Breathing Story World – Novel Writing
Chipping walls of a house, brick floor, narrow streets, an old rug, leaking ceiling and a bed made of hay. These six objects fill up a vacant space in the mind to bring out the picture of a poor home. A carefully chosen collection of objects is a smart way to delineate your story world. [...]
Creating characters
Yossarian; David Copperfield; Stevens, the Butler; Scarlett O’Hara; Heathcliff; you remember them all. They don’t exist in real life, still you see them in your head as clearly as your neighbor. That’s queer, that’s magic. To create such magic, you need to know the tricks, the technique and then you can effortlessly pop out real [...]
Conflict – Novel Writing
Writers have a charming life. They don’t face conflict at work because they work alone. That cuts out a lot of friction, spark and explosions. But in fiction, he knows he needs to create friction where there is none.
I. Incompatibility between characters or division within a character is a very common form of conflict in [...]
Creating Scenes
Scenes are like bricks in a house. They are disjointed, but glued together. Scenes too need to stick together to create a structure that has beauty and system. You can say scenes are the building blocks of a novel.
Even before you write the first word of your novel, your mind is already overflowing with what [...]
Convert a great idea into a great novel
Muse has descended. You’ve finally got a Great Idea that can be turned into a spectacular book. You want to begin writing now. But when you are ready with your hands on the keyboard and eyes glued to the computer screen, all that gets out of you are disjointed threads of your Great Idea. You [...]
Write a bestseller
No writer writes to keep their baby under wraps. You’ve got a great idea and you want to share it with the world. Excellent! But wait a sec. How are you going to do that? The world is 6.60 billion people; and selling is tough job. The first step to sell your novel is to [...]
Raw-material for your fiction
Thank God you don’t have to dig for miles to get your raw material. But you do need to dig into people. Poking your nose in other people’s affairs is a must-do for writers. And still we don’t get a bad name. Lucky.
Another civil way to do it is to get it through sight, smell, [...]
The Importance of Reading
Even if you are not an avid reader, you still must have read hundreds of books. Most read for entertainment, some for learning and very few for writing. You are one of those 0.001% of the world population.
At best, reading improves your writing. And reading great writers of your genre gives you examples of great [...]
Thinking like a novelist
Thinking like a novelist is like any other kind of conditioning. You were born into a religion, a country, a culture, a language; and your outlook shaped itself around it (though you escape from some of it by rationalizing). You are into a profession and you adopt its characteristics. More so than anything else, [...]
The Window
From the window the hot wind charged into the room, stung Kesha on the cheek and comfortably spread out like an unassuming guest.
‘Close the window!’ Rishi said from behind the newspaper.
‘With so much smoke from the parathas, we will either die of suffocation or get killed by the heat,’ she said, slapping a ball of [...]
