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I Approach Writing Stories As A Recorder. I Think Of My Role As Some Kind Of Reporting Device - Recording And Projecting.
-Jhumpa Lahiri
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I Approach Writing Stories

Jhumpa Lahiri
I Approach Writing Stories As A Recorder. I Think Of My Role As Some Kind Of Reporting Device - Recording And Projecting.
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Topic
Writing
Thinking
Roles
More From Jhumpa Lahiri
I Dream Of Writing A Book Like Lovers Some Day. It Is So Spare But So Rich. It Is History Made Intimate, And A Masterpiece Of Compression.
Dream
Book
Writing
I've Seen Novels That Have Grown Out Of One Story In A Collection. But It Hasn't Occurred To Me To Take Any Of Those Stories And Build On Them. They Seem Very Finished For Me, So I Don't Feel Like Going Back And Dredging Them Up.
Stories
Dredging
Novel
You Are Still Young, Free.. Do Yourself A Favor. Before It's Too Late, Without Thinking Too Much About It First, Pack A Pillow And A Blanket And See As Much Of The World As You Can. You Will Not Regret It. One Day It Will Be Too Late.
Motivational
Inspiring
Travel
She Watched His Lips Forming The Words, At The Same Time She Heard Them Under Her Skin, Under Her Winter Coat, So Near And Full Of Warmth That She Felt Herself Go Hot.
Winter
Skins
Hot
Somehow, Bad News, However Ridden With Static, However Filled With Echoes, Always Manages To Be Conveyed.
Echoes
News
Namesake
He Owned An Expensive Camera That Required Thought Before You Pressed The Shutter, And I Quickly Became His Favorite Subject, Round-faced, Missing Teeth, My Thick Bangs In Need Of A Trim. They Are Still The Pictures Of Myself I Like Best, For They Convey That Confidence Of Youth I No Longer Possess, Especially In Front Of A Camera.
Missing
Bangs
Cameras
Each Day She Removes A Small Portion Of The Unwanted Things In People's Lives, Though All Of It, She Thinks, Was Previously Wanted, Once Useful. She Feels The Sun Scorching The Back Of Her Neck. The Heat Is At Its Worst Now, The Rains Still A Few Months Away. The Task Satisfies Her. It Passes The Time.
Rain
Thinking
People
When I Sit Down To Write, I Don't Think About Writing About An Idea Or A Given Message. I Just Try To Write A Story Which Is Hard Enough.
Writing
Thinking
Ideas
They Were Things For Which It Was Impossible To Prepare But Which One Spent A Lifetime Looking Back At, Trying To Accept, Interpret, Comprehend. Things That Should Never Have Happened, That Seemed Out Of Place And Wrong, These Were What Prevailed, What Endured, In The End.
Trying
Impossible
Lifetime
That's What Books Are For... To Travel Without Moving An Inch.
Travel
Moving
Book
She Has The Gift Of Accepting Her Life.
Namesake
Accepting
Pack A Pillow And Blanket And See As Much Of The World As You Can.you Will Not Regret It.
Regret
World
Namesake
The Sky Was Different, Without Color, Taut And Unforgiving. But The Water Was The Most Unforgiving Thing, Nearly Black At Times, Cold Enough, I Knew, To Kill Me, Violent Enough To Break Me Apart. The Waves Were Immense, Battering Rocky Beaches Without Sand. The Farther I Went, The More Desolate It Became, More Than Any Place I'd Been, But For This Very Reason The Landscape Drew Me, Claimed Me As Nothing Had In A Long Time.
Beach
Color
Sky
I Wanted To Pull Away From The Things That Marked My Parents As Being Different.
Parent
Being Different
Different
Writing Is One Of The Most Assertive Things A Person Can Do.
Writing
Assertive
Willfulness
Most People Trusted In The Future, Assuming That Their Preferred Version Of It Would Unfold. Blindly Planning For It, Envisioning Things That Weren't The Case. This Was The Working Of The Will. This Was What Gave The World Purpose And Direction. Not What Was There But What Was Not.
People
Purpose
World
Isolation Offered Its Own Form Of Companionship
Companionship
Isolation
Form
While The Astronauts, Heroes Forever, Spent Mere Hours On The Moon, I Have Remained In This New World For Nearly Thirty Years. I Know That My Achievement Is Quite Ordinary. I Am Not The Only Man To Seek His Fortune Far From Home, And Certainly I Am Not The First. Still, There Are Times I Am Bewildered By Each Mile I Have Traveled, Each Meal I Have Eaten, Each Person I Have Known, Each Room In Which I Have Slept. As Ordinary As It All Appears, There Are Times When It Is Beyond My Imagination." (from "the Third And Final Continent")
Hero
Home
Moon
The Urge To Convert Experience Into A Group Of Words That Are In A Grammatical Relation To One Another Is The Most Basic, Ongoing Impulse Of My Life.
Groups
Ongoing
Relation
Fiction Is The Only Way I Know A Human Being Can Inhabit The Mind Of Another Human Being.
Mind
Fiction
Way
The First Sentence Of A Book Is A Handshake, Perhaps An Embrace.
Book
Firsts
Embrace
I Approach Writing Stories As A Recorder. I Think Of My Role As Some Kind Of Reporting Device - Recording And Projecting.
Writing
Thinking
Roles
Gogol Is Unaccustomed To This Sort Of Talk At Mealtimes, To The Indulgent Ritual Of The Lingering Meal, And The Pleasant Aftermath Of Bottles And Crumbs And Empty Glasses That Clutter The Table.
Glasses
Meals
Aftermath
For That Story, I Took As My Subject A Young Woman Whom I Got To Know Over The Course Of A Couple Of Visits. I Never Saw Her Having Any Health Problems - But I Knew She Wanted To Be Married.
Couple
Stories
Saws
It Was Not In My Nature To Be An Assertive Person. I Was Used To Looking To Others For Guidance, For Influence, Sometimes For The Most Basic Cues Of Life. And Yet Writing Stories Is One Of The Most Assertive Things A Person Can Do. Fiction Is An Act Of Willfulness, A Deliberate Effort To Reconceive, To Rearrange, To Reconstitute Nothing Short Of Reality Itself. Even Among The Most Reluctant And Doubtful Of Writers, This Willfulness Must Emerge. Being A Writer Means Taking The Leap From Listening To Saying, "listen To Me."
Writing
Mean
Reality
She Had Listened To Him, Partly Sympathetic, Partly Horrified. For It Was One Thing For Her To Reject Her Background, To Be Critical Of Her Family's Heritage, Another To Hear It From Him.
Heritage
Sympathetic
Backgrounds
Sexy Means Loving Someone You Donot Know.
Sexy
Mean
Loving Someone
A Writer Has To True To Him Or Herself. Period. That’s It!
Periods
She Learned That An Act Intended To Express Love Could Have Nothing To Do With It. That Her Heart And Her Body Were Different Things.
Heart
Different
Body
I Am Drawn To Any Story That Makes Me Want To Read From One Sentence To The Next. I Have No Other Criterion.
Stories
Want
Next
War Will Bring The Revolution; Revolution Will Stop The War.
War
Revolution
It Didn't Matter That I Wore Clothes From Sears; I Was Still Different. I Looked Different. My Name Was Different. I Wanted To Pull Away From The Things That Marked My Parents As Being Different.
Names
Clothes
Parent
One Hand, Five Homes. A Lifetime In A Fist.
Home
Hands
Fists
Amid The Gray, An Incongruous Band Of Daytime Blue Asserts Itself. To The West, A Pink Sun Already Begins Its Descent. The Effect Is Of Three Isolated Aspects, Distinct Phases Of The Day. All Of It, Strewn Across The Horizon, Is Contained In His Vision.
Blue
Vision
Three
We Are All #humans And We All Make #mistakes. We #hurt People Even If We Don't Want To.
Hurt
Mistake
People
The First Sentence Of A Book Is A Handshake, Perhaps An Embrace. Style And Personality Are Irrelevant. They Can Be Formal Or Casual. They Can Be Tall Or Short Or Fat Or Thin. They Can Obey The Rules Or Break Them. But They Need To Contain A Charge. A Live Current, Which Shocks And Illuminates.
Book
Personality
Style
The Most Compelling Narrative, Expressed In Sentences With Which I Have No Chemical Reaction, Or An Adverse One, Leaves Me Cold.
Narrative
Cold
Chemical Reactions
Being A Writer Means Taking The Leap From Listening To Saying 'listen To Me'.
Inspiration
Mean
Writing
A Lot Of My Upbringing Was About Denying Or Fretting Or Evading.
Fretting
Upbringing
But She Has Gathered That Americans, In Spite Of Their Public Declarations Of Affection, In Spite Of Their Miniskirts And Bikinis, In Spite Of Their Hand-holding On The Street And Lying On Top Of Each Other On The Cambridge Common, Prefer Their Privacy.
Lying
Hands
Bikinis
And Yet She Could Not Forgive Herself. Even As An Adult, She Wished Only That She Could Go Back And Change Things: The Ungainly Things She’d Worn, The Insecurity She’d Felt, All The Innocent Mistakes She Made.
Life
Mistake
Insecurity
I Would Not Send A First Story Anywhere. I Would Give Myself Time To Write A Number Of Stories.
Writing
Numbers
Giving
And Yet He Had Loved Her. A Bookish Girl Heedless Of Her Beauty, Unconscious Of Her Effect. She'd Been Prepared To Live Her Life Alone But From The Moment He'd Known Her He'd Needed Her.
Girl
Her Beauty
Moments
It Interests Me To Imagine Characters Shifting From One Situation And One Location To Another For Whatever The Circumstances May Be.
Character
May
Location
There Were Times Ruma Felt Closer To Her Mother In Death Than She Had In Life, An Intimacy Born Simply Of Thinking Of Her So Often, Of Missing Her. But She Knew That This Was An Illusion, A Mirage, And That The Distance Between Them Was Now Infinite, Unyielding.
Mother
Distance
Thinking
Isolation Offered Its Own Form Of Companionship: The Reliable Silence Of Her Rooms, The Steadfast Tranquility Of The Evenings. The Promise That She Would Find Things Where She Put Them, That There Would Be No Interruption, No Surprise. It Greeted Her At The End Of Each Day And Lay Still With Her At Night.
Night
Silence
Promise
My Parents Had An Arranged Marriage, As Did So Many Other People When I Was Growing Up. My Father Came And Had A Life In The United States One Way And My Mother Had A Different One, And I Was Very Aware Of Those Things. I Continue To Wonder About It, And I Will Continue To Write About It.
Mother
Growing Up
Father
My Grandfather Says That's What Books Are For," Ashoke Said, Using The Opportunity To Open The Volume In His Hands. "to Travel Without Moving An Inch.
Moving
Book
Opportunity
...that In Spite Of Living In A Mansion An American Is Not Above Wearing A Pair Of Secondhand Pants, Bought For Fifty Cents.
Fifty
Pants
Pairs
Do What I Will Never Do.
She Has Given Birth To Vagabonds. She Is The Keeper Of All These Names And Numbers Now, Numbers She Once Knew By Heart, Numbers And Addresses Her Children No Longer Remember.
Children
Heart
Names
I Always Think First About The Nature Of The Story. When I Had The Idea For 'the Namesake,' I Felt That It Had To Be A Novel - It Couldn't Work As A Story.
Thinking
Ideas
Stories
Still, There Are Times I Am Bewildered By Each Mile I Have Traveled, Each Meal I Have Eaten, Each Person I Have Known, Each Room In Which I Have Slept. As Ordinary As It All Appears, There Are Times When It Is Beyond My Imagination.
Imagination
Ordinary
Meals
It Is A Magical Thing For A Handful Of Words, Artfully Arranged, To Stop Time. To Conjure A Place, A Person, A Situation, In All Its Specificity And Dimensions. To Affect Us And Alter Us, As Profoundly As Real People And Things Do.
Real
People
Dimensions
Gogol Remembers Having To Do The Same Thing When He Was Younger, When His Grandparents Died...he Remembers, Back Then, Being Bored By It, Annoyed At Having To Observe A Ritual No One Else He Knew Followed, In Honor Of People He Had Seen Only A Few Times In His Life...now, Sitting Together At The Kitchen Table At Six-thirty Every Evening, His Father's Chair Empty, This Meatless Meal Is The Only Thing That Seems To Make Sense.
Father
People
Grandparent
She Is Stunned That In This Town There Are No Sidewalks To Speak Of, No Streetlights, No Public Transportation, No Stores For Miles At At A Time.
Towns
Speak
Namesake
On A Sticky August Evening Two Weeks Before Her Due Date, Ashima Ganguli Stands In The Kitchen Of A Central Square Apartment, Combining Rice Krispies And Planters Peanuts And Chopped Red Onion In Bowl.
Squares
August
Two
I've Never Had Internet Access. Actually, I Have Looked At Things On Other People's Computers As A Bystander. A Few Times In My Life I've Opened Email Accounts, Twice Actually, But It's Something I Don't Want In My Life Right Now.
Bystanders
Internet Access
People
He Tries To Peel The Image From The Sticky Yellow Backing, To Show Her The Next Time He Sees Her, But It Clings Stubbornly, Refusing To Detach Cleanly From The Past.
Past
Yellow
Trying
I Don't Know Why, But The Older I Get The More Interested I Get In My Parents' Marriage. And It's Interesting To Be Married Yourself, Too, Because There Is An Inevitable Comparison.
Parents Marriage
Interesting
Married
On The Screen I Saw Tanks Rolling Through Dusty Streets, And Fallen Buildings, And Forests Of Unfamiliar Trees Into Which East Pakistani Refugees Had Fled, Seeking Safety Over The Indian Border.
Safety
Tree
Tanks
In Fiction, Plenty Do The Job Of Conveying Information, Rousing Suspense, Painting Characters, Enabling Them To Speak. But Only Certain Sentences Breathe And Shift About, Like Live Matter In Soil.
Jobs
Character
Suspense
With Children The Clock Is Reset. We Forget What Came Before
Children
Forget
Clock
In The Days That Follow, He Begins To Remember Things About Moushumi, Images That Come To Him Without Warning While He Is Sitting At His Desk At Work, Or During A Meeting, Or Drifting Off To Sleep, Or Standing In The Mornings Under The Shower. They Are Scenes He Has Carried Within Him, Buried But Intact, Scenes He Has Never Thought About Or Had Reason To Conjure Up Until Now.
Morning
Sleep
Drifting Off
If I Stop To Think About Fans, Or Best-selling, Or Not Best-selling, Or Good Reviews, Or Not-good Reviews, It Just Becomes Too Much. It's Like Staring At The Mirror All Day.
Thinking
Mirrors
Fans
The Thought Of Christmas Overwhelms Him. He No Longer Looks Forward To The Holiday; He Wants Only To Be On The Other Side Of The Season. His Impatience Makes Him Feel That He Is Incontrovertibly, Finally, An Adult.
Holiday
Adults
Looks
You Remind Me Of Everything That Followed.
Namesake
Relationships Do Not Preclude Issues Of Morality.
Issues
Morality
Ive Inherited A Sense Of That Loss From My Parents Because It Was So Palpable All The Time While I Was Growing Up, The Sense Of What My Parents Had Sacrificed In Moving To The United States, And Yet At The Same Time, Building A Life Here And All That That Entailed.
Growing Up
Moving
Loss
She Supposed That All Those Years Of Loving A Person Who Was Dishonest Had Taught Her A Few Things.
Years
Taught
Persons
It's Easy To Set A Story Anywhere If You Get A Good Guidebook And Get Some Basic Street Names, And Some Descriptions, But, For Me, Yes, I Am Indebted To My Travels To India For Several Of The Stories.
Names
India
Stories
The Knowledge Of Death Seemed Present In Both Sisters-it Was Something About The Way They Carried Themselves, Something That Had Broken Too Son And Had Not Mended, Marking Them In Spite Of Their Lightheartedness.
Son
Broken
Way
In New York I Was Always So Scared Of Saying That I Wrote Fiction. It Just Seemed Like, 'who Am I To Dare To Do That Thing Here? The Epicenter Of Publishing And Writers?' I Found All That Very Intimidating And Avoided Writing As A Response.
New York
Writing
Fiction
And Wasn't It Terrible, How Much He Looked Forward To Those Moments, So Much So That Sometimes Even A Ride By Himself On The Subway Was The Best Part Of The Day? Wasn't It Terrible That After All The Work One Put Into Finding A Person To Spend One's Life With, After Making A Family With That Person, Even In Spite Of Missing That Person...that Solitude Was What One Relished The Most, The Only Thing That, Even In Fleeting, Diminished Doses, Kept One Sane?
Missing
Solitude
Fleeting
A Bicultural Upbringing Is A Rich But Imperfect Thing
Imperfect Things
Imperfect
Rich
Try To Remember It Always," He Said Once Gogol Had Reached Him, Leading Him Slowly Back Across The Breakwater, To Where His Mother And Sonia Stood Waiting. "remember That You And I Made This Journey Together To A Place Where There Was Nowhere Left To Go.
Mother
Journey
Waiting
That The Last Two Letters In Her Name Were The First Two In His, A Silly Thing He Never Mentioned To Her But Caused Him To Believe That They Were Bound Together.
Love
Believe
Silly
Pet Names Are A Persistant Remnant Of Childhood, A Reminder That Life Is Not Always So Serious, So Formal, So Complicated. They Are A Reminder, Too, That One Is Not All Things To All People.
Names
People
Childhood
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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