I love novels that read like short stories. I don't like it when the plot is so complex that my excitement reaches its peak too early. When I read a book like that, I'm just waiting to find out what happens in the end, not enjoying the journey. The book I read before this, The Boy Who Fell Down Exit 43, was like that. In the last two chapters, you're just waiting for resolution, no longer anticipating what could happen.The Court Painter's Apprentice was nothing like that. In many ways, I found its telling old-fashioned, and I liked that. I liked how different incidents come together to create a story. There was a build-up with no unnecessary crests and troughs. One story after another, with very few sub-plots. Didn't Aristotle say that that was the making of good literature?A young painter's talent is discovered when he is still very young. Apprenticed to Hugo, the leading painter of … [Read more...]
Author Interview!
The Story-Catcher was the second runner-up for the "Parents and Kids Choice Awards 2014" for Books (Indian authors) in the age-group 10-15.TeamRivo interviewed me - read the interview on rivoblog! … [Read more...]
Skellig
Skellig by David Almond is a human story, and like so many human stories, contains a little miracle. A scientific miracle, perhaps. Or maybe a spiritual miracle. Sometimes the two go together, along with angelic intervention, scientific study and William Blake.Skellig is not a story that wants to be believed. Yet it is not fantasy. It is not a story about magic. Yet, it contains the inexplicable. It is not a spiritual story of divine intervention. Yet, it is the story of a little miracle that brings Joy.Sparse, sometimes disgusting, often moving, Skellig is, above all, the story of a quiet boy who is not so quiet in his head. And his friends who understand. And those who don't. … [Read more...]
My Favourite Male Characters in Fiction
I wonder why most of the fictitious characters I love and admire are female! Is it because I want to identify with my characters and it is easier for me to identify with female ones?When I think about remarkable male characters, though, I don't really run out of favourites.1) Little Lord Fauntleroy: Just like Pollyanna, he should be too sugary to be lovable, but no. He is among my all-time favourites. Little Lord Fauntleroy is a story I tell all the time simply because it is so innocent an beautiful.2) Rhett Butler - If Scarlett is remarkable, Rhett is even more so. The only one with the gumption to take on Scarlett as she really is without deifying her. He is one powerful character who awes me so much that I am almost frightened of him.3) Vidal - Vidal is Devil's cub - annoying, brusque and overbearing. Yet, his relationship with his parents makes me smile and fall in love.4) … [Read more...]
My Favourite Female Characters in Fiction
A question that always bothers me when I'm writing is whether I should concentrate on plot or character. Plot has the power to transport me, make me gasp and thrill me. But characters... Ah, they're the people who become lifelong friends.1) Pollyanna: Too good to be loved, but how I love her! She should be a saccharine goody two-shoes, but she's not. Her glad game changed my world.2) Anne: Anne in Anne of Green Gables is the best of the lot. That's where my beloved "Carrots" emerges as the imaginative and dreamy spitfire I long to befriend.3) Deborah Grantham: Faro's daughter - she won my admiration the very first time around. Independent, headstrong and dignified - the woman in control of her life. What's not to fall in love with there?4) Darrell Rivers: No, I no longer think she is magnificent, but I cannot deny the role she played in my life as a ten-year-old. Passionate and … [Read more...]
The Macmillan Book Review Contest
Write a review; win a prize! And guess which book is on the list for the Macmillan Book Review Contest?You can write as many reviews as you want from the list.If you're in the 7th, 8th or 9th standard, do write a review of The Story-Catcher! Write a review before the 30th of June and you could win a Macmillan Book Hamper! … [Read more...]
Parents and Kids Choice Awards
Second runner-up for the Parents and Kids Choice Awards among Indian books for the age-group 10-15! I'm thrilled! … [Read more...]
Five Problems with Good Books
1) I forget that I'm a writer. I pick up Harry Potter determined to see how J.K. Rowling weaves the magic she weaves. I decide that I will look at her techniques, the way she gets me involved in the story and how she slides in her humour. Five chapters - that's all it takes to get me so engrossed that I want to know what happens next (even though I know what happens next) and I don't look at anything else.2) I sometimes (often?) imagine meeting my favourite characters and talking to them - and then become woefully depressed when I realise I cannot. Anne Shirley - I want to meet her, I want her to be my kindred spirit, my bosom friend (even if I come second to Diana Barry). I want to visit Avonlea and walk Birch Path with her. I want to share the joy of the Lake of Shining Waters with her. Why can't I?3) I postpone everything. I can write later. I can work later. I can sleep later. … [Read more...]
Last Day to Vote
Somehow, seeing my book cover on Rivokids's shortlist for the Parents Kids Choice Awards makes it all the more real.Thank you, those who voted. And thank you, all those who shared the link.Those who didn't, would you do it now please? Voting closes today! … [Read more...]
Anne of Green Gables
Anne, in Anne of Green Gables, wishes she were born in Camelot. A more romantic time and place.I envy L.M. Montgomery for having been alive and writing at a time when a first line like this passed unedited:Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks … [Read more...]