Margaret Atwood is an author of more than 40 books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her most prominent work, to name a few, include: “The Blind Assassin”, “Oryx and Crake”, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, “Alias Grace”. 1. You need to be kind to yourself and give yourself breaks from typing. Margaret suggests taking a walk or sleeping on a problem you cannot solve before you move on with your story. 2. Using “umm” and “yeahs” in your dialogue pattern is not advisable. Your dialogue should be more incisive and selective to reveal what your characters want from one another and to dramatise the power struggle in your story. 3. Every time your characters speak, they should always try to get something from one another: — What your characters are trying to get? — What are they trying to avoid? — How your characters wants/needs and desires affect their speech? 4. Seduction is one of the forms of power play you can use in your story. 5. Don’t be afraid of the gaps in the dialogue between the …

Margaret Atwood is an author of more than 40 books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her most prominent work, to name a few, include: “The Blind Assassin”, “Oryx and Crake”, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, “Alias Grace”. 1. Storytelling is one of the oldest things which humans do. 2. According to Margaret, a novel is a long story that ought to inspire the reader or listener to hear more of what is happening to the characters and how life turns out for them at the end. 3. Writers are usually avid readers. 4. Margaret compares a unique writer’s voice to fingerprints. We all have fingerprints, but not two fingerprints are identical; just like a writer’s voice, there are no two identical voices. 5. Margaret writes from characters, not from ideas because she believes that ideas are discovered much later by the readers. 6. At first, Margaret handwrites all her stories. She writes as fast and as much as she can without revising what she has written. She goes back to revisions once she is done writing …

IT ALL STARTED WITH A DREAM Most of the filmmakers, I’ve met, dream of making a feature film. A film that would, and could, be the stepping-stone in their filmmaking careers. However, before that happens, filmmakers usually spend years making shorts, developing their skills in hope to be noticed for their unique artistic taste. Filmmaking is an expensive art form. Regardless of how long, or short, your project is, it’s always going to cost money. Nowadays, equipment is relatively affordable, but you still need to find people, pay for their services, feed them, and pay for travel and locations at the very least. So the low budget filmmaking is never truly low-budget as there is always going to be some money invested in the project. In 2011, after two years of successful film festival runs with my two short films, I decided that I was ready to make a feature film. In the beginning, I tried to go the traditional way and applied, though the standard routes for funding. However, I had no recognisable names …