls into your mind that you can do this, even better. Or you could try and work out something. It was a progressive march from reading other people that the idea of putting down my own ideas came and poof! I grabbed that spirit and began to write. All the same, I should say that growing up as an introvert also prompted me to become a writer, believing that we have loads of my fellow introverts here who know what is to feel, ‘Please-I-want-to-be-left-alone’ all the time. But the truth is that there is an introvert in every artist, because art is a world of loneliness, where there is fold around your eyes that make you see singularly, but you are actually capturing the world broadly.
All the same, the first few authors I read grew up just like me – in the countryside. I felt that little connection with them. Chinua Achebe was born in a village as me, Wole Soyinka and a whole bunch of them, and these were the authors that first influenced me, although I gradually grew out of their claws when I became prescriptive of what a writer should write and what a reader should read. More so, I do not think I would have become a writer without those writers. They made me think, saying to myself, ‘Onyeka, you can actually write.’
What helped me make that decision?
First and foremost, my acute laziness made me make that decision. Laziness in the sense that I grew up having my mother do my laundry, clean my room and make my bed. Not that she was the one who rooted me to laziness; I was born lazy. So, I had the courage to ask myself so many serious questions relating to my future. Could I stay at a place as a banker? No. Could I become a lawyer? No. So, I stuck to my pathway of becoming a writer. I would just roll up in my bed and read and write. I was also a good painter back then, which I abandoned as soon as I felt that my writing was making headway.
The impediments I came across my way.
Someone so dear to me now told me a week ago that every writer needs support. And thank god that I’m paired with Jude Dibia today. A lot of challenges came my way and they are still here with me. At times I feel that I shouldn’t have taken this path – then, I would look back and say, ‘Shut up! You have a bright future.’ I mean, a lot of good things have come with The Abyssinian Boy. I wonder, if I had written a different story, would I be here today? Would I get the sort of attention I’m getting? Would I ever think of sending Shobhaa De a copy of my book? I wouldn’t have gone to India in the first place if I had not seen the impediments most writers in Nigeria go through trying to print their names on the hearts of people, by writing simple stories that do not really require the sort of research I had to embark on while in India.
The lucky thing, even though my family was supportive, was that I got to know Jude Dibia. He offered financial assistance from Nigeria which kept me alive in India. His kind words kept me keeping on. And the attention he paid to stuff I sent to him leveled the impediments I faced.
The techniques of writing a novel/short story.
Honestly enough, I have not seriously thought about these techniques until now, although I have always approached novel writing as a soap opera, sitcom. Something episodic, you know that cuts across all lives. When I write, try to write about every character that I can think of that exists in real life, but add a lot more salt to its taste, I mean, I try to exaggerate widely, that suddenly the reader will say, ‘Oh, this is so unreal.’ But when you come to think of it, the most improbable parts of stories are the real ones. Just that the reader has never experienced it, it becomes quite unbelievable. So, I should say that when I write, I try to see a different world.
Many writers claim they don’t follow rules, but we unconsciously do. We want to do better what the other writer couldn’t do. We want to tell our stories better. I’m not good at offering tips, but this is exactly the way I set out working on The Abyssinian Boy. Before I show you these tips, I would like to tell you that I approached the writing like an aerial view of the world, with an omniscient narrator who acted like the all-knowing and conscientious guy with a professor mind, a geographer’s mindscape and a psychologist’s brain.
·
While the passion to write doubled, I set out to think of the novel writing heavily, weaving scenes by scenes. I wasn’t serious about the chaptering, which I think it’s the most essential thing when it comes to the architecture of a book. But then, I felt that writing itself is architecture, as Arundhati Roy would say.
·
I had time to mentally plot out the roots I would take to ending the story, but the first chapter of my book I wrote at the end, because I feel that a storyteller should ramble and should not approach storytelling as an A-Z thing. You create scenes when you are moved to. A scene doesn’t have to be complete, which many critics have described as perpetual storytelling, though authors like Salman Rushdie and Okey Ndibe do that better. You can always push the mind of the reader back and forth and then forth and back. Musicologists definitely know that takes and notes in music work better this way and consider approaching novel writing from that dimension.
· I pay attention to details when I write. I remember staring at the painting of Shiva and describing it the way I saw it in one chapter of my book. It was so appealing to me that I had to be overly descriptive in that part.
·
Don’t be shy to express yourself in short paragraphs. Most readers prefer short sentences and paragraphs. So, a writer should not be overly descriptive when it comes to novel writing, because wow, you’ve got loads of pages to fill up, unless you are writing a short story, which unlike novel writing is handled with some certain degree of time-frame, so it wouldn’t water down.
·
So many people believe that short story writing is harder than novel writing. I tell them is a lie. Both are hard, because when you approach a short story writer to write a novel, he dies off on the third chapter. Loudly, you will hear him screaming, ‘I’m tired. I have writer’s block.’ Of course, short stories should be taut, but then, it does show that a novelist has a lot of work to do. In a situation where there’s consistency in the language of a character in a novel or the writer forgets that he’s actually mentioned something like this before and then goes on to goof in the next chapter, maybe at the end of book, contradicting himself, he makes the world cringe. But in a short story, you already have your facts in mind, your details are clear and you can really push the story out in few days, without messing any part of it up.
·
Try not to sound smart in novel writing, by being verbose. You can be melodramatic, that’s forgivable, but when you try to widely tell the world that: “His smile jocundly bewildered the engraved chromes of his disjointed mind into the shadow of the twiddling girdle”, then you have lost a reader. The best writers in the world construct the simplest sentences (and even the shortest)
·
Novel writing is something that should be handled consciously. A writer, who doesn’t understand his characters, is like a Deaf God who doesn’t hear the cry of his people. When I write, I listen to my characters, I know how they feel and I know what will make them sober. You become a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a Creator all packed in one. It is your duty then to make sure that these characters are well-fleshed out and one-two, you will hear people discussing your characters as though they are humans.
·
The last thing a writer should know is the end of his book. Write and write and when you think it’s not flowing again, try to think of an end that will work well with the body of the entire work. This is just the way it works for me. A differing viewpoint is there and that’s why the point-of-views in my writing differ, because I take shades of opinion from different perspectives.
Message for the present/future generation of writers
Persistence matters so much in life. We should dream high, be ambitious. Once in a while, be desperate. Act like a king, you are not a beggar. Talk brightly and respond to whatever question about your writing that comes your way. And don’t act of your age. Let everyone around you know that you are a writer, because no one becomes a writer without reading and reading broadens the horizon of our thoughts.
Onyeka Nwelue
10/07/2009
