A thread on my engagement with Fiction and "Pockets of Silences".

A good book is climbing up a hill, if not a mountain. Its a collection of different slopes, rythms, intensities, a collection of diverse experiences, encounters, objects - all woven into a single journey.

1/n
Climbing always is a very engaging indulgence. You are always in the moment, on the ground, looking straight, sometimes down. Very close distance with the objects around.

Fiction reading is such. You are lost in the present and in empathy with the characters in the moment.

2/n
Hills are kind and gracious. Periodically one finds a place for rest or an easy slope to drag your feet or a panoramic view of the larger world/Path you just covered.

Allows you to reflect on your journey. A Creative respite from the intense present.

3/n
Fiction requires such "Creative Silence Spaces " - rightly positioned (A function of plot, structure, purpose - so on)

CS Spaces
- Elevate the reader to attain a distance from the plot/characters
- Help reflect on the book so far as whole

as they read without a pause.

4/n
"Hill climbing provides natural "Creative Silence Space" Eg.,
- the last leg of climbing down
- Space where the line between a hill & a plane blurs
- The Hill top

Other places are a function of the nature of a hill, Surrounding but in good measure and uniquely beautiful.

5/n
In a Fiction, Creative Silence Spaces are a function of the Plot, Character & the Vision of the Author.

- Must be frequent
- Appropriately positioned
- Work towards a purpose, create insight
- Provide relief from the tyranny of the Plot
- Must create a "dhanyatA bhAva"

6/n
Some instances/opportunities
- Ending *obvious place)
- Few writers try it in the beginning (Eg., Kannada writer Shivarama Karanth)
- Ernest Hemingway a Master at that
- In Mahabharata, the Shuka story is entirely so
- Rip Van Winkle entirely so

Rest creative opportunity.

7/n
Characteristics of the CS spaces

- A change in the rythm of sentences/narration
- A general slowing
- A deep explanation of something
- A character reflecting intensely

Like a dam against a River. Natural for creative authors. Others have to practise engineering it.

8/n
As a reader, I look for such places. It is like
- Full Length view of a mountain after walking a distance
- Panoramic View of the surrounding from a Hill top
- The calm flow of a River after an intense bend
- Being in a Garbhagriha of a temple all lone in front of the deity

n/n
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