review of Sonia Faleiro’s How I Write — Writers on their Craft

How do you do it? That must be one of the questions writers are most often asked. By what alchemy do ideas and experiences translate into words on the page? Most books that profess to answer deal with craft through a decidedly Western lens. The work of writers from elsewhere is unfairly judged through standards of authenticity and representation. As Elaine Castillo puts it, one result is that readers “end up going to writers of colour to learn the specific — and go to white writers to feel the universal.”

An exception is Letters to a Writer of Colour, an edifying essay collection edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro, in which writers reflect on hard-won lessons from personal experience. And now, there is How I Write, edited by Sonia Faleiro. The book grew out of the South Asia Speaks Masterclass series, conceived as a space for writers of South Asian origin to speak about their craft. The larger aim of the organisation is to help South Asian writers grow through mentorship, thus breaking down publishing barriers and amplifying unheard voices.

Candid compendium

How I Write is a candid compendium of perspectives by 18 noted practitioners of fiction and non-fiction on “what it means to be a creative person navigating and responding to a tumultuous world”. They speak about, among other things, writing habits, influences, and, perhaps most importantly, how their circumstances have shaped their work.

With the practice of journalism, Pankaj Mishra says in his conversation with Faleiro, “you have to be very clear about who you’re standing in solidarity with.” This leads to other questions: “Who are you really responsible for? What is your analytical framework? What should shape your narrative, if not sympathy with the underdog?”

The importance of reading

A common theme is the importance of reading. Mayukh Sen, for example, tells Sanam Meher that he tries to follow the adage of ‘read more than you write’.

On similar lines, Manjushree Thapa tells Roman Gautam that before you’re a writer, you’re a reader; V.V. Ganeshananthan tells Faleiro that she chose to become a writer because she loved reading; and Taymour Soomro reveals to Deepa Anappara that from a young age, he would read absolutely anything at all.

Several writers emphasise the importance of finishing a first draft without judgment. As Kamila Shamsie tells Sanam Maher, “If anyone ever asks me for one piece of advice, it’s always, ‘Get to the end of your first draft.’ Don’t worry about making it good.”

Future drafts are for figuring out what the book is really about and making it as polished as possible. A book is like a river, Alice Albinia tells Taran Khan: “There may be lots of sources and tributaries but there is one river, and you have to find your way through it, narratively.”

Aside from habits of writing and reading, the interviewees discuss their initial impulses to write and how their work interacts with the larger world. For Nilanjana Roy, the challenge was overcoming “the fear of being seen” as a writer rather than a journalist or reader. As she frankly tells Mariam Tareen, it was a struggle to “stop people-pleasing” and write in her own voice.

Meena Kandasamy, speaking with Fatima Bhutto, points to another personal dimension: “You don’t write out of rage; you write what you see, to make sense of a story.”

Pressure to be legible

In one of the more powerful conversations, Jamil Jan Kochai tells Karan Mahajan that fiction gives him “the space to explore the contradictions occurring throughout my life and the way they impacted how I saw myself, how I saw history.” His reflections on personal and historical complexity are underscored by critic Parul Sehgal who, speaking with Isaac Chotiner, deplores the pressure on South Asian writers to make their work “legible”. She cautions against the urge to “simplify, flatten, and overexplain” because much is lost when writers reduce their characters and stories to meet predetermined standards.

Sheila Heti recently wrote that what perplexes her about those who prescribe rigid rules for writing is that “they assume all humans experience the world the same way”. How I Write interrogates this assumption by presenting a range of personal experiences and perspectives, showcasing how each writer’s background shapes their approach to the craft.

How I Write: Writers on their Craft; Edited by Sonia Faleiro, Harper Collins India, ₹699.

The reviewer is a Mumbai-based critic.