The Best Advice I Got For My Book !

CREDIT : turk_stock_photographer

We all have something to share with the world. And we want our audience to relate not just to the soul of our work but with the journey as well. The reason I fell in love with the world of story-telling, art, or creativity is because it’s not something that’s black, white, or even grey. It's like the light of the sun; it wakes you up, brightens your day, warms your heart, and has all the colours of the rainbow, yet what you radiate depends on the prism you are holding.

I have written three books; my first book, “My Little Infinity: Journey of a Father and Son, ended up being an Amazon bestseller, and the other two are being released this year. During my last six–seven years of writing books, I shared my work across different forums and spoke with different authors. The following points are the best advice I ever got: I call them the rules of engagement.

Rules of engagement:

1. The stakes have to be high, no matter what you are writing. In order to keep your audience hooked, you have to increase the stakes for your protagonist, antagonist, or even the situation. If you are narrating a non-fiction or biography, it can be difficult, but find something that you can put at stake. Remember that what makes your day special is not the fact that you lived it but the fact that it can never be lived again.

Don’t use coincidence or luck as a way out, it should be your last resort . And even if you have to use it, give it to the antagonist and not your protagonist.

3. Your antagonist, whether a person or situation, has to be intelligent. Don’t stick with your first idea, put yourself in their shoes and remember that even if he is the antagonist, he will do anything to survive just like you.

At the end of every chapter you have to leave the reader unsatisfied with a problem and a promise that if your turn the page I will tell you the answer and then give only a portion of it.

5. You have to try to keep space for readers Imagination, there has to be some elements with ominous features, and with that, I don’t mean ambiguous characterization, but just a little space so that the reader can add a little from their life and imagination. This helps the audience feel a sense of personal attachment to the story.

At every point you will have a choice either you want to impress the reader or express your true intention. It is a catch twenty situation but at times you have to decide and it’s a very personal thing whether you want to play your audience or play the story .

7. Keep it simple. It makes it look cool at times, even infatuating, to use flowery words and lines, but I think it hits hard when you present them as they are. Remember, at this point, the art of articulation helps.

Whenever you have a writer's block, write gibberish, but write.

Last one is a very personal advice that whenever you write there will always be an option for you which is totally personal but see if you can incorporate something from your present environment even if it only fits a small part but I think as a writer, again it’s my personal opinion that we should raise or at-least bring forward a perspective that can make people think about the underlying problems of our society, push them to think about the other side of the issues(specially for those who will be writing an op-ed which is an opinion oriented article) but we should try and touch some issues from our environment even if you only want to write a line but I think we owe it to our people and society.

What you become in the process is more important than your dream.

Thank you.