Creative Writing

After writing a couple of articles with a technical bend, I thought writing on a topic that would involve lesser technicalities to it. I chose ‘Creative writing’ as it drew my attention a couple of months back and ever since this is the one non-technical article I wished to write on.

Often, instructional designing and content development jobs call for ‘creative writing’ as one of the skills. This, I think, is probably so because (a) creative writing can be a yardstick to identify a good writer (prerequisite for a sound content writer and instructional designer) and (b) a content writer is expected, many a times, to base the learning around a context, a theme, or a narrative---such part of learning can be effectively created if the content writer is a good raconteur. With this moderate understanding, I thought of delving more into the subject of ‘creative writing’ and share my improved understanding with you.

So, what is creative writing? It is any kind of writing (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, travel, music, and so on) that is not academic, professional, or journalistic in nature. It is the kind of writing that an author does to express thoughts, feelings, and imagination and not to merely represent facts and figures. Creative writing is the first step to improve the skill of writing---writing, which is the basic element of content development and instructional designing.

The major chunk of creative writing is about writing a story, a narrative. Creative writing is something that all fiction writers invariably do. In a typical piece of creative writing, there are some seven basic elements of narrative that often appear: plot, characters, dialogue, setting, point of view, theme, and style. Let’s learn a bit about them.

Elements of Creative Writing

Plot: It is the sequence of events that govern the direction that the piece of art (narrative) takes. Chances are that a good plot will be able to save not-so-good writing however vice versa is considerably tough---a poor plot cannot be camouflaged by a well-written narrative. Usually, a plot will unfold the events and turns of the story in a chronological manner; you can however use flashbacks as well to treat your narrative differently. The climax that yields an addressing (one that binds and resolves the different angles of the plot) end to a progressive narrative makes an interesting read.

Characters: These are the human and non-human entities that play different roles in the plot. Introducing the characters early in the narrative is better---the main character earlier than the other characters. Chances are that if your reader can identify with one or more characters in the plot, the reader gets more glued to the narrative. So, check your characters in a manner that your readers can identify with.

Dialogue: It includes the sentences and phrases that are used as a part of the conversation between the characters of the narrative. The more dialogues a character has, the more important the character becomes. So, give your lead characters dialogues in a manner that the reader spends more time hearing to those characters. The main character should be given more dialogues and to the rest, as the plot demands. This was about the quantity, now let’s understand the quality. Each character is identified by the kind of language (dialogue) that he or she uses and also when he or she chooses to use these dialogues. Therefore, the dialogues should convey the feel of the character to the reader. It is better that the author does not pen down the character as sketched in his or her mind---the dialogues and accompanying expressions written by the author should hint toward the character. The narrator should present rather than spoon feed the characters to the readers. The judgment about a character should be the prerogative of the reader.

Another very vital point to remember is that you (the writer) should use dialogues purposefully---either to build the characters or to move the plot ahead or both. Dialogues that do not have a purpose or would not make difference to the plot if taken out are better left out.

Setting: It is the era or time, place, and backdrop in which the narrative happens. The setting sets the context in which the plot runs. Also, the dialogues and sketch of characters are often influenced by it. For a basic narrative, usually there is one setting to the whole plot. In other narratives, however, there might be multiple settings and it is better that the narrator introduces every setting before the respective (sub)plot begins.

Point of view: This is how the narrator sees that characters. Now, with that said, the point of view can be of various types: (a) first person point of view allows the main character to be the narrator or a secondary character to be the narrator for the main character (In this case, the narrator gives intimacy to the story however this can be limiting for the reader because the reader will be able to view the character through the narrator’s eyes.); (b) third person point of view gives the allowance that the narrator be (i) objective (just tell the story as is without telling the emotions and feelings that characters experience---describe only the actions) or (ii) omniscient (tell the story with actions as well as the inner feelings and emotions of the characters ).

It is wise that narrator does not impose his or her take on the characters; however, he or she should state the facts that led him or her to take that view point. The judgments should not be passed from the narrator’s words; the readers should be given space to make their own judgments.

Theme: It is the meaning and flavor that your narrative carries. The events that happen in the narrative will add and build its theme. Theme cannot be conveyed by words alone in the narrative; it builds with different incidents that happen in the plot.

Style: It is how you use the language to express yourself. A consistent style, in a narrative, is always way more impressive than the idea to have different, fancy styles in one piece of literary art. It is good to have a good hold on English; however, it is better to use precise, specific, and short words to express rather than to use long, convoluted, poetic, and flamboyant language. Remember to move the story ahead using the language rather than have emphasis on language and leave the plot on the fate of words. The string that holds a good story is the plot; and the style ensures that the string looks beautiful.

Tips for Creative Writing

• Give your readers at least one character they can identify with. Readers are quick and glad to recognize a character that they can identify with: themselves, a relative, a friend, or a neighbor, and so on. It adds to the zest of reading.
  
  
• Start as close to the beginning as possible. There is nothing more exciting than to read a piece that is fast moving and lets its readers know that the end is about to approach. If your readers experience the adrenaline rush by the fast paced treatment of your narrative, consider your story an interesting read.
  
  
• Use your sentences wisely to communicate more information with fewer words. Your sentences should yield information about characters and move the story forward in a word-efficient manner. Remove redundancy and make your story a crisp read.
  
  
• Try drawing most of your characters from the real life---from your family, friends, relatives, neighbors, your grocery store person, your librarian, your professor, your manager, your colleague, your subordinate. Take ideas from their lives, actions, and behavior to give your characters different dimensions.
  
  
• Do not spare your characters. Put your characters in difficult and unusual circumstances, no matter how ideal or nice they are. Give every character a meaning. Remember that your readers will remember the characters who were in difficult situations and went through making tough choices.
  
  
• Be alert. Be open to the ideas that run through your mind while you hear people talking in train, bus, parties, and other events.
  
  
• Identify your writing time. Get to know the time when you are at your creative best---some people write the best in the morning, while some prefer the night time. Once you know the time you give your best to writing, ensure that you write daily; it does not matter if it is only one small paragraph.
  
  
• Be yourself. Write the way you feel like not the way you think you should. Write without imposing any style on your individual style.
  
  
• Be a devil’s advocate. Do see your narrative from a non-author view point. Wear a critic’s hat after writing the first draft and correct all the loopholes in the story. Looking from a different view point certainly helps---mistakes that you do not see in your baby might become evident from someone else’s eyes. If you fail to do that, show your narrative to a friend or a colleague who you know will read the story from a different/second pair of eyes.
  
  
• Do it now. If you feel you can write a good story and wait for that opportune moment when your creative juices will flow, trust me that day will be as distant as it is today. The right time to start writing is now. Start writing and continue it. After some time of writing, you might feel that you need a break and you might just take it; however, that break might just keep extending. To avoid falling in the dark pit of non-return to writing, think of writing as a job and continue writing even on days you feel you cannot write. A trash-like written paper can be improved however an empty paper cannot be filled for a time gone by.
  
  

Note: Please note that I have used a lot of ‘should’s in the article however one thing to remember is that there are no perfect rules of writing; whatever works, simply works. Following rules (mostly) is a safe bet; however, you (a creative writer) should never be shy of following the gut feeling, even if it asks to violate the rules.

Happy Writing!!!

Web 2.0: Empowering the User

I have been thinking about writing on Web 2.0 for quite sometime and now I am happy to be almost there after much procrastination---though it is not progressive to write on it after scribbling an article on Web 3.0 but trust me, it is not retrogressive either. So much has been said about Web 2.0 that it seems to be ubiquitous however if you ask someone to define Web 2.0 for you, most often than not people might say “Umm… Do you know what social networking is?” or “Well, do you know what Flickr is?” … These are the applications of Web 2.0 that are common today however Web 2.0 is not limited or defined by these applications alone. Web 2.0 is no version of Web that is released by some company. It is rather a concept of Web applications that gives the users the right of reading and writing on the Web. When I say “writing,” it means writing afresh and also being able to edit the old text. Web 2.0 gives you the freedom to make changes to the already existing content---content includes text, images, as well as multimedia. So, the different applications that one uses today, say blogging, podcasting, and getting RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds, are features of Web 2.0. To know more about it, let’s look back and notice what led to the emergence of Web 2.0.

As the term itself suggests, Web 2.0 is some phenomenon that followed Web 1.0. So, the next question that arises is that how did Web progress from 1.0 to 2.0 and what is the difference between the two?

Moving From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

In the early 2000s, the then prevalent Web (Web 1.0) was experiencing a change---a change that let the user take control over the information that was available on the Web. The Web was transforming from being just a medium “of getting information” to a platform “of getting, modifying, publishing, and sharing information.” While Web 1.0 could be considered “Information-only Web,” Web 2.0 could easily be labelled as the “Participatory Web.” The Participatory Web allowed (or gives an opportunity to) the users to add the value of participation to what they (users) read over the Web. The result was a Web that was taking the form of a network where people could publish afresh or modify or add to already existing content. Web 1.0 was about control and Web 2.0, more about collaboration. Blogs and wikis can be considered the quintessential examples of Web 2.0 wherein the users are given the tools to add comments (as in blogs) or even edit the post (as in wikis).

Web 2.0

Emergence of Web 2.0 is not a technological revolution, it is a social revolution. Web 2.0 is not a technology, but a concept that is about opening up the Web to enable and encourage participation (by users to use the content as they like) using different applications and services. Web 2.0 makes the Web more user friendly---people can write and modify as they feel like, unlike Web 1.0 wherein users could only read the stuff on Web (it was the so called “read version of Web”). It gives flexibility to the users to play around with the content (text and media) on the Web irrespective of their technical programming background. Because people can write, edit what they wrote, and add on to it, Web 2.0 leads itself to a forum where people at different locations can interact. Discussion forums are a wonderful example of the same---people can post their thoughts, get feedback, understand new concepts, and freeze on their finding. Many e-learning assignments can and do take advantage of discussion forums.

Web 2.0 empowers the users--- the Internet becomes more interesting as there is something you can do on it, your friends can do on it, and all of them and more of others can get to see it, learn from it, and contribute to it---collaboration gets achievable.

Web 2.0 refers to overall changes in the ways that the software developers and end-users are utilizing the Web post year 2000. This second generation of Web development and design eases communication, information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the Internet.

Now that the concept of Web 2.0 is clear, let’s understand how a Web 2.0 Web site works?

A Web 2.0 Web site

A typical Web 2.0 Web site makes use of the SLATES features---Search (users can search the desired content by keying in suitable keywords), Links (users can browse the URLs containing related information---once you click the link, you get exposed to more information on the linked word/phrase), Authoring (users can add fresh content, archive it, edit it, remove it, and also make it available for edit by others), Tags (users can create tags to categorise and identify content as per the terminology of convenience, which can yield effective results when the search option is used), Extensions (capable algorithms that leverage the Web as application platform and a document server), and Signals (RSS Feeds, which signal the user to new activities on a given post, given that the user has subscribed to the RSS. I hope to write about it and Syndication in a separate article soon.).

Next, let’s look at the applications that utilize these features to address different purposes and needs.

Web 2.0 Applications

Web 2.0 concept has led to development of applications such as wikis, blogs, mashups, folksonomies, social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn), and video-sharing sites (e.g., YouTube).

Wiki is a collaborative Web site which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. It allows multiple users to create, modify, and organize Web page content in a collaborative manner and track the modification to that document. For me, a wiki doesn’t need to be open to everyone for editing. When I say that, the reason is not just the apprehension of defacement, but I would like to avoid anonymous editing. If you are creating and editing document(s) in a group, you might want to know who created what or changed what. Also, suppose if you are a professor who has asked students to work on a wiki as part of their class assignments, you would want to distinguish which students participated and which did not. In conclusion, I think a wiki is useful for collaborative editing, quickly and easily updating content, and easily finding content through searching and browsing.

Blogs bring together different informative elements that deliver related information. These elements include text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most of the blogs are primarily textual; however, depending on the predominance/focus of elements in a blog, it can be termed as artlog (art), photoblog (photographs), sketchblog (sketches), vlog (videos), MP3 blog (music), and podcasting (audio). Blogs are usually dedicated to some purpose; for example, some provide commentary or news on a particular subject while others are personal online diaries. Microblogs feature very short posts. Users can visit blogs by different authors and leave their comments, which often lead to discussions.

Mashup is a content aggregation technology---from the Web development perspective, it can be understood as a Web page or application that combines data and/or functionality from two or more external sources (such as different Web sites) to create a new service. In layman terms, you can say that a mashup is an application that runs by integrating the data, features, and/or applications of two or more Web sites; and the result is new knowledge/service that is processed from the existing old knowledge/service. For example, a sales strategist can mash-up Google maps with the sales of a particular product (in a particular city, for a given time period). This mashup can give, to the sales strategist, an exact picture of where the sales is at peak and where it is least and the strategist can devise a sales strategy accordingly.

There are two types of mashups, Web-based and server-based. Web-based mashups use the user's Web browser to combine and reformat the data; on the other hand, for the server-based mashups, a remote server analyzes and reformats the data and transmits it to the user's browser in its final form.

The technologies used by mashups to combine content and functionality from a variety of sources include RSS and Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML)---we will talk about them in the article soon.

Folksonomy is a portmanteau of folk and taxonomy. It is a type of classification system for online content, which an individual or a group user (folk) creates by tagging information with freely chosen keywords (taxonomy). This practice is also called collaborative or social tagging. Classifying information is one aspect of tagging; the other one is finding information. Therefore, the tags are also provided with metadata so that they are found easily.

Social networking sites provide a platform to connect like-minded people with similar interests. The users of any social networking site can connect with other members in the online community through messaging options such as mails and chats, file sharing, discussion forums, and so on. Social networking gives the users an opportunity to update themselves of what others in the group are up to. Although people can be in touch with each other through mails and messenger services, the idea of having an independent capsule of networking with friends wherein you can get and share updates with many people at once gained popularity post 2005. Social networking sites, now, are a popular means of collaborating and networking between friends, associates, and colleagues.

Video-sharing sites are the Web sites on which users can upload and share their videos. Users can upload a wide variety of user-generated videos such as movie clips, mobile videos, TV clips. Depending on the access rights, everyone or selected group of people can view the videos however you need to register in order to upload the videos.

Now that we have talked about the applications that are a result of the Web 2.0 concept, let’s take a look at the technologies that have enabled these applications and helped turned the Web 2.0 concept into reality.

The Technical Perspective

Technologies

Technologies such as Ajax, RSS, and XHTML/CSS (Cascading stylesheets) are the core of Web 2.0.

Ajax

Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is not a technology itself but it refers to the use of a group of technologies used to create rich Internet/Web applications. This broad group of technologies can be used to implement a Web application that can get data from the server at the backend/background without letting the display or the behaviour of the front/existing page get affected---this is the asynchronous aspect to Ajax. Google maps are a good example of Ajax application.

Ajax is a tool for giving Web applications the type of rich functionality that desktop applications are known for---while using this application, you can seamlessly move around; only the link that you want to explore opens the door to further navigation and rest of the links remain as is---the whole parent page does not refresh every time you click a link on it. So, Ajax is being used to develop Web sites that mimic (looks and work like) desktop applications. When I say that, there are two aspects to consider: (1) there is seamless movement that the user might experience using the navigation of an Ajax---only the portion that you want to explore will open and rest will remain static, and (2) you can work offline on an Ajax-based Web site. To execute point (1), the backend takes the request to update only a particular portion (on the Web site) and processes it to update/reload only specific portion of the page and rest of the page does not reload/refresh. This is how Ajax allows the Web sites to process asynchronous requests and overcomes the poor bandwidth usage and long load time problem associated with traditional Web sites (in which for every little request, the whole Web page reloads).

RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (a.k.a. Web Syndication). Most often, you can observe RSS feeds icon available on the Web pages of different Web sites---these icons are clickable. If you like a particular Web site and want to know updates as and when they happen on it, clicking the RSS icon will initiate the subscription process. After subscribing to the Web site, you will be notified of updates to that particular Web page.

RSS is used to publish frequently updated content in a standardized format---the content can be in the form of an audio, a video, blog entries, or news headlines. RSS feeds are read by software called the RSS reader, or feed reader, or aggregator. Such a software can be Web-, desktop-, or mobile-based. The RSS reader checks the Web links you subscribed to, downloads the updates, and provides the user interface for those updates.

RSS benefits publishers (by helping them syndicate the content automatically) as well as users/readers (by allowing them to subscribe to updates on their favourite Web site or to aggregate RSS from multiple Web sites into one place).

CSS

CSS stands for cascading stylesheets. It separates the content from its presentation. Web 2.0 is about making the Web more user-friendly; herein, the user need not worry about the HTML coding. CSS separates the coding (the HTML part) with the presentation (the XML part). CSS can be understood as a language that directs the presentation of content written in a markup language.

Nowadays, most of the Web pages are written in HTML or Xhtml. If you are an author, you can link your document (written in any markup language such as HTML or XHTML) to a CSS stylesheet, which will govern the presentation of the Web site---e.g., CSS will clearly establish fonts, colors, boundaries, layouts, and background styles for different heading and sections. The CSS usually gets stored in the user’s browser cache; as a result, the download speed and data transfer over the network becomes faster. However, after publishing, there is a possibility that your readers use a different stylesheet, may be one on their laptop, to override what you wrote. Looking it from a user’s perspective, you can use your own, familiar, and convenient stylesheet if you wish to overwrite the publisher’s CSS.

CSS provides two components to the Web sites: (1) scalability and (2) ease of building further. The ease of scaling up and building further is possible because a single change of element in the CSS changes the presentation across the Web site.

CSS also allows the same markup page to be presented in different styles for different publishing media, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader), and on Braille-based, tactile devices.

In Conclusion

With all the concepts, applications, and technologies associated with and revolving around Web 2.0, I see Web 2.0 as a medium through which information source has the possibility of remaining “Dynamic.” With Web 2.0, the information source is evolving just as learning is. I also see Web 2.0 as performing the role of learning in true sense, involving collaboration and free sharing of ideas leading to constructive education---a type of education that evolves with time, participation, and effort---not the one that is static and refuses to build on.