They say it’s a good idea some times to stay away from your work in progress for a while and look at things anew. I am not sure whether I took this bit of advice a little too seriously as it has been a month or two since I picked up the threads of my third thriller, ” Let The Dead Stay Dead.”
I wanted specialist legal knowledge as the story involved a court room battle and as an author I had to be sure of my facts. It was also important for me to understand and grasp the actual process the law takes in a case such as the one I was writing about. In this context, my friend Babu Vridhachalam was of great help. I appreciate his inputs on what appeared to me to be complex legal issues involving various sections of different laws.
It often helps to get back to basics. So this is what I did. I went back to what I had originally described the story, to see how it could be further fine tuned. To refresh your memory, if not mine in the first place, here’s what I had written as a brief description of the story:
“A young woman battles mental illness to live out the past to acquit herself of a murder, she doesn’t remember having committed. The murder of a man, she is not sure she knows.”
I next need to review the last few chapters, keeping in mind my new-found knowledge about the relevant laws and court processes. I have liked the story very much and I intend finishing it off sooner rather than later.
Prem Rao : Stories from a Story Teller 