So, What Exactly Do You Write?

Before I became a writer, I was a reader and a voracious one at that. It meant grabbing any book that caught your fancy and reading it primarily for your enjoyment. It didn’t matter one bit whether or not I knew which genre it belonged to. As a kid, I loved thrillers, mystery novels, crime stories and stories about the wars. This kind of grew on me over the years. It was probably inevitable that when I became a writer, I would try to write stories of the kind I loved to read.

More on Writing A Synopsis

“Gee, it’s far easier to write 70,000 or even 90,000 words than it is to write a winning synopsis.” You must have heard this a million times. You have written your book and the next thing you need is to have ready a synopsis because that is what everyone, from your agent to a potential publisher will ask for.

A selection of articles on Writing

I earnestly believe that a writer gets better as he reads. It’s so important to read a lot and gain different perspectives on the huge amount of knowledge available on writing. I would like to share with you a couple of articles I read last week that I found of interest.

NaNoWriMo Is Like A Game Of Golf

I owe so much to NaNoWriMo, and all my readers know that. Sonia Rao who looks after NaNoWriMo for the India region published this interview with me in her blog recently. Yes, it was about how much NaNoWriMo means to me.

Writers and Advances

So, what’s the deal about being a writer? How does one get to be a  writer in the first place? Let me try to give a quick summary of what can be a long-drawn and torturous process.

Firstly, you write a book. Yes, a complete one, duly edited, proof read and the rest of it. You then try to sell the book to a publisher. At times, and this make happen only after you are an established writer more often than not, you could be represented by a literary agent who sells your work. On publication, you get paid royalty based on the contract you sign with your publisher.

On occasion, and here’s where the glamorous image of being a writer comes in, you could sign a multi-book deal. The publisher signs you up to deliver a couple of books, without seeing what is in them. This is based on your track record and largely on what the world thinks of you, as evidenced by your book’s sales figures.

If you are good, you could be paid  an advance too. Renowned writers have been paid huge advances and a few such cases inspire every writer to believe that someday, somewhere, someone might sign them up on very lucrative terms.

But the world of publishing is becoming increasingly competitive, and I am not even talking about the self-publishing world. This too churns out a huge number of books into an already crowded market place.

As the traditional publishers seek to improve their profitability, they tend to consolidate through mergers and acquisitions at times. They seek various means to improve their business results. One move can be in the matter of advances. Here’s news that the famous writer Vikram Seth has been asked to pay back an advance. It’s only for $ 1.7 million !!!

The First Line

How does your novel start? Is the first line memorable? Does it grab the attention of the reader? In my debut novel, a psychological thriller, “It Can’t Be You” I wanted to start by telling the reader about an important event that had taken place in as concise and impactful manner as I could. The result:” The man was dead.”

Interesting Links

A confirmed web surfer, I am always on the hunt for things that may help me improve my writing.  Here are a few things which caught my attention over the last week:

• “The Emotion Thesaurus” by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi is an interesting dive into what are the giveaways when people express emotions. Designed for the writer to be factually correct when he/she captures the moods of their characters, and writes about their body language and mannerisms, this book is truly one of its kind. A must for the book shelf of every serious writer.

On Writing

It has its challenges. Its moments of despair. You feel like tearing your hair apart. There is so much to be done and so little time. The ideas are there and so are the thoughts but they disappear when you settle down to capture them. And of course, there are moments of exhilaration. Of joy. Of seeing your creation take shape and ultimately emerge as a sell-able product, a book. An author’s life is fun. At the end of the day, you need the passion to keep at it, to keep going, which means to keep writing.

Second In The Series: “Meet The Author” Abhijit Bhaduri

Abhijit “AB” Bhaduri is quite easily one of the most talented persons I have come across. Here’s a disclaimer. Before I am accused of partiality in saying this, let me say that AB and I have several things in common.

Bring on the ebooks!

Here’s this article in DNA by Priyanka Golikeri which speaks of how ebooks will over time be the next big thing in publishing in India. The market in India is still nascent at less than 1% of a Rs. 10,000 crore book publishing industry.