UNAIR NEWS – Fajar Satryo, a student of Indonesian Language and Literature Study Program Faculty of Humanities (FIB) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR), published a Short Story Collection titled Rona Merah (lit. Red Hue). The book publishing was a part of the second Scriptorium program of Teater Gapus Surabaya.
Editor’s comment
Discussion session titled Sambang Scriptorium, the editor and layouter of the short story collection book Rona Merah, Annisa Fitri, stated that short stories written by Fajar are stories that are comforting, neat, and good to read. Furthermore, the writing style could make the readers keep reading it. She also provided evaluations for Fajar as a writer.
“Surely, the first thing is drafting clauses. Just like what has been mentioned by the curator in the previous session, Fajar still uses tangling compound clauses,” she said on Friday, May 13, 2022.
“Therefore, there is a possibility for the reader to reread the part from the beginning paragraph,” she emphasized.
The woman known well as Ica added that there are some notes for the work. Among them are related to writing styles. According to Ica, Fajar wrote a short story at the point between the dark and light. The transition of the storytelling itself needs to be corrected. She then provided one example of Fajar’s short story that discussed a beautiful woman who loves to fight.
“The storytelling on the a character suddenly switched to telling a past memory of the character doing a sexual act, the transition must be felt. So the reader needs the vibes and a moment to take a breath to read those kinds of scenes,” she revealed.
Rona Merah
According to Fajar, Rona Merah is a short story collection that consists of 6 short stories with 1 issue in which the character have a relationship with each other connected in one title, Rona Merah. The short story collection was set in the year 80-the 90s when there was an issue of gender equality during that period.
Relating to the content of the short story, he revealed that issues brought up in this short story collection are packed with political issues and could be linked to climate issues and land conflicts, such as mining.
“This will become a self-reflection to me, like on the environment issue. I also have seen places known for agrarian conflicts (mining, ed) back during my teaching activities. This social criticism is what I want to raise through writings,” he said.
Regarding the creative process, Fajar explained that he is trying to experiment with authorship, especially in short stories. The work started in November when he went into Writing Class by Gapus. From this experience, Fajar tried to write a series and sent them to several colleagues.
From the series, I tried to collect them back when Teater Gapus are doing (publishing, ed) the Scriptorium,” he emphasized.
As a student in the world of authorship, Fajar has had difficulty carrying out the creative process. To overcome the possibility of writer’s block, he needs to find a place to refresh his mind.
“Like a walk, chatting with friends or getting coffee. That’s what I did to work on Rona Merah,” he said.
As a closing statement, he advised readers who want to write works to be open to criticisms, suggestions, and inputs to build the style of writing in the future.
“Because we cannot be individual writers in this (authorship) field. We must dare to take advice, criticism, and even input from others. That’s the most important thing,” he said.
Author: Affan Fauzan
Editor: Feri Fenoria
