Tag: writing

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Guest fiction: The Last Answer by Isaac Asimov

Thought should start the new year with something smashing. Here’s a short story by my ever favourite author Isaac Asimov to inspire you (and me) to write some good science fiction this year.

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The Last Answer by Isaac Asimov — © 1980

Murray Templeton was forty-five years old, in the prime of life, and with all parts of his body in perfect working order except for certain key portions of his coronary arteries, but that was enough.

The pain had come suddenly, had mounted to an unbearable peak, and had then ebbed steadily.  He could feel his breath slowing and a kind of gathering peace washing over him.

There is no pleasure like the absence of pain – immediately after pain.  Murray felt an almost giddy lightness as though he were lifting in the air and hovering.

He opened his eyes and noted with distant amusement that the others in the room were still agitated.  He had been in the laboratory when the pain had struck, quite without warning, and when he had staggered, he had heard surprised outcries from the others before everything vanished into overwhelming agony.

Now, with the pain gone, the others were still hovering, still anxious, still gathered about his fallen body –– Which, he suddenly realised, he was looking down on.

He was down there, sprawled, face contorted.  He was up here, at peace and watching.

He thought: Miracle of miracles!  The life-after-life nuts were right.

And although that was a humiliating way for an atheistic physicist to die, he felt only the mildest surprise, and no alteration of the peace in which he was immersed.

He thought: There should be some angel – or something – coming for me.

The Earthly scene was fading.  Darkness was invading his consciousness and off in a distance, as a last glimmer of sight, there was a figure of light, vaguely human in form, and radiating warmth.

Murray thought: What a joke on me.  I’m going to Heaven.

Even as he thought that, the light faded, but the warmth remained.  There was no lessening of the peace even though in all the Universe only he remained – and the Voice.

The Voice said, “I have done this so often and yet I still have the capacity to be pleased at success.”

It was in Murray’s mind to say something, but he was not conscious of possessing a mouth, tongue, or vocal chords.  Nevertheless, tried to make a sound.  He tried, mouthlessly, to hum words or breathe them or just push them out by a contraction of – something.

And they came out.  He heard his own voice, quite recognisable, and his own words, infinitely clear.

Murray said, “Is this Heaven?”

The Voice said, “This is no place as you understand place.”

Murray was embarrassed, but the next question had to be asked.  “Pardon me if I sound like a jackass.  Are you God?”

Without changing intonation or in any way marring the perfection of the sound, the Voice managed to sound amused.  “It is strange that I am always asked that in, of course, an infinite number of ways.  There is no answer I can give that you would comprehend.  I am – which is all that I can say significantly and you may cover that with any word or concept you please.”

Murray said, “And what am I?  A soul?  Or am I only personified existence too?”  He tried not to sound sarcastic, but it seemed to him that he had failed.  He thought then, fleetingly, of adding a ‘Your Grace’ or ‘Holy One’ or something to counteract the sarcasm, and could not bring himself to do so even though for the first time in his existence he speculated on the possibility of being punished for his insolence – or sin? – with Hell, and what that might be like. Continue reading “Guest fiction: The Last Answer by Isaac Asimov”

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How to write an application for a writing fellowship

Am so thrilled to share with all of you that I’ve just received the Charles Wallace India Trust writing fellowship for speculative fiction. Yup, speculative fiction. You know the one which has monsters and aliens and spaceships and rakshasas and cool things that stay away from the so called ‘serious’ writing? Which means I get to write science fiction stories (the new book I’m planning post Anantya Tantrist’s third book is finished) and get to attend creative writing classes and meet faculty and students and gorge through the folklore library at Chichester University, all at the same time. Ain’t life fun?

Though I applied for the fellowship, I’d never really thought I would get it. And I’m still surprised, since I’d applied for a science fiction writing gig. There are a few friends who helped me shape the application (thank you Samit, Ajitha, Seema, Ranjita, Uthara) which got the thumbs up from the kind faculty at Chichester  (that’s a shout out for you, Stavroula!). And there are a few things I learnt while writing the application. Which is why this blog. I hope readers who’re applying for fellowships/scholarships and don’t know where to start, find some guidance here.

1) Have a project in mind

Don’t start with ‘I want to go for this fellowship’, start with ‘I want to write this book, this story, or work on this project.’ Have a clear vision on what exactly you want to do. I don’t mean know what you want to write or create, for there will never be so much clarity on that, but have a strong idea on what kind of story you want to create, what project, so you can express it as clearly in the proposal. I waited for four years to apply for any fellowship, for I wanted to be sure the project I wanted to work on needed it. The science fiction project I mentioned, needs me as a writer to learn more on the overall Sci-fi genre, to read more, to be exposed to well-read faculty, facilities and ideas.

2) Do your research Continue reading “How to write an application for a writing fellowship”
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Five ways to make your character real

The most hyperreal character I created till now is Anantya Tantrist, the tantrik detective and the heroine of my latest, Cult of Chaos. She has made me schizophrenic. I know her voice so well, that I can hear her talk in my head, can tweet as her and myself at the same time, having conversations over Twitter or tell you what she would be saying right now for this blog (“Why’re you wasting your time? Do something creative.”). When I was still pitching her book, I met A, the editor, the HarperCollins editor of the series in India and told her that she had to say yes to the book, because Anantya liked her. And I wasn’t lying. It was the truth. She’s that real to me. Like a friend. So here, I share what I’ve learnt while creating her. Here’s my bits on how to create characters that are crazy real.

1 Take her out on a date

You want to know what the biggest antihero of your book thinks like. What does he want? Why does he want to destroy the world? Does he like coffee or prefer tea? Is he an alcoholic? Meeting a character is like meeting a stranger on a date. Ask them inane questions. Do they like chocolate or strawberry icecream? You have to ask them what they are like, what they want from their lives, what they desire, what they feel about traffic jams, what their objective in life is. Spend a day, talking to your character, even the minor one. Romance her, fall in love, or hate her like you would the guy who persistently honks behind you in a stuck traffic jam.

2 Find out how she speaks

Readers love dialogues. Many of us while reading a book skip all the details, the paragraphs that talk about atmosphere and stuff and go to the dialogues. Dialogues are by far the most important way that readers will know your characters from. So it’s very important to know how your character speaks. Hear. Listen to what people say, how they say it. Everyone of us has a style of speech. Try and bring that out for your character. What are the words she uses the maximum? The repetitive things she says after each sentence? You want to make it real, yes, but not so real that it has repeated sentences. So keep it short.

3 Know the emotional ticks

After the date, this is the second level of knowing your character. What are the social issues they connect to the most? What makes them raving mad, or crazy? What brings tears to their eyes? For even the vilest of villains would have that soft spot somewhere. Find out what makes them sad, what’s their emotional curve. Know it when you’re writing and your readers will feel it too.

4 Put in her past experiences

I call this the soul of the character. As we grow, we absorb experiences each day and you need to know what your character’s past was to understand how they will behave now. What has happened to them in their past? Who were the people they grew up with? Like 90s soap operas, physical abuse, the desire to own a car or bullying a classmate or a pet. These experiences make the person we become and if you know the character’s past, you will know how they will react to situations, when and how they will act and take the story forward. To know your characters is to know your story too.

5 Listen to her body, beyond the face.

Body language is a very important aspect in detailing a character. Whether you write first-person narrative or third, you have to know how the character blink their eyes when they talk, how they smile, what changes in their body language when certain people are around. Find words for them, keep them listed somewhere. How our eyes look when we speak, how do our legs and hands move. Is her hair disheveled or clean, how does she smell? What are her most prominent features? How does she move her hands and arms and legs when she speaks? Build your vocabulary about the character and you’ll be able to bring her out in flesh and blood through words.

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Horrible plots to avoid in science fiction

Strange Horizons is a fabulous online speculative fiction magazine. I’ve been going there for ages, hogging on the freebies, including fiction, poetry, reviews of new books and articles on fantasy, horror, science fiction and its various sub-genres. While exploring the site, I found this useful list of things that the folks at Strange Horizons have seen too many times in their submissions. Typical plots, story tropes, characters, storylines that they DON’T want to see. I read the whole list and was surprised to find how close I’d come to a few of these typical, boring, done-to-death things, myself. (Red below are my comments.) Listing down a few here which I found particularly hilarious. For more, please head to this page, where they keep adding more tropes.

The following list is an attempt at classifying the kinds of non-horror plots and themes that we’ve received too frequently. Here’s the list:

  1. Creative person is having trouble creating.
    1. Writer has writer’s block.
    2. Painter can’t seem to paint anything good.
    3. Sculptor can’t seem to sculpt anything good.
    4. Creative person’s work is reviled by critics who don’t understand how brilliant it is.
    5. Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.
  2. Visitor to alien planet ignores information about local rules, inadvertantly violates them, is punished.
    1. New diplomat arrives on alien planet, ignores anthropologist’s attempts to explain local rules, is punished.
  3. Weird things happen, but it turns out they’re not real.
    1. In the end, it turns out it was all a dream.
    2. In the end, it turns out it was all in virtual reality.
    3. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is insane.
    4. In the end, it turns out the protagonist is writing a novel and the events we’ve seen are part of the novel.
  4. Technology and/or modern life turn out to be soulless. (Haven’t we all done this one?)
    1. Office life turns out to be soul-deadening, literally or metaphorically.
    2. All technology is shown to be soulless; in contrast, anything “natural” is by definition good. For example, living in a weather-controlled environment is bad, because it’s artificial, while dying of pneumonia is good, because it’s natural.
    3. The future is utopian and is considered by some or many to be perfect, but perfection turns out to be boring and stagnant and soul-deadening; it turns out that only through imperfection, pain, misery, and nature can life actually be good.
    4. In the future, all learning is soulless and electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a book.
    5. In the future, everything is soulless and electronic, until protagonist (usually a kid) is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a wise old person who’s lived a non-electronic life.
  5. Protagonist is a bad person. [We don’t object to this in a story; we merely object to it being the main point of the plot.]
    1. Bad person is told they’ll get the reward that they “deserve,” which ends up being something bad.
    2. Terrorists (especially Osama bin Laden) discover that horrible things happen to them in the afterlife (or otherwise get their comeuppance).
    3. Protagonist is portrayed as really awful, but that portrayal is merely a setup for the ending, in which they see the error of their ways and are redeemed. (But reading about the awfulness is so awful that we never get to the end to see the redemption.)
  6. A “surprise” twist ending occurs. [Note that we do like endings that we didn’t expect, as long as they derive naturally from character action. But note, too, that we’ve seen a lot of twist endings, and we find most of them to be pretty predictable, even the ones not on this list.]
    1. The characters’ actions are described in a way meant to fool the reader into thinking they’re humans, but in the end it turns out they’re not humans, as would have been obvious to anyone looking at them.
    2. Creatures are described as “vermin” or “pests” or “monsters,” but in the end it turns out they’re humans.
    3. The author conceals some essential piece of information from the reader that would be obvious if the reader were present at the scene, and then suddenly reveals that information at the end of the story. [This can be done well, but rarely is.]
    4. Person is floating in a formless void; in the end, they’re born.
    5. Person uses time travel to achieve some particular result, but in the end something unexpected happens that thwarts their plan.
    6. The main point of the story is for the author to metaphorically tell the reader, “Ha, ha, I tricked you! You thought one thing was going on, but it was really something else! You sure are dumb!”
    7. A mysteriously-named Event is about to happen (“Today was the day Jimmy would have to report for The Procedure”), but the nature of the Event isn’t revealed until the end of the story, when it turns out to involve death or other unpleasantness. [Several classic sf stories use this approach, which is one reason we’re tired of seeing it. Another reason is that we can usually guess the twist well ahead of time, which makes the mysteriousness annoying.]
    8. In the future, an official government permit is required in order to do some particular ordinary thing, but the specific thing a permit is required for isn’t (usually) revealed until the end of the story.
    9. Characters speculate (usually jokingly): “What if X were true of the universe?” (For example: “What if the universe is a simulation?”) At the end, something happens that implies that X is true.
    10. Characters in the story (usually in the far future and/or on an alien planet) use phrases that are phonetic respellings or variations of modern English words or phrases, such as “Hyoo Manz” or “Pleja Legions,” which the reader isn’t intended to notice; in the end, a surprise twist reveals that there’s a connection to 20th/21st-century English speakers.
  7. Scientist uses himself or herself as test subject.
  8. White protagonist is given wise and mystical advice by Holy Simple Native Folk. (This one made me laugh my head off. Avatar anyone?)
  9. An alien or an AI/robot/android observes and comments on the peculiar habits of humans, for allegedly comic effect. (Hitchhikers did have a few of these, to wonderful entertainment.)
    1. The alien or AI is fluent in English and completely familiar with various English idioms, but is completely unfamiliar with human biology and/or with such concepts as sex or violence and/or with certain specific extremely common English words (such as “cat”).
    2. The alien or AI takes everything literally.
    3. Instead of an alien or AI, it’s people in the future commenting on the ridiculous things (usually including internal combustion engines) that people used to use in the unenlightened past.
  10. Person A tells a story to person B (or to a room full of people) about person C. (This is so Hercule Poirot in SF!)
    1. In the end, it turns out that person B is really person C (or from the same organization).
    2. In the end, it turns out that person A is really person C (or has the same goals).
    3. In the end, there’s some other ironic but predictable twist that would cast the whole story in a different light if the reader hadn’t guessed the ending early on.
  11. It’s immediately obvious to the reader that a mysterious character is from the future, but the other characters (usually including the protagonist) can’t figure it out.
  12. Someone takes revenge for the wrongs done to them. (Ahem. This was the original Anantya plot, before it became Cult of Chaos. Glad I got rid of it.)
    1. Protagonist is put through heavy-handed humiliation after humiliation, and takes it meekly, until the end when he or she murders someone.
  13. Author showcases their premise of what the afterlife is like; there’s little or no story, other than demonstrating that premise. (This actually is an interesting trope for me. I would love to see Yamraj running it as a business. But again, done quite a lot of times.)
    1. Hell and Heaven are run like businesses.
    2. The afterlife is really monotonous and dull.
    3. The afterlife is a bureaucracy.
    4. The afterlife is nothingness.
    5. The afterlife reunites you with your loved ones.
  14. Protagonist agrees to go along with a plan or action despite not having enough information about it, and despite their worries that the thing will be bad. Then the thing turns out to be bad after all. (Most movies/books of single, white, urban hero. Always wondered why doesn’t he ask the questions?)
  15. In a comedic/satirical story, vampires and/or other supernatural creatures come out publicly and demand (and/or get) the vote and other rights, but people are prejudiced against them. (Sigh. Vampires, in the whole lot, should be banned for a few decades.)
  16. There’s a machine that cryptically predicts the manner of a person’s death by printing it on a slip of paper; the machine is never wrong, but often it’s right in surprising or ironic ways. [There’s nothing wrong with theMachine of Death anthologies, but we’ve seen a large number of MoD rejects, and we’re extremely unlikely to buy one.] hahahaha!
  17. Story is set in a world in which some common modern Western power structure is inverted, and we’re meant to sympathize with the people who are oppressed in the world of the story. [Such stories usually end up reinforcing the real-world dominant paradigm; and regardless, they rarely do anything we haven’t seen many times before.] This one is an interesting tool, and I wouldn’t say not to use it. Especially 1. I want to try it in a story someday.
    1. Women have more power than men, and it’s very sad how oppressed the men are.
    2. Everyone in the society is gay or lesbian, and straight people are considered perverts.
    3. White people are oppressed by oppressive people with other skin colors.
  18. Kids with special abilities are kidnapped by the government and imprisoned and tested in a lab.
  19. The author attempts to lead the reader to think a character is going to die, but instead the character is uploaded into VR or undergoes some other transformative but non-dying process. (Learn from GRR Martin people!)
  20. Someone dies and then wanders around as a ghost.
    1. They meet other ghosts who’ve been around longer and who show them the ropes, and/or help them come to terms with being dead, and/or explain that nobody knows what happens after ghosts move on to the next stage of the afterlife.
    2. They’re initially stuck in the place where they died or the place where their body is. In some cases, they eventually figure out how to roam the world.

Continue reading “Horrible plots to avoid in science fiction”

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How to stay safe online

In the first week of June, Bengaluru-based make-up artist Dipthi Aashok opened a video link on Facebook, “What my sex”, that a friend had posted on her timeline. Before she knew it, the video had been posted on her friends’ timelines. “I was shocked,” says the 37-year-old, “the video didn’t even open and I was getting angry messages from my friends on what kind of stuff I’d posted on their timeline.”

She didn’t even realize that her Facebook account had been hacked. Aashok was a victim of phishing.

Phishing and spamming are both malicious activities. Phishing’s main task is to steal a person’s sensitive data (such as password, account login authentication, etc.), while spamming is designed to entice a user to fall for a trap (such as the “Mr XYZ has left you a will, please share your bank account details” routine) or just bombard you with offers.

According to software security firm Symantec Corp’s “Internet Security Threat Report 2014”, India’s growing social media population provides a ready base for cyber criminals, making it the second most targeted country in the world for social media scams. “People voluntarily and unwittingly share enticing videos, stories, pictures and offers in order to gain access to a sensational video or enter a lottery, without realizing that these could include links to malicious or affiliate sites,” says Ritesh Chopra, country manager (India), Norton by Symantec.

“Fake notifications from Facebook and other social networks, the promise of explicit photographs attached to messages, Valentine’s Day discounts, news about Ukraine, a health scare, the spammers try it all to get you to click,” says Altaf Halde, managing director (South Asia), Kaspersky Lab, a software security group with a presence in 200 countries. Once you do click, the malware enters your computer or phone, and either steals all your document files, encrypting them, or tries to multiply by making copies of itself and sending it to all your contacts. According to Kaspersky Lab’s May report, “IT Threat Evolution Report For Q1 Of 2015”, which analysed the spam and phishing threats landscape, India ranked among the top 10 spam-recipient countries. The list includes Russia, Uzbekistan, Germany and the UK. Continue reading “How to stay safe online”

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How do you escape a box created by bots?

When I was little, I used to visit a bookstore in my neighbourhood, stand facing a daunting line up of books in a random alley, close my eyes and just like that, pick up a book, at random, open it on a random page and read the first line that caught my eye. It was the answer to whatever problem or question ailed me at that point of time. I trusted two things in that book. The randomness of life and the collective wisdom that is inside most books, lovingly curated by a bookstore owner. 

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Fact and Fiction, a small bookstore in the corner of the Vasant Vihar in Delhi, opposite Priya cinemas was one such store. Being a wallflower at the time and good at being invisible (I still have that power), I would sneak in, get into the back alleys, pretending the door didn’t exist and pick up a book at random, hungrily flapping its pages for yet another wise answer. These books, picked at random, read without an aim in mind, became advisors and consultants and shaped who I became. Strangers who would just come in my life for one moment and their deed done, vanish back into the folds of mysteries of dark pages. Quiet, understanding strangers, who would suggest without judging, without even knowing all facts, and a split second later, forget they had given such advices. It was how I decided in which direction I wanted my first relationship to go. It was how I learnt that I should do my Bachelors in English. 

Unknowingly to me, these books started to become friends, advisors, consultants and guides–all rolled in one. And instead of just picking up a random page, I started to buy them, read them, page by random page, book by random book. This probably was how the idea of writing books myself planted itself inside me. Randomly, quietly, with a stubborn determination. 

I hoped (or rather imagined) these books had a symbiotic relationship with me. That maybe they too, created with words strung together by an author, and given a mysterious life, wanted to be opened, to be hungrily devoured by another, by me, page by page, to be guides, to create words, to question meanings. 

Growing up, this feeling of magic, of entering a womb or a temple or a dark hole, full of secrets, of unknown possibilities stayed with me. Whenever I enter a bookstore, an ancient one, one that’s a bit scattered, a bit messy, a bit quaint, like an old woman who has forgotten to tame her web-white hair, I enter a magical world of sorts where I know I will find a new friend, a new guide, a new path to walk on. And the wild woods has so many of them. Some of the best authors who shaped me and my voice, have been ones that came to me at random, found in the jungle that is an old bookstore. 

Which is why, a sadness grips me when I hear of yet another bookstore closing down. It’s not that I don’t logically understand, I do. Shopping online is so much more cheaper and efficient and convenient and logical and suited to the notification-hungry, constantly-connected, fast-living, multi-tasking, mutated beings that we’re all becoming. But I just wonder if somewhere in this online world, full of recommendations by friends, personalisations and bestseller lists and hyper-marketing, will I lose Ms Random?

In online bookstores, nothing is left for hubris, nothing to chance or randomness. Instead the bots avoid the accidents, the random chances. Algorithms analyse what you might like, put it in a box, and instantly serve you, like your favourite noodles, satisfying your craving. It’s based on your individual tastes and browsing habits. 

But what if you don’t want to be you anymore? Or you haven’t had a chance to really become one person? Or if you want to be many people together? Change personalities, like a chameleon or your opinions, live in the grey areas where you can’t express what you feel? 

What if you want to head into a new direction, randomly, not look out for things to change you but passively wait, wait for something delightful to fall in your lap? How do you do that online with no spaces for accidents, where everything is codified and left to algorithms which analyse what you might like? Which constantly suggest, constantly try to keep you in the box that they’ve defined for you? How do you escape this box created by bots?

I hope the online world’s future holds some of these answers. Maybe one of the e-commerce giants will give us a brick-and-mortar bookshop to find a random book which we can order online from there. Or can this space, this random storehouse, this blackhole of the unknown, be created on our screens somehow? Can I read a page at random in one of these ebooks?  

Or maybe all of this is wishful thinking. In a world that’s increasingly becoming black-and-white, where no one has patience for nuances or for questioning faith, or for changing minds, or listening to more than a tweet. Where you’re either going right or left on a set path. In this clean cut world, maybe I am only one, a foolish old lady, without a comb, dancing on the streets. 

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How creating Anantya helped me find my freedom

The plotlines of most action flicks, are all about the hero. The hero rocks the roads, chases goons, tots guns, fights for justice, sows wild oats with white girls, and then heads back to home, to his heroine. All this while, this heroine, the girl, pines away back at home or sits pretty in a café (usually alongside a swimming pool for some reason), waiting for her hero. The only time she’s outdoors, she’s either surrounded by other girls, or is with the hero, or is getting raped or attacked by the goons. The message is loud and clear: The streets are unsafe for an Indian woman: If you’re out there alone, you will be slaughtered, you little lamb.

As a girl who grew up in Delhi, I was fed this message by family, society, school, college and onwards. Every time I walked on the streets of the capital city, as a teenager, as a working woman in her 20s, I had to constantly fight butt slaps, boob pinches, stares and hoots and whistles from strangers. Every time a violent act happened, I was told to not walk alone on streets, to wear looser clothes, not stare back and scream, not confront, not act, but be passive. For that’s how a woman should behave. Wait for someone else, a hero, a guy, the government or the police to react to the aggression that happens to her, to save her. An Indian woman is supposed to be passive, silently take on violence if given by her husband or in-laws, or ask for help from the boyfriend or police or government when faced from an aggressive stranger. Most of all, a woman is supposed to protect herself from all of it, to keep indoors, to make friends carefully in case they turn out to be rapists.

With Anantya Tantrist, the tantrik detective of my latest novel, Cult of Chaos, I decided to take all of these years of imbibed and heard and oft-repeated Indian values of passivity, decorum, rules and ethics meant for women and flip them, turn them on their head. Just to see what happens to the society in the world if I do. For speculative fiction gives you that freedom, to extrapolate, to try and do things differently, make new rules and new societies, explore gender roles and beliefs about gender. And I took it.

Anantya as a result, became a complete opposite to the restrictive idea of an ideal Indian woman.

First of all, she is always in the middle of action, she speaks her mind, there’s no passivity when it comes to her, in fact passivity bores her. She is boisterous, angry, spews gaali, smokes beedi, drinks hard stuff like a fish, hangs out on the streets with all kinds of things and species, doesn’t come home till wee hours, has crud in her kitchen, can’t cook to save her life, but can wield a boneblade to save another’s. She has unapologetic one night stands with all kinds of supernatural species, wears chappals and goes to parties and doesn’t know what a ‘date’ is. Continue reading “How creating Anantya helped me find my freedom”

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Five myths about an author

I’ve been writing books for six years now. When I began my journalist career more than a decade ago, I was sure I couldn’t write an article. It took me five years of wanting to write fiction, a Master’s degree, one failed novel and millions of procrastinating moments to finally do something that all blogs, all writers keep suggesting: write. After a year of stalling, I started to write fiction and once I did, I couldn’t stop. In the last five years, I’ve written six books, four of which are published and two lie at various edit levels. The longest of this, my first of Anantya’s series, Cult of Chaos, touched 1,20,000 words at manuscript stage. I became an author when I started to write (and not when I was published). Here are a few myths I’ve come across in my life as an author.

Myth 1: Writing is a hobby for them

If you want to get published, writing fiction is a creative business. Like any other commercial designer, you’re selling your ware in the market. If you look at writing as a hobby, there will be no sales involved, you will write whatever you feel like writing, chuck the rather painful process of editing. It will be pure art, and you won’t care two-hoots if it’s appreciated or understood by anyone else. For those who want to write this way, I suggest heading to a vanity publisher so they can distribute their books to friends and family. For the looners who want to publish a book with a commercial publisher, wake up to the fact that you’re starting a business. It would have all the pains of a new business. You have to present a spectacular product, polish it till it becomes commercially viable and acceptable, take the pains of editing it again and again and yet again at various levels,

Myth 2: Authors earn a lot

While interacting with students at IIT-Kanpur, one of them asked me, how much do I earn from writing book. I gave him a few figures, pittances mostly. He counter question was: ‘Then why do you write?’ I looked at him point blank and said that if he wanted to get into writing for the money of it (in spite of the fact that I think of it as a business), he was choosing wrong. Better to do a start-up and sell it for a few lakhs or millions. For majority of the authors don’t earn anything in comparison to the effort put into the making of the book. In India most publishers give you an advance on the book that’s calculated on how much the publisher thinks it’s going to sell. In hard figures, if you’re not a celebrity author and most are not, the advance is anywhere between Rs 2,000 for a children’s book to Rs 1,00,000 for what they call ‘genre fiction’. Many books never earn beyond the advance, so authors get no royalty beyond it. Each of these labours of love take around one year to write, edit, finish and market. And I am estimating a fast turn around. If you put the same year into a job, any job, even at a call center (which begins at Rs 25,000/month), you will earn much more than this book is going to give you. Keep this in your head so you’re not disappointed later on. If earning royalty is your motivation, most likely you’re headed for the depression pit.

Myth 3: They have it easy

‘Oh you work from home? That’s so nice. I wish I could do that.’: You will get it again and again and yet again. Writing was the hardest thing I took on myself and as you can see from the first sentence, this line of thought gets me burned up. Because I know that being an author is the most difficult person I will be. For one, there’s no security in this work. I can cease to be an author the minute I’m not writing or don’t have another book in my mind. It’s not easy, this constant insecurity I’ve to deal with.

Myth 4: Authors are naturally creative

As a lot of people who write will disagree to this. Creativity is like a friend who makes plans on Whatsapp and never really comes to meet up. It’s unreliable. What makes an author is not creativity, which all of us have to some extent, but hardwork, perseverance and determination to write, to pen down or to draw that spark that the creative soul’s left in us. To scratch that itch. Write everyday, even if you’re sick, busy, have a lot on your mind, stressed, feeling in dumps. Write even if no words come. Being at it constantly, chipping away the stone is what makes an author.

Myth 5: Authors are chaotic

Most of the ones I know are meticulously planned when it comes to the book they’re writing. They might have strewn a few books around, I know I do—papers and books and whatnots, but I know exactly what is there. There’s a method to that madness. Just that you might not see it.

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For more tips on writing, head to this section. Know of any other myths you’ve heard? Please put them in the comment section below.

 

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Ten secrets to marketing your book – 2

After three months of extensive marketing for Cult of Chaos, I am back on the desk, somewhat wiser, somewhat still the novice and definitely a dreamer.  As I move on to various other exciting projects that are brimming up (including the third installment of Anantya Tantrist’s series), I thought I should whisper all the trade secrets I learnt. And in our age, that means writing a blog. So here it is peeps. If these are useful, comment below. If not, comment still!

First five secrets to marketing your book

6 Look beyond a blog

A personal blog/website is great but online audiences are fractured and each has their own preferred social space. Today, you need to be present on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, YouTube, and others. If you know your audience well, try and find where they hang out and be there. There’s no use to be on Facebook if you’ve written a non-fiction and most of your audience hashtags over at Twitter. And be on as many social networks as you can. You don’t need to post separately on anything. But connect them all together, use auto-posts, schedule posts and let it be. I wrote Anantya Tantrist‘s voice over a day, for two months and put it on auto-schedule. She two months, she talked on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter or Google+. You’ll need to be efficient with this otherwise your writing time may be eaten into. Another important thing for you to do is have a strong voice across these social networks. It will be a reflection of who you are as a person and as an author. Like I love supernatural/fantasy stuff and I constantly write on folklore, tribal and occult things, which matches my interest in writing supernatural and tantric fiction.

7 Write columns 

Journalists don’t have time to review all books or do interviews of all authors. But you’re a writer, so play on your strength and write free content for as many magazines, papers, blogs, ezines that you can connect with (some of them might pay for it too). Most editors are open to new ideas, especially content from authors (thought being, if you’ve written and published a book, you might be able to write well). Pitch ideas around your book, not things that are directly promotional but things that you feel strongly about, or the themes of your book. I write columns on folklore and tantrism and writing, things I know. (Check out my columns at Swarajya, HuffingtonPost, DailyO, Scroll and Discover India. On each site, I get about a 10-300 shares every time I post something new.)

8 Work with your publisher

Publishers usually have decent marketing teams but they’re really busy people, so keep a track of your marketing representative, give them a call once in a while, send them an email, inform them of all your activities and ideas and thoughts and keep asking what’s happening next. And if you have an idea, always ask if they would do it, even though you feel it’s too expensive or weird. You know what’s best for your book.

9 Do go on bookstore tours

A lot of us go by the recommendations made by the staff of a bookstore. Use that to your advantage. Understand the people who’re selling your book on the ground, for whom it’s just a day’s boring business. Tell them about your book, enthuse them with what you love about your book. Do bookstore tours in your city, speak to groups that sell books and figure out how they do it. Convince them to push your book out.

10 Keep in touch with sales

You don’t need to find out how your book it doing (that dreaded question that is asked one too many times to all of us), but I’ve found it quite useful to understand how your book is being sold. Who is the sales person? Do they read? Do they know about your book? How do they recommend? What kind of pressures does their bosses put on them? What are their targets? It’s essential to understand the business of sales within a publishing house. What kind of distribution do they have? Is your book going to be available in all stores or just a few? Who decides these? I am still figuring out these things myself and you should see a post on it soon enough.

First five secrets to marketing your book

For more tips on writing, head to this section.

 

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Ten secrets to marketing your book – 1

After three months of extensive marketing for Cult of Chaos, I am back on the desk, somewhat wiser, somewhat still the novice and definitely a dreamer.  As I move on to various other exciting projects that are brimming up (including the third installment of Anantya Tantrist’s series), I thought I should whisper all the trade secrets I learnt. And in our age, that means writing a blog. So here it is peeps. If these are useful, comment below. If not, comment still!

1 Take a few months off

First of all, for any marketing effort, you will need to take out a couple of months. That’s a couple of months of no-productivity, as in no-writing, AND doing things you might hate – talking to people, connecting, pushing your book, chasing, and all other things that marketing requires. So mentally prepare yourself for that.

2 Connect with people in media

I’ve worked in media houses for more than twelve years now and understand that media (all kinds be it online, offline and blogs) is very useful in disseminating the word about your book. The thing is, the traditional ones (like newspapers and magazines) are usually loaded with books (about 80 a month), so making personal relationships with the journalists who read your kind of genre, might be helpful. Take time out and figure who these journalists are and connect with them and let them know about your book. Your publisher might be doing it separately, but it’s useful for you to do it too. And this includes not only newspapers, but magazines, television, radio, blogs, online sites, Instagram and Facebook people. Build relationships with all kinds of people in traditional, online, or social media. If you can’t do this yourself, hire a PR agency, but keep it personal with whoever you connect with.

3 Do something other than a book launch

When was the last time you went to a book launch where you didn’t know the author? A launch works for a celebrity author. If you’re not that, try to do something else in an event. I tried doing an occult quiz for my tantrik book launch and got much more media interest as well as crowd than I would have if it would have been just a humdrum literary type discussion (which wouldn’t have worked for Anantya Tantrist anyway). For my kids mystery, Ghost Hunters of Kurseong, I went to schools and did detective workshops with kids, spreading word about my book. The best way to do an event is to tie-up with something else that’s already happening. Launch your book at a music concert or just before a play or at an art exhibition. Combination events work much better to reach new crowds than your own networks.

Next five secrets to marketing your book

4 Play to your strengths

I am a natural communicator. I love connecting to people, am naturally curious on how they work and what they do and how I can help them as well as take their help in spreading word about my books. For Cult of Chaos, I’ve connected with other authors and musicians and done a giveaway on their websites, connected with event organisers and requested them to put freebies about my book on their ticket boxes. It might or might not work, but my books are being talked about in these different groups, and that helps. (Or so I think and hope). Another author friend of mine is simply lovely at helping others write, so he runs a writing club offline and online (in an extensive email list). It’s organised and fabulous. Think of your strengths and weave a marketing plan around it.

5 Look beyond bookstores

Where do people read books? It’s not only bookstores, it’s cafes, parks and libraries and homes. Readers are everywhere. Can you reach these spaces? How about offices, colleges and apartment complexes? There are reader groups everywhere, try to find them and connect with them. Begin small and continue your efforts.

Next five secrets to marketing your book

For more tips on writing, head to this section.