Shoma Narayanan's Blog
January 17, 2014
Easy to read but tough to write!
The topic I started with originally was "Easy to read books are the toughest to write". Never having written a tough-to-read book myself, I didn't feel up to making comparisons, and decided to stick with the challenges involved in writing a quick-read book.
Most easy-to-read books fall into a genre - thrillers/ romance/ detective fiction/ chick-lit. Authors may argue with the labels all they want but they're stuck with them. And once you're slotted into a genre, there are expectations that readers have from a book. Obvious ones like not being allowed to kill off the hero in a romance novel, or have the heroine run away with a policeman. Also not so obvious ones, like not making a character's life and motivations too complicated. Being realistic without being too grim. Not encroaching into another genre.
Then there's the writing style itself. While most writers of popular fiction have a light style, there is the always the temptation to show people that you can manage something a lot more 'literary' if you want to. I honestly don't think that writing needs to be 'heavy' to have literary merit - similarly, the chances of a book winning the Booker do not increase exponentially with the number long words and complicated plotlines. What distinguishes popular fiction from other types of fiction is that it caters to a specific audience, and is written keeping that audience in mind. It’s not the same as a book that 'comes from within', and is the creative outpouring of a literary mind, with no thought to 'who's going to read this' or 'how many copies will I sell'.
"How many copies will I sell' is a pretty big thing for a popular fiction writer, and other than the writing itself, there's a lot that goes into making the book a success. But it still starts with the writing - no amount of PR or trade discounts will help a book that doesn't have intrinsic merit. Also, catering for a specific audience isn't as simple as waking up in the morning and deciding "Oh, books on Indian mythology sell well, I should write one immediately".
When I write, I usually have a few typical readers in mind, and I keep stopping to ask myself the question 'Would so-and-so like this?' Or "Is this section dragging - should I delete it?" Also, because my books sell in countries other than India, "Will this make sense to a non-Indian reader?" Editing is crucial - often my editor will spot something that hasn't occurred to me.
Making characters realistic yet appealing is another challenge. The perfect hero of a romance novel is an incredibly hot alpha male who in addition to being tall, dark, handsome, sexy and rich, also needs to be capable of deep emotion and understanding. It’s a bit of a tall order for the average male. For the character to be believable, he needs to have flaws that make him seem more human but don’t detract from his overall appeal – if possible, they should add it to it! So he can be reserved but not arrogant; impulsive but not immature; hot-tempered but not violent. Endowing him with a sense of humour helps! Similarly, the heroine can’t be seen telling lies or being overly insecure or whining about her lot in life. If a reader stops sympathizing and identifying with the protagonist, the book loses its charm.
The last thing about writing popular fiction is the sheer volume that most authors of popular fiction churn out. To retain reader interest, it’s important to keep up a steady stream of books in their favourite genre. Switching genres, or having a big gap between two books doesn’t work very well, because you need to build up your readership all over again.
Having said all of this, there is something singularly satisfying in writing the kind of book that a reader looks forward to reading after a long and tiring day. So while easy-to-read books might be tough to write, they bring a little more zing into both the author’s and the reader’s life.
Happy reading – and writing!
Most easy-to-read books fall into a genre - thrillers/ romance/ detective fiction/ chick-lit. Authors may argue with the labels all they want but they're stuck with them. And once you're slotted into a genre, there are expectations that readers have from a book. Obvious ones like not being allowed to kill off the hero in a romance novel, or have the heroine run away with a policeman. Also not so obvious ones, like not making a character's life and motivations too complicated. Being realistic without being too grim. Not encroaching into another genre.
Then there's the writing style itself. While most writers of popular fiction have a light style, there is the always the temptation to show people that you can manage something a lot more 'literary' if you want to. I honestly don't think that writing needs to be 'heavy' to have literary merit - similarly, the chances of a book winning the Booker do not increase exponentially with the number long words and complicated plotlines. What distinguishes popular fiction from other types of fiction is that it caters to a specific audience, and is written keeping that audience in mind. It’s not the same as a book that 'comes from within', and is the creative outpouring of a literary mind, with no thought to 'who's going to read this' or 'how many copies will I sell'.
"How many copies will I sell' is a pretty big thing for a popular fiction writer, and other than the writing itself, there's a lot that goes into making the book a success. But it still starts with the writing - no amount of PR or trade discounts will help a book that doesn't have intrinsic merit. Also, catering for a specific audience isn't as simple as waking up in the morning and deciding "Oh, books on Indian mythology sell well, I should write one immediately".
When I write, I usually have a few typical readers in mind, and I keep stopping to ask myself the question 'Would so-and-so like this?' Or "Is this section dragging - should I delete it?" Also, because my books sell in countries other than India, "Will this make sense to a non-Indian reader?" Editing is crucial - often my editor will spot something that hasn't occurred to me.
Making characters realistic yet appealing is another challenge. The perfect hero of a romance novel is an incredibly hot alpha male who in addition to being tall, dark, handsome, sexy and rich, also needs to be capable of deep emotion and understanding. It’s a bit of a tall order for the average male. For the character to be believable, he needs to have flaws that make him seem more human but don’t detract from his overall appeal – if possible, they should add it to it! So he can be reserved but not arrogant; impulsive but not immature; hot-tempered but not violent. Endowing him with a sense of humour helps! Similarly, the heroine can’t be seen telling lies or being overly insecure or whining about her lot in life. If a reader stops sympathizing and identifying with the protagonist, the book loses its charm.
The last thing about writing popular fiction is the sheer volume that most authors of popular fiction churn out. To retain reader interest, it’s important to keep up a steady stream of books in their favourite genre. Switching genres, or having a big gap between two books doesn’t work very well, because you need to build up your readership all over again.
Having said all of this, there is something singularly satisfying in writing the kind of book that a reader looks forward to reading after a long and tiring day. So while easy-to-read books might be tough to write, they bring a little more zing into both the author’s and the reader’s life.
Happy reading – and writing!
January 13, 2014
Skills that help writers write!
This is an extract from a blog post I did for Harlequin on skills that are useful for writers.
Being able to write, let’s assume is a prerequisite. Which still leaves a pretty wide canvas, because a lot of people who can write don’t take up writing as a primary or even a secondary career. I’m putting down some of the traits and skills I think help make a successful author. Because I love lists and bullet points, and I can’t use them in my books, I’m indulging myself in this blog. (Sometimes I’m very tempted to write a book in bullet points for my male friends who refuse to read romances because they’re ‘girly’. Eg: Pt 1. She looked at him; Pt 2. He was incredibly handsome; Pt 3. Her heart started beating faster. And so on and so forth. But I digress, let me get back to the subject!)
1. It’s important to be passionate about your writing. Expecting readers and publishers to accept work that you’re not passionate about yourself is a bit like cooking a meal and wanting people to appreciate it when you’re refusing to taste it yourself. Passion breeds conviction, as the wise man said.
2. Being a good observer. It’s the little nuances that bring a book alive for a reader. People’s clothes, their expressions, the way they move or talk or laugh – even descriptions of the weather or the setting can turn an otherwise mundane passage into an evocative piece of prose.
3. Doing your background research. This of course varies from genre to genre – the amount of research required for a fantasy set in an imaginary land is much less than in a historical novel. Even in modern romance writing, a fair bit of research is required. For example, in my latest book “The One She Was Warned About”, the hero is an event manager, and I needed to do speak to people from the event management industry to get an idea of what a working day would be like for him. Similarly, as the hero and heroine were moving between Mumbai, Kerala, Delhi and Pune, I had to get details about the weather and flights right.
4. Taking criticism positively and using it to improve your writing. If someone’s taken time out to read a story and give feedback on it, her opinion is usually worth having. You needn’t agree with the feedback – but you do need to understand why she liked/ disliked your story.
5. Stick-to-it-ivity. Writing can be incredibly frustrating. There are weekends when I move everything around in my schedule to accommodate a couple of hours of writing. Then I spend those hours chewing my fingernails and staring at my laptop because not a single sentence turns out right. On those days, it’s important to give yourself a little break, but even more important to come back to your writing as soon as you can, and stick with it till you get it done.
6. Concentrating and letting your imagination run free at the same time. It’s a fine balance, because unless you concentrate whole-heartedly on your writing, you won’t get anything worthwhile done. But if you concentrate too hard, you tend to get a little mechanical, and that doesn’t work either. It helps if you take some time out for a bit of free thinking. What if Character 1 does something completely outrageous – how would Character 2 react? What if the whole book was set in the future? Would the motivations remain the same? Most of this won’t find its way into the final book, but it’ll help you break loose from formulaic or imitative writing.
There’s a lot more, but these are the most important according to me. Happy writing!
Being able to write, let’s assume is a prerequisite. Which still leaves a pretty wide canvas, because a lot of people who can write don’t take up writing as a primary or even a secondary career. I’m putting down some of the traits and skills I think help make a successful author. Because I love lists and bullet points, and I can’t use them in my books, I’m indulging myself in this blog. (Sometimes I’m very tempted to write a book in bullet points for my male friends who refuse to read romances because they’re ‘girly’. Eg: Pt 1. She looked at him; Pt 2. He was incredibly handsome; Pt 3. Her heart started beating faster. And so on and so forth. But I digress, let me get back to the subject!)
1. It’s important to be passionate about your writing. Expecting readers and publishers to accept work that you’re not passionate about yourself is a bit like cooking a meal and wanting people to appreciate it when you’re refusing to taste it yourself. Passion breeds conviction, as the wise man said.
2. Being a good observer. It’s the little nuances that bring a book alive for a reader. People’s clothes, their expressions, the way they move or talk or laugh – even descriptions of the weather or the setting can turn an otherwise mundane passage into an evocative piece of prose.
3. Doing your background research. This of course varies from genre to genre – the amount of research required for a fantasy set in an imaginary land is much less than in a historical novel. Even in modern romance writing, a fair bit of research is required. For example, in my latest book “The One She Was Warned About”, the hero is an event manager, and I needed to do speak to people from the event management industry to get an idea of what a working day would be like for him. Similarly, as the hero and heroine were moving between Mumbai, Kerala, Delhi and Pune, I had to get details about the weather and flights right.
4. Taking criticism positively and using it to improve your writing. If someone’s taken time out to read a story and give feedback on it, her opinion is usually worth having. You needn’t agree with the feedback – but you do need to understand why she liked/ disliked your story.
5. Stick-to-it-ivity. Writing can be incredibly frustrating. There are weekends when I move everything around in my schedule to accommodate a couple of hours of writing. Then I spend those hours chewing my fingernails and staring at my laptop because not a single sentence turns out right. On those days, it’s important to give yourself a little break, but even more important to come back to your writing as soon as you can, and stick with it till you get it done.
6. Concentrating and letting your imagination run free at the same time. It’s a fine balance, because unless you concentrate whole-heartedly on your writing, you won’t get anything worthwhile done. But if you concentrate too hard, you tend to get a little mechanical, and that doesn’t work either. It helps if you take some time out for a bit of free thinking. What if Character 1 does something completely outrageous – how would Character 2 react? What if the whole book was set in the future? Would the motivations remain the same? Most of this won’t find its way into the final book, but it’ll help you break loose from formulaic or imitative writing.
There’s a lot more, but these are the most important according to me. Happy writing!
January 6, 2014
Good enough is the new perfect!
My next blog post for Harlequin on multi-tasking.
************
I can’t juggle. I’ve tried to learn, with apples, oranges and even with potatoes but my butter-fingers just didn’t have the knack. Still, the word ‘juggle’ features prominently when I try to explain how I manage my cluttered and chaotic life. I suspect it’s the same for most writers, because nowadays writers have day jobs that they’re working at as well. Journalism, banking, consulting, software engineering, even medicine. In my case, while my primary career is in banking, I also write two to three books a year. And I have two young children. Chaos is my middle name - I’m always trying to catch up with a never-ending to-do list. A typical weekday evening goes like this:
• Get home and ring the doorbell, thinking “If xyz doesn’t get back to me by tomorrow on the e-mail I sent him, I’ll need to ask for a meeting to sort the whole thing out”
• Hear screams from inside the flat “I’ll open the door…no, no, me, me, me!” Door opens, and my six-year-old daughter gives me a big hug and a grin, while my son gives me a casual wave
• The children’s nanny (who was racing my daughter to the door) fixes me with a gimlet eye and asks if I’ve booked a new gas cylinder yet. Guiltily, I dig my phone out and SMS the gas company
• Someone calls from work with a query, I shush the kids and try and sort things out. Fetch my Blackberry and send out a few mails
• Finish dinner and pick up laptop to work on my new book that has scary deadline looming up
• Son wanders in and casually informs me that he needs seventeen colour print-outs for a school project on Ancient Rome. The printer is in our home office and Papa is working there - my son is not allowed to disturb him unless the house is on fire
• I exercise my wifely privilege of disturbing my husband whenever I damn well please, and march into the home office to retrieve the printouts
• Check the school WhatsApp group for homework reminders
• Resume writing – am at a particularly tense point where the hero is recoiling from the strength of his own feelings….An imperious little voice calls out from the bathroom “Mamma!”, and I leave my hero to sort his problems out while I rush to the rescue
The weirdest part is that I enjoy this. I’d hate being at home all day, and I’d hate not being a writer. My kids and husband are incredibly supportive, and I’ve also got a little set of strategies going so that I can manage everything without getting stressed.
One of the first things I figured was that life is easier if you’re not a perfectionist. I’m not recommending a slip-shod approach by the way – all I’m saying is that some things matter, and you should concentrate on getting those right, and not bother so much about the rest. For example – a child’s birthday party is important, but obsessing endlessly about the theme and the decorations isn’t. Being committed to your job and doing it well is important. Hanging around ‘networking’ at an office party when your kids need you at home – as far as I’m concerned, it’s not that important.
Another realisation was that I didn’t have to do everything myself to get it right. Both at work as well as at home there were other people around who could help and were more than willing to do so. It was more a question of letting go a little and trusting others.
Still, even after all the prioritising and delegating, there were a bunch of things that I had to cut out of my life when I took up writing seriously. Watching TV was one, and to be frank I’ve not missed it at all. I keep up with current affairs through the Internet and newspapers, and I go to the movies and watch DVDs once in a while – in any case, in the days when I did watch TV, I always had a book by my side ‘in case I got bored’. What I do miss is having had to cut down on my reading. This isn’t just because of a lack of time, it’s because I found that I was unconsciously allowing the style of whichever author I was reading to influence my own. Which is all very well if I’m reading romances, not so good if I’m reading a Russian classic, and some of its self-absorbed gloominess creeps into my manuscript! So when I’m working on a book, I usually stick to non-fiction or to re-reading old favourites.
The balance of course, keeps shifting. And I need to keep adjusting to swings in my workload and to my children’s changing needs. It’s still worth it though. And once in a while, I throw the prioritising out of the window, and spend hours doing something just because it’s fun and I enjoy it!
************
I can’t juggle. I’ve tried to learn, with apples, oranges and even with potatoes but my butter-fingers just didn’t have the knack. Still, the word ‘juggle’ features prominently when I try to explain how I manage my cluttered and chaotic life. I suspect it’s the same for most writers, because nowadays writers have day jobs that they’re working at as well. Journalism, banking, consulting, software engineering, even medicine. In my case, while my primary career is in banking, I also write two to three books a year. And I have two young children. Chaos is my middle name - I’m always trying to catch up with a never-ending to-do list. A typical weekday evening goes like this:
• Get home and ring the doorbell, thinking “If xyz doesn’t get back to me by tomorrow on the e-mail I sent him, I’ll need to ask for a meeting to sort the whole thing out”
• Hear screams from inside the flat “I’ll open the door…no, no, me, me, me!” Door opens, and my six-year-old daughter gives me a big hug and a grin, while my son gives me a casual wave
• The children’s nanny (who was racing my daughter to the door) fixes me with a gimlet eye and asks if I’ve booked a new gas cylinder yet. Guiltily, I dig my phone out and SMS the gas company
• Someone calls from work with a query, I shush the kids and try and sort things out. Fetch my Blackberry and send out a few mails
• Finish dinner and pick up laptop to work on my new book that has scary deadline looming up
• Son wanders in and casually informs me that he needs seventeen colour print-outs for a school project on Ancient Rome. The printer is in our home office and Papa is working there - my son is not allowed to disturb him unless the house is on fire
• I exercise my wifely privilege of disturbing my husband whenever I damn well please, and march into the home office to retrieve the printouts
• Check the school WhatsApp group for homework reminders
• Resume writing – am at a particularly tense point where the hero is recoiling from the strength of his own feelings….An imperious little voice calls out from the bathroom “Mamma!”, and I leave my hero to sort his problems out while I rush to the rescue
The weirdest part is that I enjoy this. I’d hate being at home all day, and I’d hate not being a writer. My kids and husband are incredibly supportive, and I’ve also got a little set of strategies going so that I can manage everything without getting stressed.
One of the first things I figured was that life is easier if you’re not a perfectionist. I’m not recommending a slip-shod approach by the way – all I’m saying is that some things matter, and you should concentrate on getting those right, and not bother so much about the rest. For example – a child’s birthday party is important, but obsessing endlessly about the theme and the decorations isn’t. Being committed to your job and doing it well is important. Hanging around ‘networking’ at an office party when your kids need you at home – as far as I’m concerned, it’s not that important.
Another realisation was that I didn’t have to do everything myself to get it right. Both at work as well as at home there were other people around who could help and were more than willing to do so. It was more a question of letting go a little and trusting others.
Still, even after all the prioritising and delegating, there were a bunch of things that I had to cut out of my life when I took up writing seriously. Watching TV was one, and to be frank I’ve not missed it at all. I keep up with current affairs through the Internet and newspapers, and I go to the movies and watch DVDs once in a while – in any case, in the days when I did watch TV, I always had a book by my side ‘in case I got bored’. What I do miss is having had to cut down on my reading. This isn’t just because of a lack of time, it’s because I found that I was unconsciously allowing the style of whichever author I was reading to influence my own. Which is all very well if I’m reading romances, not so good if I’m reading a Russian classic, and some of its self-absorbed gloominess creeps into my manuscript! So when I’m working on a book, I usually stick to non-fiction or to re-reading old favourites.
The balance of course, keeps shifting. And I need to keep adjusting to swings in my workload and to my children’s changing needs. It’s still worth it though. And once in a while, I throw the prioritising out of the window, and spend hours doing something just because it’s fun and I enjoy it!
December 31, 2013
Happy New Year!!!
Its been a while since my last post - have had a crazy writing schedule!
Harlequin (Mills and Boon)India is holding its annual 'Passions' contest for aspiring romance writers, and I'm thrilled to be a judge this year :-) I did a short blog for them on New Year's resolutions and tips for newbie romance writers which I'm pasting below:
**********
Happy New Year, and best wishes for a completely fabulous 2014! I have a good feeling about 2014 and what it’ll bring for all of us. The nicest part of a new year for me is the feeling of freshness and new beginnings it brings with it. I've always been a New Year resolutions junkie - in my teens, I'd open a fresh page of my diary and write down a list of resolutions that ranged from the simple (study harder) to the unattainable (stop slouching!!!!) to the frankly bizarre (spend one day each week without speaking a single word except to teachers/ parents). As I grew older, the New Year's resolutions showed an alarming tendency to stay the same year after year, and I graduated to the next level - a list of Things to Do Before I Turn Thirty. I unfortunately don't have the actual list with me anymore, but I remember most of what was on it. Do an MBA from an A-list B-school. Get a good job. Marry a good-looking man with a fantastic sense of humour and a high tolerance for eccentricity. Buy a house. Have two kids, one boy, one girl (what can I say, I was born old-fashioned!). And last but not least - Write a Book.
Being a dogged and determined kind of person (except for occasional bouts of intense laziness), I had most of the stuff on the list ticked off by the time I was thirty. Baby No 2 came along a year later, and I was finally free to concentrate on the last outstanding item - becoming a published author. I submitted a couple of short stories to magazines, and they got published, one of them even winning a prize. Greatly encouraged I started sending out book proposals to publishers, and found out pretty quickly that people weren't really lining up to publish stories by unknown authors. Luckily, around then, Mills & Boon India ran a short story competition for aspiring romance writers, and a story of mine made it to the top three.
Two years and four books later, I finally feel like a real author. And as my fourth book (The One She Was Warned About) hits the stands, I also feel like I've come a full circle, as this year I'm one of the judges for the romance section of the Mills and Boon (Harlequin) Passions writing contest this year.
When I was asked to come up with a list of New Year resolutions for new authors, I first had to think a bit. Then I went back to my own list of resolutions and came up with five resolutions that seem to cover it all:
1. Keep writing: This might seem a bit...umm...obvious, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. Writing involves a fair bit of discipline, and unless you have a deadline to meet, it’s difficult to sit down and write an 'x' number of words every day. Or 'y' words. Or even any words at all. Other things get in the way. Work. Friends. Kids. Life. And before you know it, you're wondering whether it makes sense to keep writing. It does. Even if you’ve not been published yet, keep going, and it’ll happen someday!
2. Ask for feedback: If you can, enroll in a creative writing course, but make sure its run by someone who knows what they’re doing. Even if you can’t, show your writing to family and friends – it’s also okay to reach out to people in the publishing field (authors, editors and so on) and ask for their feedback. Some of the most valuable pieces of feedback I’ve received have been from friends who are romance novel junkies. They’d read far more romance novels than I had, and could tell me exactly where I was going wrong. Small things sometimes, like getting side-tracked by a sub-plot or bigger ones like making one lead character stronger than the other.
3. Get the basics right: At the risk of sounding like a school teacher – pay attention to the details! Grammar is important, and so are punctuation and spelling. An otherwise engrossing story can be completely ruined by sloppy writing.
4. Keep your writing balanced: First books tend to be autobiographical, and that’s natural and perfectly okay. But especially when you’re writing popular fiction, you need to be careful that the book stays balanced and doesn’t lose sight of its main aim – that of entertaining the reader. The easiest way of making sure you get this right is to leave a manuscript alone for a while after you’ve completed it. Come back to it after a bit, and you’ll be able to see it from a more impartial perspective.
5. And most importantly - have fun with your writing! Experiment a little. Try writing a couple of stories in a genre you know nothing about. Join author groups, try your hand at blogging – go a little wild with new plots and sub-plots and make sure you thoroughly enjoy the whole being-an-author experience :-)
Happy New Year once again, and all the best!
Harlequin (Mills and Boon)India is holding its annual 'Passions' contest for aspiring romance writers, and I'm thrilled to be a judge this year :-) I did a short blog for them on New Year's resolutions and tips for newbie romance writers which I'm pasting below:
**********
Happy New Year, and best wishes for a completely fabulous 2014! I have a good feeling about 2014 and what it’ll bring for all of us. The nicest part of a new year for me is the feeling of freshness and new beginnings it brings with it. I've always been a New Year resolutions junkie - in my teens, I'd open a fresh page of my diary and write down a list of resolutions that ranged from the simple (study harder) to the unattainable (stop slouching!!!!) to the frankly bizarre (spend one day each week without speaking a single word except to teachers/ parents). As I grew older, the New Year's resolutions showed an alarming tendency to stay the same year after year, and I graduated to the next level - a list of Things to Do Before I Turn Thirty. I unfortunately don't have the actual list with me anymore, but I remember most of what was on it. Do an MBA from an A-list B-school. Get a good job. Marry a good-looking man with a fantastic sense of humour and a high tolerance for eccentricity. Buy a house. Have two kids, one boy, one girl (what can I say, I was born old-fashioned!). And last but not least - Write a Book.
Being a dogged and determined kind of person (except for occasional bouts of intense laziness), I had most of the stuff on the list ticked off by the time I was thirty. Baby No 2 came along a year later, and I was finally free to concentrate on the last outstanding item - becoming a published author. I submitted a couple of short stories to magazines, and they got published, one of them even winning a prize. Greatly encouraged I started sending out book proposals to publishers, and found out pretty quickly that people weren't really lining up to publish stories by unknown authors. Luckily, around then, Mills & Boon India ran a short story competition for aspiring romance writers, and a story of mine made it to the top three.
Two years and four books later, I finally feel like a real author. And as my fourth book (The One She Was Warned About) hits the stands, I also feel like I've come a full circle, as this year I'm one of the judges for the romance section of the Mills and Boon (Harlequin) Passions writing contest this year.
When I was asked to come up with a list of New Year resolutions for new authors, I first had to think a bit. Then I went back to my own list of resolutions and came up with five resolutions that seem to cover it all:
1. Keep writing: This might seem a bit...umm...obvious, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. Writing involves a fair bit of discipline, and unless you have a deadline to meet, it’s difficult to sit down and write an 'x' number of words every day. Or 'y' words. Or even any words at all. Other things get in the way. Work. Friends. Kids. Life. And before you know it, you're wondering whether it makes sense to keep writing. It does. Even if you’ve not been published yet, keep going, and it’ll happen someday!
2. Ask for feedback: If you can, enroll in a creative writing course, but make sure its run by someone who knows what they’re doing. Even if you can’t, show your writing to family and friends – it’s also okay to reach out to people in the publishing field (authors, editors and so on) and ask for their feedback. Some of the most valuable pieces of feedback I’ve received have been from friends who are romance novel junkies. They’d read far more romance novels than I had, and could tell me exactly where I was going wrong. Small things sometimes, like getting side-tracked by a sub-plot or bigger ones like making one lead character stronger than the other.
3. Get the basics right: At the risk of sounding like a school teacher – pay attention to the details! Grammar is important, and so are punctuation and spelling. An otherwise engrossing story can be completely ruined by sloppy writing.
4. Keep your writing balanced: First books tend to be autobiographical, and that’s natural and perfectly okay. But especially when you’re writing popular fiction, you need to be careful that the book stays balanced and doesn’t lose sight of its main aim – that of entertaining the reader. The easiest way of making sure you get this right is to leave a manuscript alone for a while after you’ve completed it. Come back to it after a bit, and you’ll be able to see it from a more impartial perspective.
5. And most importantly - have fun with your writing! Experiment a little. Try writing a couple of stories in a genre you know nothing about. Join author groups, try your hand at blogging – go a little wild with new plots and sub-plots and make sure you thoroughly enjoy the whole being-an-author experience :-)
Happy New Year once again, and all the best!
May 7, 2013
Moving to a big city....
First of all, let me just say this. I think women adapt to change so much better than men. Moving cities being no exception.
Now that I'm done with that grand statement, moving to a big city is an interesting experience to explore as an author. Helps you interpret your characters so much better - how they react to unfamiliar surroundings and new acquaintances.
Its been 14 years since I moved cities myself. What struck me then was:
1) The anonymity (v good)
2) The crowds (not so good)
3) The smells (this is Mumbai we're talking about)
4) The traffic (I'm still petrified when I cross a busy street)
And the nameless people who were so extraordinarily kind even when I was doing the dumbest, country bumpkin-ish things. Like stopping a well-dressed lady in Malabar Hill to ask her where I could find the 'garden with the old lady's shoe' that I'd seen when I was twelve - it actually exists, btw, a concrete shoe the size of a two-story house, and the lady was so nice about it, giving me detailed directions to find it!. And leaving my hand bag behind on a bus - I got it back, which is a miracle in itself.
Now that I'm done with that grand statement, moving to a big city is an interesting experience to explore as an author. Helps you interpret your characters so much better - how they react to unfamiliar surroundings and new acquaintances.
Its been 14 years since I moved cities myself. What struck me then was:
1) The anonymity (v good)
2) The crowds (not so good)
3) The smells (this is Mumbai we're talking about)
4) The traffic (I'm still petrified when I cross a busy street)
And the nameless people who were so extraordinarily kind even when I was doing the dumbest, country bumpkin-ish things. Like stopping a well-dressed lady in Malabar Hill to ask her where I could find the 'garden with the old lady's shoe' that I'd seen when I was twelve - it actually exists, btw, a concrete shoe the size of a two-story house, and the lady was so nice about it, giving me detailed directions to find it!. And leaving my hand bag behind on a bus - I got it back, which is a miracle in itself.
April 28, 2013
Arranged Marriages vs Falling in Love
My first blog post, and the title sounds like the subject of one of those interminable GDs we used to have in college. GD stood for Group Discussion, and was a favourite with interviewers trying to short-list candidates for a job or for admission to a post-grad course. In retrospect, it makes sense- poor things, they must have got thousands of applications, and hundreds of students cleared the written exams – there was no way they could interview all of them. So they’d separate us into groups of ten or fifteen, and hold a Group Discussion. Too argumentative – you’d be out. Too quiet – out. Overly radical opinions – out. And so on and so forth. No wonder we held mock GDs to practice. “Arranged marriages vs ‘love’ marriages” was a favourite topic, even among recruiters (I wonder why – entertainment value? Free dating tips?). I usually argued in favour of falling in love – in my head it was closely allied to freedom of choice, independence, living one’s own life, etc, etc. Being terribly opinionated, I was very contemptuous of arranged marriages – the only reason I tempered my arguments was because there was a high chance the interviewers had had arranged marriages themselves.
Arranged marriages are quite as common in India today as they were fifteen years ago when I was terrorising recruiters. Something about them obviously works. Maybe it’s the whole social acceptance thing – parents, relatives, neighbours and pretty much everyone you know has a stake in making the marriage work. And the families are usually similar, so there are fewer adjustment issues. And unlike in the Dark Ages, the couple is given some time to get to know each other – any basic incompatibility is ruled out.
Why would an independent, intelligent woman agree to an arranged marriage? I spoke to a lot of people when I was doing the research for my book “Take One Arranged Marriage”, and a few broad themes emerged. Traditional, conservative family, and the girl doesn’t want to upset her parents. Someone who’s had a bad break-up, and doesn’t want to risk the whole ‘falling in love’ business again. Someone whose biological clock is ticking – she hasn’t met anyone she really likes, and an arranged marriage is her only shot at having a family. When I finally wrote the book, I used a combination of the first reason, and another reason that is very specific to Tara, my heroine (I’m not going to say what the second reason was – I still want people to go out and buy the book!).
One of the most common arguments the “arranged marriage” faction used in those long-ago GDs was – “more ‘love-based’ marriages end in divorce”. Where that statistic came from I have no idea – last I checked, the Census Bureau didn’t collect data on marriages being arranged or otherwise. So I’d argue that a) quite as many arranged marriages ended in divorce, and b) people in arranged marriages, women especially, were bound by convention, and wouldn’t file for divorce even if they were deeply unhappy. What I couldn’t explain was why thousands of people who had arranged marriages with people they barely knew still seemed perfectly happy. I think I understand it better now – in enough cases, trite as it may sound, love does come after marriage. And in others, even if you can’t call it love, there is enough respect and understanding to make the marriage work.
Would arranged marriages work in countries where there’s no tradition supporting them? Maybe. Maybe not. Singles clubs, blind dates, matrimonial websites – they’re all ways of meeting people with the express purpose of finding someone you could have a relationship with. So not that different from arranged marriages after all. I’d love to know what other people think.
Arranged marriages are quite as common in India today as they were fifteen years ago when I was terrorising recruiters. Something about them obviously works. Maybe it’s the whole social acceptance thing – parents, relatives, neighbours and pretty much everyone you know has a stake in making the marriage work. And the families are usually similar, so there are fewer adjustment issues. And unlike in the Dark Ages, the couple is given some time to get to know each other – any basic incompatibility is ruled out.
Why would an independent, intelligent woman agree to an arranged marriage? I spoke to a lot of people when I was doing the research for my book “Take One Arranged Marriage”, and a few broad themes emerged. Traditional, conservative family, and the girl doesn’t want to upset her parents. Someone who’s had a bad break-up, and doesn’t want to risk the whole ‘falling in love’ business again. Someone whose biological clock is ticking – she hasn’t met anyone she really likes, and an arranged marriage is her only shot at having a family. When I finally wrote the book, I used a combination of the first reason, and another reason that is very specific to Tara, my heroine (I’m not going to say what the second reason was – I still want people to go out and buy the book!).
One of the most common arguments the “arranged marriage” faction used in those long-ago GDs was – “more ‘love-based’ marriages end in divorce”. Where that statistic came from I have no idea – last I checked, the Census Bureau didn’t collect data on marriages being arranged or otherwise. So I’d argue that a) quite as many arranged marriages ended in divorce, and b) people in arranged marriages, women especially, were bound by convention, and wouldn’t file for divorce even if they were deeply unhappy. What I couldn’t explain was why thousands of people who had arranged marriages with people they barely knew still seemed perfectly happy. I think I understand it better now – in enough cases, trite as it may sound, love does come after marriage. And in others, even if you can’t call it love, there is enough respect and understanding to make the marriage work.
Would arranged marriages work in countries where there’s no tradition supporting them? Maybe. Maybe not. Singles clubs, blind dates, matrimonial websites – they’re all ways of meeting people with the express purpose of finding someone you could have a relationship with. So not that different from arranged marriages after all. I’d love to know what other people think.
