Behind the Pages: The Inspiration and Motivation Behind Crafting Socially Relevant Short Stories

I initially thought of making 'A Pebble Unlistened' a graphic short stories book, because I believed that illustrations could depict a lot more than words. But the practicality of spending time with the drawings hit me. Although I am a bit good at lines and sketch, I would have had to put in a lot of effort in bringing out the drawings for my scenes and characters. Instead I decided to go with just words, and that too, I kept the narration pretty simple. Here's why.

The themes of these stories are meant to be inspiration and motivational to the readers. At the first place, I should be motivated in writing about these characters! The strong motivation for me to write these stories were the themes that were already brewing in my mind for some time. Take for example the character who does her first Carnatic music performance. Having learnt Carnatic music, I have a very good understanding of the art and the background.

That, combined with the discussions that go about Carnatic in the new-age artists, along with the opinions expressed by the experienced singers and critics, formed the plot for the story. My target audience for this and all the other stories are the young adults, and hence I wanted to have innovation and free thinking sprinkled in, so that they would relate to the story as if it is happening in their own life.

At the same time, I got to keep the stories socially relevant. Although I could come up with revolutionary, out-of-the-world plots and endings, I believed that people will read when they are relevant to what's going on in the society and what will happen in the future - except for one story about a ghost, although there are many facts in the story, lack of direct experience and non-relatability would make the readers skeptical, which is fine (as long as they enjoy it!).

Thus came about the fourteen stories in 'A Pebble Unlistened'. If you are a casual reader, you need not put much effort at all in going through and relating to the stories even though they are socially oriented. They will make you think, but at the same time, they are entertaining.

Look forward to your feedback in Amazon after you read the book!

Warm Regards,

Author Venkat Ramakrishnan.