Writing is the best way of expressing one's emotions and sentiments. An avid and determined writer can overcome all the barriers coming in the way of writing, said noted journalist, columnist and an author Sathya Saran at the Doon litFest in the state capital on Saturday.
Eminent personalities including feature film and documentary editor, Nishant Radhakrishnan, managing editor with Harper Collins, Shantanu Ray Chowdhuri and Saran presented their views on various aspects of editing in the panel discussion on the editor's perspective on the second day of the literature festival.
Explaining in detail about editing books, Chowdhuri said that book editing mainly consists of two important components including commissioning editing and the copy editing. Elaborating the film editing part, Radhakrishnan said that film editing is based mainly on screen play while in documentary editing the director shoots without any pre decided story in mind.
It is just an immediate process, he added. While sharing views on freedom of an editor Saran said that it’s not an easy task as the editor has to keep an eye on language, content and the fact. She added that a writer needs to be very careful about his writing as for instance misquoting a person may draw the writer into a court case, which would add to the problems of an editor.
She also said that editing is not that easy as there is constant pressure on the writers and the editor. Focusing on the responsibility of the editor Chowdhuri said that the editor should keep his personal belief and liking aside while editing.
He should not be biased with anyone and complete transparency should be reflected in his work. Advaita Kala an internationally acclaimed novelist and a screen play writer, spoke of the various nuances of screenplay writing in the audience interaction session of the fest. Kala revealed that with the rising use of internet, the web is replacing publication.
She added that now publishers have developed their own marketing strategy. Being a novelist she gets inspiration to write from everything around her. Kala, who has authored ‘Almost Single’ and is also a screenwriter for ‘Anjaana Anjaani’ and ‘Kahani’ is now planning to write a play on the colourful life history of a historical character ‘Begum Samru’ soon.
Meanwhile, students of various schools of the town presented views for and against ‘e-books are killing books’ in the debate session organised between teams and individuals. Rohan Khan from Sherwood International School, Tarunika Rajesh from law College, Shivnetri Kushwaha from Scholars Home and Megha Sharma were declared winners of the debate competition.