Tolerance is the best characteristic in any society. Every month, we at Daastan follow a theme for our content. For this past month of February, we followed a theme of – wait, you guessed it right! Tolerance on Valentine’s Day. In a campaign #KissKiStory, we surprised our followers with a unique and interesting tale. If you missed the video, have a look at it here:
#KissKiStory
Tolerance And Kiss-Ki-Story
A lot of you went curious over #KissKiStory teasers till we finally released the video on our YouTube Channel. The video featured Daastan’s founder Mr. Ommer Amer, who narrated a story on the 14th of February. The main idea behind this story was to talk about the importance of Tolerance and consent in social relationships and how valentine’s day has become a taboo in our country. We claim our religiosity but forget one of the basic principles on which our religion stands; Tolerance. If we fail to tolerate love, how can we possibly tolerate differences or conflicts? In addition, we believe that expressing love should never be silenced or looked down upon.
Our society moreover, has perhaps been conditioned to feel above those who are different from us. We do not respect the values that others hold dear. This attitude develops an extremist behaviour and is the root cause of most problems in our society. Through a controversial hashtag of #KissKiStory, we wanted to deconstruct the existing notion of shame attached to any expression of love or intimacy. Our loud and clear message to eliminate extremism and be more accepting towards others, stood out all through the campaign.
Fortunately, we received a warm response from our followers who enjoyed watching our out-of-the-box video. We aim to keep bringing diverse and unique content for you all each month. Share your own creative ideas with us at merasawal@daastan.com and sign up with us at Daastan to engage in similar discussions on our forums.
For any budding writer, publishing their own book is ‘The Dream ‘. Most writers dream of publishing because they are also enthusiastic readers and know the value of a good book. The more books we read, the more we want to have. To own it is yet another privilege. Good readers eventually become good writers and the bigger this circle grows, the better informed a society becomes.
With the fast-paced life that we have all become a part of, it is very important that we emphasize on staying connected and rooted. Reading good literature is the easiest route to widening your horizons. It is the writer who enables a reader to leap into another universe simply by delving into the palm of their hands. Are you that writer who wants to share your universe with the world? Here are 5 ways we can help you publish your own book.
Steps To Launch Your Own Book
Step 1 : Composing the Book
Daastan aims at connecting readers and writers by publishing, digitizing,marketing and distributing books to promote a literary culture in our society. We start by helping you compose your book. Composition is the key to a success. Composition includes editing and formating the text, building the structure of the book and adjusting the tone and style of your writing according to the theme of your story.
Step 2 : Designing the Cover
Once the content is streamlined, we design the cover. For that, we work with the best designers to develop an attractive and catchy outlook of your book. Although it is politically incorrect to judge a book by its cover, it is unfortunately exactly what happens most of the times. Simultaneously, our editor works on the text by proof-reading and editing to ensure a faultless masterpiece.
Step 3 : Marketing your Book for Sales
When we are done with the Behind-the-scenes tasks, we approach yet another vital task: Marketing of the published books. Through our social media platforms, we market books to reach the maximum public. At this stage, we help you arrange a book launch and attract as many buyers as possible.
Self-publishing is not impossible!
Step 4 : Distribution of your Book
After marketing and building up customers for you, we distribute your books for sale in shops, and through the online book distribution services of Literati Choice. We make sure that you are kept aware of all your sales. We deliver the sold books to your customers and hand over the sales amount directly to you.
Step 5 : Let’s Get Started
The above-mentioned stages are very important while self-publishing your book. Publishing in Pakistan is challenging because there are limited channels and options available. Daastan helps in making this task fairly easy and successful. You alone cannot carry out all the essential stages of writing and publishing. For that, we here at Daastan make sure that the best editors, designers and marketing team is made available to you all under one roof.
It is then in the hands of the readers to help promote local writers and to develop the habit of reading as part of self-improvement. A well-read society has very little fear of failing and falling. Through reading, we not only explore unique ideas but also learn from the experiences of others which helps us improve our problem-solving skills. Even if you’re not interested in writing, reading nevertheless develops your communication skills. Good readers therefore, also become good listeners and good speakers!
If you are the writer we’re talking about, seeking to publish your Dream book, here is your best chance at Publishing your work. Sign up with Daastan and take the first step towards achieving your goal!
It is true that political, social or religious differences must be accommodated. Borders are drawn to avoid conflict and allow people to live in a peace. Geographical divisions may seem like a progressive idea today. However, decision makers do not and can not speak for all people. Amidst these divisions, ties of love, friendship and generational attachments have to be torn. These barbed wires that mark borders, scratch and wound those who have to cross them over.
We can’t possibly mend the 73 year old political enmity, but we can surely rise above these institutional differences and talk about our narrative. The narrative of the marginalized ones. Perhaps the most marginalized in the division of sub-continent were all those whocould not cease to love and feel for their lost comrades.
An Attempt at making Peace Across Borders
To establish and spread the narrative of the literati in both countries, Daastan from Pakistan and White Falcon Publishing from India, initiated a Letter writing movement. We invited writers to send in their letters to express their concerns for regional peace. Writers could write in prose or poetry. Daastan received letters in Urdu, English and Hindi, following the main theme: regional peace.
Our Contribution
We, atDaastan, received letters from all across Pakistan. We were amazed by the energetic response by the talent in our country. All these letters were extremely emotional and beautiful. Our team was deeply touched by the effort put in by the talented writers from all around Pakistan. The aim behind this movement was to simply acknowledge the fact that no matter how these divisions have shaped our history and geography, love and friendship can break all walls. These letters and their writers are legitimaterepresentatives of peace from both countries. The powerful voices that echo from our television screens, can not mute the narrative of peaceful co-existence.
Chitthi Sarhad Paar Sey
The best letters from the numerous entries were compiled in a book titled ‘Chitthi Sarhad Par Sey“ . It is available on MeraQissa. You can read the book here.
We aim to keep connecting readers and writers in an attempt to grow and engage in literary activities. If you share our love and passion of literature, sign up with us at Daastan and let us grow together!
Taking forward our theme of ‘The Art and the Artist – Writing a Book“, We are back with the Live session of Mused! The positive response that we received on the first episode was a great motivation for us to bring to you, more fun, informative and useful content that will help you with Book writing. This episode was divided in three sections. Our host, Summaiya Naveed, shared some practical tips on enhancing your writing skills. If you missed the live session, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Keep reading this blog to get a summary of the entire session or just click here to watch it now!
Mused is Daaastan’s first Live Show, featuring Ms. Summaiya Naveed, Editor Daastan
What we discussed
In this Live session, there were three main concerns that Summaiya put forward. All of these issues highlight the difficulties faced by young authors in writing or publishing their books. The first segment dealt with:
1. Common Mistakes In Book Writing
In the first section of this episode, Summaiya talked about the common errors that most writers make while writing a book. First and foremost is the issue concerning tenses. While writing anything, we are usually taken aback by a stream of emotions. This diverts our attention from using proper tenses. Very often, you keep shifting from one tense to another which then affects the story. To avoid this, you must make a conscious attempt to keep proof-reading the story over and over again to alter any such errors.
The second mistake pointed out was regarding plot holes. Summaiya explained the concept of plot holes in detail. She defined them as any gaps that a story-line leaves which consequently fails to make sense of the story to the reader. This plot hole could be a hanging conclusion, a half-baked character or even introducing a new character mid-story and failing to weave them in with the rest of the story. Summaiya also highlighted that plot holes count as a weak story-line which again, leaves a bad impression on the reader. To keep your story strong, make your protagonist and each supporting character reach a conclusion. Any story-line left incomplete will weaken the weight of the plot of your story. To fix this mistake, she suggested we emphasize on important events in the story. Summaiya gave the example of the novel, ‘Hunger Games‘ in which, the ending of each chapter marks an important event. In this way the reader can predict an upcoming event and brace themselves for it.
Lastly, summaiya talked about flat characters and a robotic tone. Both of these mistakes are almost the same, as they involve a lack of insight into the world of your story. A robotic tone, summaiya explained, is flat, factual writing. By stating events of a story or attributes of the character it is hard to keep the reader glued. The reader wants to know where exactly is the story coming from. Providing descriptions that a reader might relate to will help them connect with both, your story and the characters.
2. How to fight Writer’s Block?
Writer’s block is a temporary condition when an author loses the ability to produce creative content. Summaiya explained in detail, that writer’s block is not permanent and does not mean that you can never write again. A lot of writers do not talk about their writer’s block due to the stigma attached. This does not help them, rather adds to their stress and anxiety. Another reason for writer’s block is neurological disturbances. By sharing a recent research on writer’s block, Summaiya pointed out that stress, anxiety or other neurological problems trigger the writer’s block. To fight this situation, it is important to maintain your mental and physical health. Talking to friends, family or fellow writers at literary groups on social media will help you overcome this phase and resume writing.
It is also helpful, Summaiya suggests, to not be hard on yourself and take a break. During this time, explore another creative activity that you might find interesting. Writing freely, without any limitations or requirements may also help in this case. Sometimes, we are unable to write because we have to constantly follow guidelines. Writing for yourself, with no set rules or fear of criticism can help you fight a block. For some people, making changes to their surroundings can also be refreshing. Change your daily routine, fix your cupboard or just treat yourself with your favourite food!
A lot of people have this pre-conceived notion that writers are sad, depressed souls who have climbed an Everest of tragedies. Young authors thereby are particularly inclined to feel sad and unhappy in an attempt to become better writers. It is however, only a misconception that all good writers are unhappy people. Mental health is a very important factor in improving your writing skills and tackling a writer’s block.
3. Why do Books get rejected by Publishers?
Another problem faced by a lot of new writers is rejection by publishers. It is important to know why publishers reject your work and what are they looking for? Summaiya puts it in a very simple way for us to understand.
1. Predictability of your Story
Firstly, she talked about predictability of your plot/story. A very basic story is one where the upcoming events are quite obvious, everything goes smoothly and all characters reach a happy conclusion. Such stories become quite tedious and monotonous. A story has to have something that keeps your reader gripped, curious and connected.
2. Misuse of Punctuations
Secondly, bad punctuations is a big issue for editors. The first thing a publisher will notice about your book is technical errors. If you have a badly punctuated structure, you instantly leave a bad impression. To fix this problem, summaiya suggested we revise our punctuations and read as much as possible to learn.
3. Inconsistency and Lack of Innovation
Third and equally important, Summaiya discussed the problem of inconsistency and lack of innovation. She explained how as an editor herself, she comes across a lot of manuscripts that look very promising in the beginning but get de-tracked mid-way. Either the writer loses inspiration to write and just rush to the end of story, or they start dragging events by adding too much unneccesary details and the reader’s interest is lost. Furthermore, a lot of writers refrain from exploring new techniques or ideas and simply follow a pre-existing linear timeline. To explain this point Summaiya used the phrase “Old is not gold in writing”. By this, she meant that readers do not want to read about the same topics or stories over and over again. She also urged writers to write on relatable topics that are relevant today.
4. Plagiarism
Last, but definitely not the least, came the issue of Plagiarism. In countries like Pakistan, there are very weak rules and regulations regarding intellectual property. In such countries, intellectual theft and plagiarism are big drawbacks for writers. Plagiarism is basically stealing someone’s content and using it as your own. It is a crime to steal someone else’s work and also ethically incorrect to do so. While most of us do not directly steal ideas, we take inspiration from a work and fail to give credit to that particular person. It is thus important to provide a reference of whatever you’re taking inspiration from. Facts, data or information that you use in your own research should also be cited or quoted.
This wraps up our second Live session of Mused. We hope to keep bringing new, informative episodes to help you with writing. If you share our passion of writing and want to contribute in this mission to develop the literary Industry of Pakistan, sign up with us at Daastan. Stay tuned and catch the next Live session this week!
It all started when Professor Pervez Hoodbhye wrote an article on Dawn titled ‘Corona – our debt to Darwin’ where he was raising this point that how biological science is the hope to control this Corona pandemic.
Thanks to biological science — the foundation of which was laid by Charles Darwin — the coronavirus will eventually turn out to be a deadly but controllable affair. Its final worldwide death toll may run into many tens, or perhaps hundreds, of thousands. Still, compared to the toll exacted by pre-scientific era plagues, this will be small. Your life may well be saved by some yet to be invented drug or vaccine. All beneficiaries of modern medicine should surely forgive Darwin for his supposed transgressions.
What’s promising about Hoodbhye is that he uses science, logic and objectivity to look at the things rather than claiming that religion will somehow solve things. He tries to educate an illiterate nation who trolls him a lot on his social media page. However, he continues to do the good work.
The Logical Criticism on Hoodbhye
Today, was somewhat different. We came across someone who went after Hoodbhye with scientific facts and tried to prove him wrong. His name was Daniel Haqiqatjou who provided detailed arguments on how and why he believes Darwin’s theory to be obsolete. He referred to various researches, scientists and researchers who share his beliefs. This debate was in light of the current Corona Virus situation. According to Daniel Haqiaqtjou, as a Muslim, he firmly believed that any such evolutionary change can only be God’s work and must only end with His will. Here is the original post he shared:
Pervez Hoodbhoy Fails in Science and in IslamHoodbhoy, the Pakistani secular modernist, has taken this opportunity of …
Under his post, Arif Jan wrote a long reply which refuted Haqiqatjou’s argument on the redundancy of Darwin’s theory. Arif provided a counter argument, equally well-backed, loaded with references of books, researches and studies to prove otherwise. In his opinion, Haqiqatjou only picked references that went along his own claim. Have a look at Arif Jan’s counter argument in a post shared by Syed Muneeb Ali:
There was this article written by the Daniel Haq.. In which he tried to counter Dr. Parvez Hoodbhoy's recently written…
We would leave that to the audience who can read and decide who is right. What we loved was that how an argument was formed, refuted and countered with facts. This is the kind of evolution we wish to see on social media.
Remember that whenever you post anything online, it reflects you and the way you think. Validity of news and researching the facts before arriving at conclusion is the need of the hour. Corona Virus is rattling the global economy and we have no idea how much more damage it will do. One thing which we, as individuals can do is backup everything we say or post online with facts.
Another key thing which we loved was that the discussion was civil and to the point. The speakers spoke based on their scientific intellect and understanding. This debate is a fine example of how to argue online and turning these virtual battlefields into healthy and informative platforms!
