A SENSE OF PLACE

In any kind of writing, but especially children’s literature, it is important to establish a convincing sense of place by painting a lifelike picture of the environment using evocative words and compelling imagery. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a writer needs to situate his or her story in a specific location like Bandipur Tiger Reserve or Juhu Beach. But even when the setting is unnamed or fictional, it remains almost as important as the main characters themselves. In most nature writing, we try to emphasise the biodiversity of a particular landscape, whether it’s a high-altitude meadow or a mangrove swamp.

Recently, I finished writing three short picture books for young readers – If You Were a Tiger Cub, The Little Lost Elephant, and How the Cobra Got its Spectacles – soon to be published by Aleph. Each of these is a very different story, about distinctive species of wildlife. However, the setting for all three books is similar. While writing them I had a picture in my mind, of the Terai forests at the foot of the Himalaya, which I have known since childhood. The terrain and ecology that I describe includes streams and rivers flowing out of forested hills. If you asked me to take you to the exact spot where my tiger cub jumps onto a rock overlooking a pool of water or the sandy river bank, where the baby elephant gets chased by a crocodile, I could lead you there because these are specific places that I recall. While writing those scenes, I pulled up memories of remembered locations and plugged them into the story: If you were a tiger cub, you’d wake up early in the morning and yawn, as if you were going to swallow the sky. Before the sun appears above the treetops, you would get up and follow your mother, and your two brothers, to a still pool of clear water, where a stream from the hills collects in a sandy hollow surrounded by big rocks (from If You Were a Tiger Cub).

At the same time, it’s equally important to describe a setting in such a way that the reader is able to imagine it too, using his or her own memories. Hopefully, a child in Bengaluru, far away from the Terai, can pick up one of my books and picture the scenes using personal memories of places visited or locations seen on television or in films. Visual imagery is an essential part of storytelling and much of it depends on the process and power of suggestion, rather than a catalogue of facts.

Of course, it is impossible to describe everything in a landscape and even if you could, it would put your reader to sleep. By choosing essential information and employing effective metaphors, a writer can evoke a scene using very few words. The trick is to be able to trigger associated images in the reader’s mind, so that he or she fills in most of the details. A children’s book writer may describe a dense jungle, providing appropriate cues like the wailing of a peacock, the gloomy shadows of a banyan tree, or the rat hole out of which a cobra emerges. These should be enough to allow the child to add a cacophony of other sounds, conjure up a tangle of lianas, bamboo and ferns, or pursue the snake through a maze of dead leaves and fallen branches, as it sets out in search of a meal.

Fundamentally, nature writing should remain true to scientific logic and facts, whether these come from biology, physics or meteorology. For instance, a writer shouldn’t plant an exotic tree from South America in an Indian forest unless it actually grows there (either naturally or as an invasive species). Similarly, unless you are a fantasy writer, our planet is governed by Newton’s law of gravitation, which determines everything from fruit falling off a tree to the shape of a mountain. Ignoring accepted scientific teachings in a book about nature is a bad idea, while adhering to something like the annual cycle of the monsoon provides credibility that draws readers into an authentic sense of place.

None of this is to say that nature writers can’t be inventive. When it comes to storytelling for younger readers it is vital to add lively, unusual and perhaps even magical elements to your tale. While writing How the Cobra Got its Spectacles, I tried to describe the setting from a reptilian point of view: By now, darkness had settled over the jungle and owls began hooting while geckos clicked and chuckled. The cobra couldn’t hear any of these sounds but when he licked the night air, he could tell that many nocturnal creatures were beginning to move about. Bats were flying overhead, making squeaking sounds that helped them find their way in the dark. Each animal had its own way of experiencing and understanding its surroundings, even the worms and centipedes that could feel vibrations in the ground or the leeches, whose bodies sensed the heat of an animal passing by. All of them were watching, listening, smelling, tasting and touching the jungle in different ways.

Like all snakes, the cobra in my story perceives the world around him primarily through his sense of smell, licking the air with his tongue and transferring scent particles to the vomeronasal organ on the roof of his mouth, which sends signals to the brain. His eyesight is minimal, and he has no hearing. As a result, a cobra’s sense of place is quite different from ours and defined by a unique set of elements, most of which we cannot perceive. My story attempts, as best it can, to remain consistent with a snake’s perspective, though there is a human character in the book too, which allows me, at points, to observe nature as I do, using my eyes, ears, nose, fingers and tongue.

While it is best to create a natural setting, consistent with the world as we know it, a writer can always introduce elements of folklore and mythology to enliven a story. This may seem contradictory, but there is plenty of room for imaginative nature writing. Talking animals, for example, can help emphasise or clarify a message of conservation, even if anthropomorphism should be avoided. Some of the finest works of children’s literature that focus on nature, whether it is Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows or classic fables from the Panchatantra, contain fanciful situations and behaviour. There’s nothing wrong with magical or supernatural events occurring in a story that is grounded in nature, providing young readers with a believable landscape in which unbelievable things occur. Hopefully, this encourages children to explore wild spaces with a basic understanding of how nature works as well as a sense of awe and wonder.

Is My Book Idea Age-Appropriate?