The Writing Room

  About Novel Writing Novel Writing is a complex but not daunting task. It is creative writing, taking the ordinary, the mundane bits of life (real or imagined) and weaving them into a narrative that takes the reader on an exhilarating journey with the protagonist and the supporting cast in the story.  Characters in a Novel The protagonist and the other people in the novel are referred to as characters . These characters reflect human hopes, joys and foibles. Think about people you know when you are creating your characters. Most people have personalities that are multi-dimensional, so your characters must reflect this multi-dimensionality to be considered interesting.  Character Motivation in a Novel In the novel, the major character has a need that she/he needs to fulfill, a motivation to keep going towards the goal he/she has set out to achieve. This need may be psychological, grounded in doubts, fears, desires... Or the need may be a practical one - to find someone o...

I am not a fan of talk shows, so I don’t purposely watch them or listen to them. But occasionally I catch snippets of the conversations. Recently, I overheard a conversation between a mother and the host of a talk show. The mother said that when her child was in primary school, he was obsessed with drawing. He once drew a picture of a celebrity whom he had never met, and the resemblance was uncanny. However, when it was time for him to do the primary school exit test, she badgered him to study and forget about drawing. She told him that there was no future in drawing (or something like that) and that he should focus on his lessons at school, which apparently could take him places where drawing couldn’t. He studied, went on to high school and probably beyond, (I missed that bit) and has never touched a pencil again. This child clearly had talent which could have been nurtured. His mother gave him one choice. He had to walk the academic path. She now regrets her actions. At the tim...

First published on LinkedIn. Here are four comments that well-wishers/naysayers make to writers which writers would prefer not to hear. 1. Stop wasting your time. The writer’s job is one of struggle. The first struggle that she has to overcome is her struggle with a blank page. There are many times when the writer knows what she wants to write. But no matter how hard she tries, the right words refuse to show themselves. This happens more times than the writer likes to admit. But, eventually, the words start writing themselves. Not the best words, the ones that capture exactly what she wants to say, but adequate words that capture the essence of the story she wishes to tell — words that will be pruned by her editor’s pen over and over and over again before she is comfortable with sharing her work with the world. Completing a writing project is one of the writer’s greatest achievements. So, she enjoys wasting time writing. She enjoys writing and believes John Lennon who is reputed to ...