Writing without Permission: letting go of the gatekeepers in your mind

Migrant Crisis isn't just a book; it’s a warning. It’s a cinematic, bone-chilling exploration of what happens when a government’s survival instinct overrides its humanity.

Some lines from my novel, ‘’The Pilot’’

The story speaks of love and separation, and it sounds both real and surreal.

How Good is the Indian Muse?

The problem is writing has come to be regarded as a means to acquire name and fame, if not money, and it does not matter as long as the writer is in the news, never mind whether someone really comes to read to enjoy or tends to be provoked by the book. Unfortunately for literature, the greater rewards of writing lost their relevance and the lesser benefits came to mean everything. Till this is understood, unkind cuts would continue to be inflicted in the arena of Indian writing. That’s for sure.

Sensory Anchors: Using One Specific Smell or Sound to Ground Abstract Emotion

Emotion becomes more powerful when readers can sense it. One smell or sound can carry more feeling than a paragraph of explanation.

Story as Artifact: Writing Fiction That Feels Discovered Rather Than Written

What if your stories felt unearthed instead of assembled? Story as artifact invites you to excavate fiction rather than manufacture it.

Metalepsis: When the Narrator Reaches Into the Story World

Sometimes the narrator does not stay outside the story. Sometimes the voice reaches in, touches the world, and reminds readers that fiction has walls.

Mise en Abyme: Building a Tiny Mirror of Your Whole Story Inside One Scene

Sometimes one small scene contains the whole story in miniature. A broken toy, a painting, a dream, or a tale within the tale can quietly reveal everything.

Schrödinger's Character: Writing Motive That Stays Genuinely Unresolved

A character acts, but the motive remains locked. Was it love, guilt, selfishness, fear, or mercy? Unresolved motive keeps a character alive after the final page because the reader is left holding more than one truth at once.

Anachronism as a Deliberate Device, Not a Mistake

A knight beneath fluorescent lights. A queen speaking in modern slogans. A clock appearing centuries too early. Anachronism is often treated as a mistake, but in skilled hands it becomes a storytelling device. The wrong detail in the wrong time can reveal deeper truths, connecting past and present in ways strict accuracy never could.

My maiden 'Novel' blues

But what a poetic justice it was that the publishers’ apathy, for my literary foray into an uncharted fictional arena, pushed me into Roopa’s despondent shoes, leg for leg! So to say, to atone for myself, and to earn for her the empathy, at least, of a few discerning readers, I self-published it, and it's gratifying to me that it has earned some literary acclaim in the digital world of ebooks.

Frame Narratives: Why Some Stories Need a Story Around the Story

A frame narrative is a story with a doorway before the story begins. Someone remembers, confesses, discovers a letter, or passes on a tale. That outer layer changes everything. It makes the main story feel older, stranger, and more meaningful because the reader is not only asking what happened, but why it is being told now.

Delayed Decoding: The Conrad Trick for Writing Confusion Without Confusing the Reader

Learn delayed decoding, the technique behind Joseph Conrad's most disorientating scenes, and how to use it to put readers inside a character's confusion without ever losing them.