I first met T.G.C. Prasad more than twenty years ago when I was responsible for Corporate Human Resource Development in Wipro Corporation. It was my responsibility to manage the recruitment of freshly minted MBAs from the different graduate schools of business in India. He joined us as a topper from Mumbai’s prestigious Tata Institute of Social Sciences. I was delighted to read his book ” Unusual People Do Things Differently.” A disclaimer. No, he didn’t send me a copy for old times sake. I bought a copy like anyone else! Continue reading “Congratulations, T.G.C.Prasad!”
Author: Prem Rao
Author, Blogger, Book Reviewer, Coach, and Podcaster
I owe this post to Musab bin Noor, a member of the “Fans of P.G.Wodehouse”, a group on Facebook. He posted this link to an awesome documentary from the BBC on the Life and Works of P.G.Wodehouse.
The documentary with a commentary by Sir Terry Wogan brought back innumerable happy memories, being a Wodehouse fan for nearly fifty years. The old names, the old books, the old stories, they were all there and more! I think this is a well-balanced documentary which makes for interesting viewing. yes, it’s rather long, lasting almost an hour but like many pieces of Wodehouse, you don’t have to relish it at one go. You could dip into it once in a while when you have the time to do so.
Many have called Wodehouse an unparalleled master of his craft. I couldn’t but agree more. His use of words and language, even more than the plots, made his stories such a pleasure to read.
In this very interesting blog post by Alan Rinzler in The Book Deal, four top literary agents share their thoughts on the future of publishing and the role of literary agents in a fast-changing environment. The four, all veterans and eminently successful literary agents themselves are: Candice Fuhrman, Andrea Brown, Andrea Hurst and Bonnie Solow. Continue reading “On Literary Agents”
How important is your book title? Shouldn’t it grab the attention of your potential buyer? Does a one-word title work better than longer options, especially in the genre of mysteries and thrillers? Last but not the least, how should your back cover copy or synopsis seize the interest of your reader?
My debut novel “It Can’t Be You” started with “The man was dead.” I then went on to develop the opening scene where a body is found. At that stage those who find the body do not know whether the man was killed or killed himself. Many who read the book have commented that it set the tone for what became an absorbing psychological thriller. Continue reading “About Great Starts and Editors”
Ever since my debut novel, “It Can’t Be You” was published in November 2010, I have been closely following how it has fared on Flipkart, a very popular online book chain in India. Titles are listed under different categories and ICBY finds itself listed under “Suspense & Thrillers.” Continue reading “I am thrilled!”
I remember the time I was editing my second thriller ” Lucky For Some, Thirteen” before it was sent off to the publishers. Each time I went through the manuscript, I would find either an error or a clear opportunity to make the sentence “sound” better. That’s when I decided to “proof speak” rather than proof read.
This blog post in Ballpoint.com tells you why it’s a smart thing to proof speak your work. I found it very useful. The biggest gain is a better understanding of how it would sound to the reader.
Most description should come through dialogue but there are times when you need to find the right words to express the feelings of your characters as seen by others. I came across this list from author Kimberly T. Matthews. Your choice of the right word makes a big difference in your description. Kimberly’ s list should prompt you, as it did me, to add-on to our vocabularies. If we don’t, we could end up using the same old words all the time, novel after novel.
The best way to improve your writing is to actively seek ways of improving it and put them into practice. I believe proof speaking and using the right word to depict expressions are useful tips to any writer.
“It Can’t Be You” the Kindle version is now available to you @ $3.99, after a discount of 20% on Amazon.com.
“Only Men Please” is an anthology of 35 short stories written by 35 writers, and they are all men. The anthology is edited by Meenakshi Varma and published by Unisun Publications. In her introduction, Meenakshi writes, ” The stories are extremely vivid and varied, perhaps because of the fact that the writers themselves come from varied backgrounds.with regard to occupation and nationality. I don’t know if it is a co-incidence, but in all the stories the protagonist is a male.” Continue reading ““Only Men Please””
Flipkart lists all the titles it stocks under various categories. In the “Suspense and Thrillers” category, currently as many as 44,978 titles are listed. I am happy to say that “It Can’t Be You” my debut novel (Cedar, November 2010) ranks 354.
Prem Rao : Stories from a Story Teller 