October 28, 2004 - Creative Writing, Part 2

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Broadcast on COAST TO COAST: October 28, 2004

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: we continue our conversation about creative writing with a self-described "addicted, compulsive reviser."

RS: Chitra Divakaruni has written four novels; her newest, "Queen of Dreams," was just published. But when she's not writing books, she's helping future writers as a professor at the University of Houston.

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "Fortunately, in some ways, writing is not a totally logical process. At some point if you start thinking 'I have to do this and this and this,' you're overwhelmed by the task. But when you begin to write, intuitively a lot of this comes to you. Because, with my students, and certainly I think many of our listeners, we've been readers all our lives. We know what works in literature from the point of view of the reader."

AA: "Now here's a technical question for you: Where do you stand on adjectives and adverbs?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "Well, I think each story has its own rules. Some stories will require a minimalistic writing where you cut back on those adjectives and adverbs. And some stories, the style that will bring that story out most fruitfully will require a lot of description, a lot of detail. And therefore you need to bring in adjectives and adverbs and powerful verbs as well. Sometimes we forget that verbs can be so very descriptive. And we have to try. And if it's not working, there's always revision."

RS: "You're both a writer of fiction and a teacher. Those are two very different worlds. How do you jump from one to the other?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "That is very difficult. It's a real juggling act. My situation at the university is, I teach one semester and then I get the rest of the year off. And it's really when I have time off that I do most of my writing, because I find when I'm writing I have to enter the fictional universe of my stories.

"For example, when I was writing 'Queen of Dreams,' much of that story is set in India, where the mother is undergoing training as a dream interpreter and she's living in a community of dream interpreters. And I really for days had to just be in that world. Otherwise I couldn't write it. And it's very disruptive when you have to get out of that creative mode of thinking and that imaginative mode of thinking and you have to move to the critical mode of thinking, which is where I am when I am teaching."

RS: "What kind of advice would you give to our listeners, those who speak English as a foreign language who might want to write in their native language or perhaps someday in English?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "Well, one of the things that I always say to my students, and I think this applies to everyone, because it has been very helpful for me as well, is to read a lot, and to read as a writer, which is different. Because when you read as a writer, now you're reading much more slowly, and you're reading with a pen or pencil in your hand and you're marking things that you really admire. And as you admire these things, you're trying to figure out the technique of the writer. ‘Well, here I really like how the character relates to another person, I can really understand the feelings. What did the writer do to create this?’ So that kind of reading I think is very, very helpful. And it's often something that we don't do when we're just reading right through a book."

AA: "Well, I imagine you must write a great essay. [laughter] Actually I was wondering if you have any advice for a student out there who had to write an essay either to get into school or something -- "

RS: "What advice would you give to my son who is applying for the university right now and has to write these college essays?"

AA: "Do you stick to the dreaded five-paragraph essay, or what's your advice?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "Well, what I would first say is read the directions very carefully [laughter] because directions will often give you a sense of what they're looking for. And we want to work with language in these essays. We want to use exact descriptive phrases that will stay in the reader's mind. And then, of course, I think what's really important is being honest, being truthful and writing something you're passionate about.

"A lot of these essays will ask you to say something that is special about yourself, to describe something that has had meaning in your life and has taught you something. Now sometimes students will take the easy path and they'll write about an experience that isn't risky, that's pretty much along the beaten path. And what I say to my students, and what I tried to do in 'Queen of Dreams,' is to take risks. I think good writers take risks, and they're not afraid to open themselves up for their readers."

RS: Novelist Chitra Divakaruni is a professor of creative writing at the University of Houston.

AA: And now for a programming note: Wordmaster will move to Wednesday, with a repeat on Saturday, starting next week. We will put the exact times on our Website at voanews.com/wordmaster.

RS: And you can always write to use at word@voanews.com. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

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October 21, 2004 - Creative Writing, Part 1

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Broadcast on COAST TO COAST: October 21, 2004

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: we have a special guest to discuss creative writing.

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "My name is Chitra Divakaruni, and I am a writer and also a professor of creative writing at the University of Houston."

RS: "Creative writing is something you can teach?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "Only if you already know how to write. We can help you get better and we can help writers see what are their strengths and what are their weaknesses. And this is something that many writers, and myself included, sometimes have a hard time with, because we are so close to our own writing that it's hard to be critical about it."

AA: "And you have to think about, I suppose in some cases, commercial considerations, if you want to actually make money from your writing. I mean, what's the market demanding right now?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "What we are dealing with in creative writing programs is really literary fiction. So over there the market is very open and looking for new talent, people who can tell a story in a different way, people who create characters that are unique. That's what publishers are looking for, people who have a voice that is different from other voices."

RS: "You talk about strengths and weaknesses. When you look at a story, what would be some of those strengths and weaknesses?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "Well, one of the things that I would look for in my students' stories is, how well are the characters depicted? Are these characters coming alive? Are they believable? Do they have a unique voice when they speak in their dialogue? That would be one of the first things. Does the reader feel sympathy or empathy or at least some kind of strong reaction to these characters?"

RS: "Wouldn't that be highly subjective?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "Creative writing, as you continue to work in the field, you see that it is often subjective in the ways in which people express things. But certain things are universal about good literature, and one of them is that good literature makes the reader think about a lot of issues and makes the reader feel about a lot of issues that are central in the novel. And if that connection is not created right away, then your book has failed on some level."

RS: "You say 'right away.' What do you mean right away, in the first sentence -- "

AA: "The first chapter?"

RS: " -- in the first chapter, in the first paragraph?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "If it's a story, yes, the first paragraph. If it's a novel, then you have a few more pages to work with, but within two or three pages, the reader must want to continue reading. The reader must say 'wow, this is really exciting and worth my time.'"

AA: "So, now, you are out with your latest novel. It's called 'Queen of Dreams.' Why don't you just talk a little bit about the process you went through. Did you feel a bit like a student, or do you talk to your students about -- did you have to do many rewrites? Tell us a little bit about the process."

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "Yes, definitely. When I was doing 'Queen of Dreams,' when I was writing that, I had to do a lot of revision. I always do a lot of revision. I'm kind of one of those addicted, compulsive revisers. And for me, each word just has to be right, or I'll keep worrying the text, I'll keep working with it.

"And one of the first things that's always important to me in my writing, and certainly in 'Queen of Dreams' but also in earlier novels like 'Mistress of Spices' and 'Sister of My Heart,' is that I have to have a very strong idea of the protagonist or at least two or three of the major characters before I can start writing. I have to be able to visualize them, I have to understand their inner thinking, and I have to get a sense of their voice, how they speak. And I can't start stories until I have that clearly in my head."

RS: "Are any of the voices, or students, in your classes, are they from other communities, other cultures, so they're speaking with a wide variety of voices?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "We have a very multicultural program, and I have students who are Indian American. I have African American students. I have Latino American students. I really have students from just about, so many cultures, and that creates a really wonderful mix in the classroom, because everyone is bringing their own culture into their writing. And even though they're writing in English, they have the rhythms of their own mother tongues."

RS: "And what is your mother tongue?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "My mother tongue is Bengali."

RS: "And is that voice heard in your novels?"

CHITRA DIVAKARUNI: "Very much so. In 'Queen of Dreams,' the title character, who is a dream interpreter, comes from Bengal. She's living in the United States right now."

AA: And, next week, we’ll hear more from Chitra Divakaruni, a novelist, poet and professor of creative writing at the University of Houston, in Texas. That's all for now. Our e-mail address here is word@voanews.com. And find our interviews online at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

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October 7, 2004 - Lida Baker: Crafting a Complaint

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Broadcast on COAST TO COAST: October 7, 2004

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: a lesson in complaining.

RS: English teacher Lida Baker is with us from Los Angeles to discuss a topic suggested by one of our listeners, an English teacher in Iran. His students would like to know the proper way to complain.

AA: Lida Baker says the first part of any complaint is a factual statement about what the problem is. But there's another part to learn that's more important, she says.

LIDA BAKER: "I'm guessing that there are students from a lot of cultures where this cultural behavior we have in the United States of being very forthright about what we think and what we want -- that's the part that would be a lot harder for them than the linguistic part of complaining, which is just saying 'here is the problem.'"

RS: "It's legitimate in the United States to complain, it's legitimate to take a product back to a store, and I think this is something that a student would have to understand before he or she could actually put the complaint into action. But Lida, how would you put this into context, into a classroom? How would you teach -- I guess it would be kind of an assertiveness training?"

LIDA BAKER: "I think in teaching, the first step is providing that cultural background. What is the return policy of a store? And understanding that it isn't the same from one store to the next. I had an incident a few weeks ago where I bought some clothes for my daughter from a store where I just assumed that if they didn't fit her, because she wasn't with me at the time, I just assumed that if they didn't fit I could bring them back.

"And they didn't fit, and I went back to the store, and to my utter surprise this store would not refund my money. It would only give me a store credit or allow for an exchange. And I was very shocked because I was used to shopping in stores that provided you with a full refund for your money."

AA: "What did you say to the clerk? I'm curious, how did you handle that?"

LIDA BAKER: "I expressed my surprise. But at the same time, I reminded myself that this is not -- you know, the clerks are the people in the first line of fire. But we have to remember that they are not the ones who set the store policy."

AA: "You know what, I have here an example of a complaint letter. This is on the Sarasota, Florida, public school system's Web site, and it was written to this clothing company. And this is a letter about some shoes, and it begins:

"'To Whom It May Concern:

"'On September 20, I ordered (by phone) a pair of brown leather Peace Mules for $36.99, which includes $4.99 for shipping and handling. When they were delivered to my home, the package was wet and the leather shoes were ruined.

"'I am returning the shoes. I realize the shipping and handling fee is non-refundable, but I would like the original amount of $32 to be refunded.

"'Thank you for your attention to this matter.

"'Sincerely,' and she signs it here. So what do you think of that?"

LIDA BAKER: "I think that's a perfect letter of complaint. She states what the problem is. She states what correction she would like the company to make. The tone is neutral; she doesn't come across as angry or demanding. It's short -- you know, there's nothing extra there, so that the person reading the letter doesn't have to go hunting, you know, through the letter. What is it that happened, and what does the person want?

"And getting back to the classroom now, if we wanted to give our students experience learning how to write letters of complaint, we would show them several examples. We would then give them a situation in which there was something to complain about, and we would ask them to write a similar letter using one of the models that we've provided, like the one that you just read.

"What is much harder, of course, is for people to get experience complaining verbally, in person. And so once we have demonstrated, by means of either video or literature, several scenarios in which complaining takes place, and we've analyzed the language and structures that go into complaining, the final step -- and perhaps the most important one -- is to give students practice complaining in a sheltered environment; in other words, in the classroom. And I would do that by means of role playing."

RS: Lida Baker writes English textbooks and teaches in the American Language Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. We’d love to hear from you, even if it is a complaint! Our e-mail address is word@voanews.com.

AA: And we have all our previous segments with Lida at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

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