Romancing my woes away!
The Blurb :
A beautiful young girl, drenched in rain, is being chased by a couple of goons along the narrow meandering roads of Landour, Mussoorie, when a swashbuckling stranger comes to her rescue. She faints and on waking up, realizes she is in the company of the ‘bad boy’ of Bollywood—Veer Singh Tomar.
Have you heard of the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest?
It has been around since 1982 and it connotes a very intriguing challenge – participants must write an “atrocious opening sentence to a hypothetical bad novel” and the most atrocious entry wins a prize every year.
We are at the letter J in our series on “Authors’ Tips – A to Z of Writing”
If you’ve read the previous posts on the subject, you’ll recall that the eight of us – Devika Fernando, Preethi Venugopala, Paromita Goswami, Adite Banerjie, Ruchi Singh, Sudesna Ghosh, Saiswaroopa Iyer and I – are blogging on a myriad of writing-related topics with the topic corresponding to the Alphabet of the Week.
This week I’m going to talk about jealousy as it applies to authors.
Jealousy, as per Wikipedia “refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, concern, over relative lack of possessions, status or something of great personal value, particularly in reference to a comparator, a rival, or a competitor.”
Do writers experience “insecurity, fear, concern”?
Sure they do, but it is usually over wondering if anybody is going to read their work or like their stories or come back for more.
Do writers experience “insecurity, fear, concern”…in reference to a comparator, a rival, or a competitor?
I hate to say ‘hell, yes’, but I’m afraid it is true, so…Hell, yes!
The evidence that the green-eyed monster lurks in writing circles comes from the shenanigans that accompany literary contests where winners are declared based on the number of times the book has been downloaded and the number of positive reviews they’ve garnered.
The following image is a screenshot of a facebook post by a well-respected blogger who was appalled to receive an offer of the nefarious kind.
When authors start paying for downloads and reviews of one’s own books, and then offer money to bloggers and readers for posting deeply “deeply negative reviews” of other’s books, this is a sure sign of insecurity.
Just because there are vicious and deeply insecure writers out there, does not mean that jealousy is necessarily a bad thing. If one were to think of it as ‘literary envy’ instead of as ugly, toxic, painful jealously, it can serve a useful purpose.
It can make you want to be a better writer than you are already. It can make you want to connect with others who write in your genre – thus broadening your network of support and learning.
If you do ever feel green – and you will because you’re human after all – then here’s what you could do:
Lots of love and luck!
Read other posts related to Authors’ Tips – A to Z of Writing …
The Blurb :
On the outside, Tara leads a perfect life. A home of her own, a handsome husband, a doting son and a promising career as an author. But inside, she is a wreck. Her marriage is a sham and she hasn’t succeeded in forgetting her one true love, Manu, the man she had wronged. The man she had almost married.
Manu, now the senior editor with a science portal, firmly believes that he has left Tara where she belonged: in his past. But in reality, he hasn’t forgotten anything. Not the love nor the hurt.
Their past and present collide when they accidentally…
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The Blurb :
Being born a princess, and raised by a loving father and three doting brothers would make life seem like a bed of roses to any woman. Born out of the sacred fire, Draupadi is no ordinary woman, and her destiny cannot be to walk the beaten path. Witnessing estrangement and betrayal within her own family makes her perceptive and intuitive beyond her years. Complicated marital relationships, a meteoric rise and a fateful loss, humiliation unheard of and a pledge of revenge, all culminating in a bloody war—her ordeal seemed never-ending. Yet she stands up to it all—never succumbing, never breaking. One of the most unforgettable characters of the Mahabharata, Draupadi shows what a woman is capable of. Told with great sensitivity and passion, this book brings alive a character of epic proportions that resonates with every reader across space and time.
This week I’m going to talk about adding humor to your writing.
I can’t write a blog on humor with mentioning my favorite author.
“If you take life fairly easily, then you take a humorous view of things. …making the thing a sort of musical comedy without music, and ignoring real life altogether.”
PG Wodehouse
PG Wodehouse’s comic genius is something to aspire to; however, not all of us write comedies. What, then, is the point of adding a comic touch to our writing? Indeed, in that case, what is the purpose of this blog?
Read More...This week I’m going to talk about publishing on Google Play Books.
I’ve used Amazon KDP and Smashwords, and have always wondered about Google play Books so I thought I’d read up a bit about it.
In the words of a writer for the Independent Publishing Magazine:
“What more could a self-published author want? The world’s largest search engine combined with the world’s largest e-bookstore.”
Um…my research threw up
some interesting findings and the chief one is that it isn’t as easy
as all that.
What is a flashback?
It is a scene narrated in the present timeline but it pertains to something that happened in the past – something that took place before the current story starts.
A flashback refers to an event so compelling and powerful that it sits in the character’s memory – and it has contributed to make the character who she is.
How can you tell if your story needs a flashback?
This week, I’m going to talk about Dialogue Tags.
If my book characters say something, how will readers know who spoke?
How will they know who said what when they can’t physically see or hear the characters?
Through dialogue tags, that’s how. Dialogue tags are phrases or sentences that tie or tag a character to a particular dialogue.
Consider this conversation (Example A):
‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘How is it any of your bloody business what I do?’
‘It is my bloody business because this is my bloody house!’
A cliché is a phrase that is symbolic or figurative rather than literal; for example: I am over the moon. Really? Clearly not, unless you are in a space ship, in which case it is a literal situation and therefore not a cliché.
A cliché can be an idiom, as in the example above; a metaphor [it was the final straw]; a simile [she sank like a stone]; or a proverb [knowledge is power].
At one time, eons ago, it was considered natty to use such phrases in speech and in writing. The concept was still new and they sounded clever.
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