Ask the Author: Rajat Narula
Answered Questions (9)
Rajat Narula
An eagle soared high in the sky. It got tangled in the engine of an incoming jet.
Rajat Narula
To the Colombia of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Be a fly on the wall and watch all the generations play out their stories.
Rajat Narula
Oh, the list is really long. I maintain a list of books that people or the newspapers or blog reviews have recommended, and then whenever I am done with the book I am currently reading, I scroll through the list and select one. My current 'really want to read' books are: The Gun Island, Us against you, The winter soldier, When Dimple met Rishi, Home Fires, The High Tide Club, Happiness, The House of Broken Angels, The Music Shop, The Orphan's Tale and Five Carat Soul.
Rajat Narula
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Rajat Narula
The inspirations are all around you. People you meet, news you read, movies you watch, books you read, random conversations you overhear, sights you see, places you visit - all these things remain within you. Sometimes they percolate for years, enmeshing with other ideas and thoughts and a story begins to take shape.
Rajat Narula
I am currently working on my second novel, which is based in Virginia, United States. The central theme of the book is the inter-ethnic tensions and clash of cultures in US, particularly in the post-Trump world.
Rajat Narula
First: Persist. I see a number of people starting, but then losing steam midway. It doesn't matter how good or bad your first draft is, but it is really important you finish what you start. There is plenty of time, after the first draft is completed, to further improve the book. But the most important thing is to finish it.
Second: Write the best book you can. I finished the first draft of 'The Jasmine Bloom' in 18 months but it took me another 42 months to really 'complete' it. I understand there are shortcuts available (self-publishing, editors) and the quality of writing of some of the bestsellers in India isn't quite the best, but you still want to give it your best shot. The book may be a hit or a flop, but you won't want your name to be associated with a shoddy, half-baked product.
Three: Buck the trend. Don't write what you think sells in the market. Write what you want to write. The story you think you can tell the best. For example, if college romances are what's selling in India currently, doesn't mean you have to write one too. If that's the story in you, of course. But if you have another story to tell, go ahead and tell your story. That way your truth will make the writing stronger and the readers will relate with the book.
Second: Write the best book you can. I finished the first draft of 'The Jasmine Bloom' in 18 months but it took me another 42 months to really 'complete' it. I understand there are shortcuts available (self-publishing, editors) and the quality of writing of some of the bestsellers in India isn't quite the best, but you still want to give it your best shot. The book may be a hit or a flop, but you won't want your name to be associated with a shoddy, half-baked product.
Three: Buck the trend. Don't write what you think sells in the market. Write what you want to write. The story you think you can tell the best. For example, if college romances are what's selling in India currently, doesn't mean you have to write one too. If that's the story in you, of course. But if you have another story to tell, go ahead and tell your story. That way your truth will make the writing stronger and the readers will relate with the book.
Rajat Narula
I believe it's the satisfaction of reaching out to a large number of people with a message that is important to you. The core theme of 'The Jasmine Bloom' is - that happiness is within oneself - you don't have to look for it in other people or things. The ability to convey that message in an entertaining and engaging way was perhaps the best thing about writing that book. It is also a lot of fun, when the readers relate to the characters. The way readers reacted to Kavita, Tania and Pari, and expressed about how the incidents happening to the characters seemed like they were happening to them really feels good. It makes me happy that I was able to tug at the readers' hearts with the book.
Rajat Narula
I have found that having an outline of the story at the outset, helps with not getting into a writer's block . If you know broadly, where the story is going to go, you don't come to a situation where you have no idea what happens next. What does happen to me, however, is that I get into a situation where I realize that a sequence or a scene doesn't work because it is unrealistic. But that scene (or the action in that scene) is important for the story. I struggle with that. To give you an example, in 'The Jasmine Bloom', there is a scene, where the police catches Sunil red-handed in the midst of his violent attack on Ritu. Now, it is not realistic to expect that in Delhi, a police surveillance van would pick up that violence happening inside a home. However, it was important for the story for that to happen. I struggled for days wondering how was I going to make it happen, with both the main characters engrossed in the fight without an access to a phone. I left that link hanging and moved on and wrote the next chapter and then the next. A few chapters later, the solution struck me. It was simple. and yet clever. So another technique of dealing with writer's block (if you reach an impasse on a certain sequence or scene) is to move ahead and sooner or latter, a solution, presents itself to you.
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