Guest Post - 5 Things an author needs to keep in mind while writing a book for children by Aniesha Brahma

About The Book

The Backyard Tales is the story of the bond shared between 17-year-old Mia Basu Roy and her beloved cat, Pippo. She seems to understand him far too well for a human. And he seems to have another life that Mia begins to suspect. She follows her cat to their backyard and down a very dangerous road which leads her to witches, talking animals, and a story that’s much bigger than what she initially suspected. 

Read this story to discover all of Mia and Pippo’s secrets, be enchanted by magic, and get the answer to a question that has haunted us for ages: does a cat truly love their owner? 

Book Purchase Link

Amazon India | Amazon USA

Guest Post of Author

5 Things an author needs to keep in mind while writing a book for children

“All grown-ups were once children…but only few of them remember it.”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince 

The biggest mistake authors make when they are writing for children, is forgetting the fact they too were once children. It is important to think about to the time when you were a child and try to remember what was the kind of content you liked consuming. Personally, I try to write the kind of stories I wish I had around when I was growing up. I got lucky that experienced the magic of Harry Potter. I grew up with the boy wizard. But I cannot help but wonder if I’d have enjoyed the later books had they released around the time I was still a precocious teenager? Probably not. 

I have developed children’s comics before this. My first brush with writing for children came about two years ago, when I sat down and wrote An Awfully BIG Adventure. I remember struggling to ensure that story would sit well with my younger readers too. As authors, we have a responsibility to our readers. When I began working on The Backyard Tales back in, I believe 2015-2016, I would make conscious efforts of ensuring this story is absolutely for the children. Here are five things I tried my best to stick to while writing this novel. 

Kids are smart 

I remembered my childhood and how much I hated being talked down to. Kids are smart. We shouldn’t speak to them condescendingly. You’d be surprised at the response kids would have if you spoke to them as equals. I wrote The Backyard Tales in a way that kids understood the story was absolutely for them.

Language should be conversational 

Which brings me to the second point. Remember Enid Blyton and how easy it was go on adventures with the Famous Five and then sneak off for midnight feasts with the girls from Malory Towers? The language used for these books were conversational and easy. When writing for kids that really need to be a yardstick against which we can measure our writing.

Stories need to be intriguing 

The stories by themselves need to be compelling. Preteens and teenagers would not like to read stories that do not offer something new to them. Also, they love stories that have representation. Readers like to think of themselves as the hero in the novels. So it must be a story that kids would love to be a part of. 

It should appeal to the adults too 

At the end of the day, it is the parents or the grownups who make decisions towards which books the kids get to read and which they do not. Your story should be one that the adults are interested by too. Believe me, if they want to know how the story ends, they will buy the book and the subsequent sequels and tell the world it’s for the kids. 

Covers shouldn’t be bait 

While book covers are the first pitch of your story, and despite being told since time immemorial not to judge a book by its cover – book covers in present-day do matter. However, while they should be intriguing they should not be misleading. Ensure the covers are not baited but something that pique’s the interest of your potential reader.

I hope these five tips help future authors when they decide to lend their voices to the stories for children. Honestly, it’s not that hard. But it isn’t that easy either. Nothing worth anything in this world is.

Author Bio

Young Adult and Children’s novelist, Aniesha Brahma, studied Comparative Literature. She started her career has as a social media manager in a publishing house. Currently works as a senior content writer in a digital media agency. When she is not working, she is dreaming up stories, conducting sessions for her popular YouTube Series, Chai & Chill, or planning how to get even more books and bookish content to readers via BUZZ Magazine. You can read more of her work at Aniesha’s Musings and drop a line at aniesha.brahma@gmail.com

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Guest Post - Five Things to do after you’ve finished your novel by Charmeljun Gallardo

 

About The Book Series

Ready For The World: Driver’s Education

Ready For The World: Driver’s Education follows the story of Brandon Delacruz, a fifteen-year-old Filipino American teenager trying to make his way through life during the late 1980s. What Brandon wants out of life is simple: a cool car, a chance to be one of the cool kids at school, and most of all, a cool girlfriend. But instead, all he has are his loving family and his lifelong friends, Josh and Ally, to help him get through the minefield of high school life. 

As he looks for ways to get the car and status, Brandon fails to realize that the girl he’s been searching for has been there all along. But before he and Ally can explore a new relationship, a tragedy occurs that changes their lives. And now Brandon will have to find a way to balance his deep friendship with the excitement, trepidation, and complexity that young love brings...all while trying to keep his grades up.

Ready For The World: Superstar

Things couldn’t be better for Brandon Delacruz. After a long and winding road, he finally has the girl of his dreams. To top it all off, he’s discovered his destiny. He’s going to write the next great novel. Not bad for someone who a few months shy of his sixteenth birthday.

But after a tumultuous start to the year, he finds himself stuck between two girls. On one side is Ally, his best friend since kindergarten who’s suddenly become more of a mystery. And on the other side is Rachel, a brilliant and strong-willed girl that isn’t afraid to speak her mind. As he sorts his feelings out, he’ll find that the world isn’t like the one he’s writing about in his book. Real-life is messy and perplexing, especially in high school. 

And Brandon will learn that life can offer true beauty and grace...and heartbreak.

Purchase Links

Ready For The World: Driver’s Education 

Amazon India | AmazonUSA

Ready For The World: Superstar

Amazon India | Amazon USA

Guest Post of Author

Five Things to do after you’ve finished your novel

1. Celebrate, But Not Too Long

Congratulations! You just finished working on your book. And all it’s cost you is some early mornings, a lot of late nights, and a few thousand brain cells. Now stop and do something else for a while. 

Like a fine wine, you and your book need time to breathe. When you’re writing you’re creating plot lines, character arcs, and plot twists. That’s why an author needs to step away after it’s done. It takes time to gain some perspective on what did or didn’t work in the book. Maybe a character needs reworking. Maybe a plotline needs clarification. But you won’t really know until you step away from it for a little while. 

The amount of time away varies for the writer. For me, I need at least a week. Any less, I feel that I’m still too close to it. Any more, I feel like I’m abandoning it. But a good amount of time is necessary.

2. Reading Is Fundamental

After enough time has passed, it’s time to read your book. And I like to approach reading my book like its somebody else’s work. I see what I like, what I don’t, and take notes the way a teacher would. This is another way for me to distance myself from my work. Taking notes gives me some objectivity that my book needs. I can be honest about what the story needs and what I could do to make it better. 

But it’s not all negative. This is also the time to enjoy reading what you’ve written. Laugh at what’s funny. Grab a tissue when the tears fall. Visualize the world that you’ve created in your mind’s eye and live in it for a bit. You’ve put in the time, admire your handiwork. 

3. Kill Your Darlings

Okay, you’ve laughed and cried as you read your story. You’ve written great lines of dialogue and scenes that you love. It’s funny, witty and everything good writing should be. 

Then you find that something that doesn’t quite work. Maybe a scene slows the momentum of the story or stops it cold. Maybe you find that a character said or did something that doesn’t feel true to who they are. 

It’s time to kill your darlings.

This is always the hardest part of writing, but editing is the most necessary. Your book isn’t about the one great scene or line, it’s about how that scene or line works in the entirety of the book. Some scenes will be shortened for pacing and others lengthened to emphasize their impact. Some characters will be reworked, re-imagined, or dropped. But that’s all part of the process.

4. Build and Expand

After you’ve cut the excessive stuff, it’s time to look at the impactful sections in your manuscript. These are the scenes that make or break your book. So make them count.

As the writer, you have to make these moments as visceral as possible. Take your time here. Use all your senses. Can readers see it come towards them? Do they hear the crashes or silences? Can they taste it on their lips, smell it wafting through the air, and feel it in their bones? 

This is where I have the most fun as a writer. I get to build and expand the depths of my characters. Because that’s when readers are truly engrossed in your work.

5. Won’t You Please, Please Help Me?

Writing is a solitary process. But because it is, no matter how much self-editing you do, there will come a time when you can’t see the forest for the trees.

That’s when you seek help. Getting feedback is key to taking your book to the next level. Look to family and friends for their input. If you’re lucky, they are writers too and aren’t afraid to give you their honest opinion.

If your mom and dad think everything you do is perfect, look to beta readers and content editors. If cost is an issue, look to writer’s groups that will exchange manuscripts. You can offer feedback and learn a little about another writer’s style and voice that could help you with your own.

But getting feedback is key. As a writer, you have to let go and let someone else see your story for what it is. Constructive criticism helps make your book the best that it can be. And that is what any writer wants in the end. 

About the Author

Charmeljun Gallardo is a former Radiologist and author. His first book is Ready for the World young adult book series. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a Creative Writing degree in 1996. He is a writer, photography enthusiast, sports fan, movie geek, stroke survivor, and an adventurous foodie. He lives in San Diego, California with his wife and son. 

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Domestic Abuse - Pandemic or No Pandemic by Shilpa Suraj

Love, Marriage, and Other Disasters 

by Shilpa Suraj

About the Book:

She believes in love, family and…squiggles!

Alisha Rana is not your typical single desi girl. For one, she is on the wrong side of 30.  For another, she is divorced. And last but definitely not least, she is still, gasp, a virgin!

Alisha doesn’t want much. But what she does want is that elusive thing all women search for – A man who gets her…but a man who gets her hot! She calls it “feeling the squiggle.”

Enter Dr. Vivaan Kapoor, cute, hot, squiggle-worthy. The younger brother of her cousin's prospective groom, he’s got the squiggle factor in spades. The only catch? He's never been married and is years younger than Alisha. Basically, completely off-limits.

And then there is Arjun. Widowed, older than her by the right number of years and a genuinely nice guy. He's Vivaan’s cousin and a so-called perfect match for Alisha. The problem is, Alisha’s squiggle-o-meter refuses to budge for him.

What will Alisha choose? A lifetime together with the 'right' man or a chance at happiness with the 'wrong' one?

Book Links:
Goodreads * Amazon

Domestic Abuse - Pandemic or No Pandemic

“Do you know what it does to a person to be told day in and day out that they’re useless? Ugly, useless, fit-for-nothing. The words merge into each other until nothing is left in you. No confidence, no strength and certainly no fight. You start to question every thought, every decision. You start to question your very existence. Initially, I didn’t have the heart to tell my parents that the guy they’d chosen was a monster and as time went by, I didn’t have the courage. I was 23 years old and my life as I knew it was over.” – Alisha Rana; Love, Marriage, and Other Disasters

Abuse, physical, mental or emotional, is on the rise. In the midst of a pandemic, people are locked in with their abusers, seemingly for an indefinite period of time. To live in fear, to live with hurt, to live without peace…I cannot even fathom the strength and courage it takes for them to endure the proximity and escalation of abuse they’re exposed to.

News articles roll in from across the world about how crisis hotlines are working overtime to help people, to support them and to rescue them. And I wonder about what comes after.

What comes after the pandemic? What comes after the wreckage of a relationship that was meant to keep you safe? When your port in a storm, your safe habour, destroys you, where do you go?

Alisha Rana, my protagonist, leaves her abusive marriage and goes home to her supportive parents. She’s luckier than most. She has a home to go back to. For most abuse victims, there is nowhere to go. The location of abuse is ‘home.’

As we navigate life in these uncertain, unprecedented times, we find ourselves faced with a new normal. Please take a moment out of your own confusion and fear to check on people around you. On the ones who are silent, on the ones who are fearful, on the ones who ask for help and even the ones who look fine. Sometimes, it’s the ones who look fine who are hiding the deepest wounds.
Offer, ask, help, escalate and please, above all else, don’t judge.

As Vivaan the male protagonist of Love, Marriage, and Other Disasters says, “Scarred is a much better word than damaged. You get hurt, you get a scar….it doesn’t leave you damaged for life. A scar shows you’ve healed. A little different, maybe, from whom you were before but stronger. Alisha survived a dead marriage and built a strong, stable life for herself. I don’t see a damaged person when I look at her. I see a survivor. A little scarred, battered and bruised but magnificent.”

We’re all scarred by life in some way or the other, sometimes small, sometimes not so small. We should wear those scars, visible or otherwise, with pride.

We’ve lived. We’ve survived.

We’ll heal. We’ll triumph.




About Shilpa Suraj:

Shilpa Suraj wears many hats - corporate drone, homemaker, mother to a fabulous toddler and author.
An avid reader with an overactive imagination, Shilpa has weaved stories in her head since she was a child. Her previous stints at Google, in an ad agency and as an entrepreneur provide colour to her present day stories, both fiction and non-fiction.




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