“Race your Dreams with Hamad” Program which is presented by the youth programs department in the Qatari Forum for Authors presented two training workshops over the past two days, instructed by the writer, Mokhtar Khwaja. It is the forum’s latest event that comes as part of its efforts to motivate young writers to take the initiative and to actively participate in the cultural arena.
At the beginning of the first workshop, entitled “Basics and Elements of Storytelling,” writer Mokhtar Khwaja said that he had decided to participate in this initiative, because I once dreamed of writing short stories. Today it’s my turn to offer those who want to go into this business even a small part, Khawaja asked several questions, the first of which was “Do I want to write a short story? Everyone should ask this question to himself.” He also asked the participants: ” Has anyone tried writing an essay that tells something or a series of events? ” Have you ever thought about what you write and what kind it is?
Getting himself in the depth into these questions and about the definition of the short story, Khawaja said that some researchers define the short story as a fictional prose narration, but it is usually mentally acceptable, embodying changes in human relationships, and the author derives his material from his experience in life and his observation of it, but he elects and formulates this material According to his purposes, which include entertainment and the disclosure of human experience.
He pointed out that the short story in one of the definitions deals with a sector or a segment or a situation in life, in which the writer highlights a main character and all related features and characteristics.
While speaking on this point, Khawaja reviewed a brief historical view of the short story, including the fact that the beginnings of the short story were in the folds of myths and long stories, as well as children’s puzzles that were used to help them to sleep, all of which were prototypes of the short story in the lives of all peoples.
Nor did the Arabs know the short story in the pre- Islamic era, pointing out that its decisive development had been demonstrated by French J.D. Maupassant and Russian Antoine Chekov. he called for reading his story.
In the second workshop, entitled “Techniques and Keys to Plot Making”, Khawaja presented an example of the disjointed plot. He said: “Is it him? He sat on the Internet, in his small room in a corner of his isolated house in the far north of the world, where warmth is a word lost in the dictionaries of daily dialogues, Because of the cold weather, maybe family warmth for him is the only thing that’s visible, but even this warmth is less than that hoped-for level, but what is the hoped-for level? And what is missing from it? All details do not concern him, and he is the one who left his sprawling city on that ancient river, in the days of the murder frenzy, and was barely able to get his small family out, but how can the city that lies on the Tigris get out of the doorstep?