15 Jan Author Interview: Cracking the Creative Process with Lathish Shankar

We spoke to Lathish Shankar about his newest book Green Fire in the Night Sky, and found out a bit more about his creative process along the way. This is an excerpt of the full interview that you can listen to here.

Lathish how long have you been writing?

Lathish Shankar:
I’ve been writing since my childhood, and my first book was published in the year 2014. And till now, five books has been published. And this is the sixth book. So, in order to answer the question how long I’ve been into the writing process, I can say that from my childhood, I had a passion of writing since my childhood, but I have managed only to get it published in the year 2014.

All right. So is there, is this a full-time gig for you, or is this part-time? And we’re gonna talk about that, but is this full or part-time for you?

Lathish Shankar:
It is a part-time because I work, I work different. I work as a teacher in a school. And apart from that, writing is my hobby, it’s my passion, and then part-time work.

As an author and what has inspired you and brought you to the point of writing this book, and maybe even some of your other books. Okay.

Lathish Shankar:
Okay. So let, let me answer the question that is asked to me. Actually, what I wanted to say is that writing was my passion since my childhood. I can tell you that during my childhood, I happened to read a book called s dr, which was written by Bram Stalker. So, while I was reading that book, I was in third grade, maybe eight or nine years old. The first line itself hooked me a lot. And then I was so scared to read the book, like I didn’t have the courage to read it fully, but then I pres, I preferably, I wanted to read it at night itself, not in the daylight. And I wanted to read in night. And then I, I was thinking like how an author can hook the reader in such an amazing way because I, I couldn’t stop reading the book from right from the first page of the last even though my hands were shivering with fear, I managed to read the book, entire book, and then the craze of this horror came to my mind.

Lathish Shankar:
The most of the books that I’ve written is in the genre horror, except one or two outta five. The e everything is in horror. And the person’s book that has been released yesterday is also I can say a mild horror is there, though it is a science fiction movie sorry, a science fiction story. There is a mild horror there because I’ve written in that style, because that is how I, I’m interested to write with so in the busy schedule of us, because I work eight hours I work, and then I have, I play violin, and I play, I’m listening to music. I’m a chess player, and lot of things are popping around me all the time. And in order to take a break, writing is the thing that helps me to take a break from all those things that makes me feel relaxed. And still now the passion of writing still, I, I am continuing with that passion of writing. And on one point I thought of writing a book, and that’s, that’s this story came to my mind.

You’ve mentioned how the first line hooked you, and that was actually gonna be one of my first questions to you, is how important is the first few words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters in a book? How important are those as a writer to get that right.

Lathish Shankar:
Okay. So I was thinking about this question for quite a long time, actually. My basic style of writing is that this intriguing part, I will be somewhere in the middle of the page or middle of the paragraph. And then many beta readers and many editors have suggested me not to do that because the readers, when they come to read our book, they should get hooked. So the first paragraph should be in such a way that it, it it creates that that that interest to read further. So always the first sentence of the line should, a sentence of the book should be in such a way that it should hook the readers. So every time, I’ll, I’ll keep some like Cliff, so I’ll keep some interesting things in the first line of the sentence and slowly build up curiosity in that. And only that works out. That’s what I felt due to my experience, I felt that first paragraph or the even the first line should be hooking the readers, and we have to rephrase our sentence structures in order to make. 

Where do you get your ideas? What inspires you creatively? You said that this book kind of just came to you. Obviously you have written in the horror genre for a while, but where do you get your ideas, and especially this book?

Lathish Shankar:
Okay, the ideas usually from a daily experiences, the people that we see around us, some of us, I usually think take it like this way, because every situations that we face with in our daily life is actually a story. It can be a it can be a minuscule event or anything that we see around us can be turned into a story. Example during my when I go out to work, the people that I see on the road, the the, the words that they speak to me, the way that they interfere with me, everything we, we take one portion out of it, we can build up a story with that. So for that, for that scenario, we, we will have to add some, some extra extra scenes to it. Add some mystical things to it, or add some horror to it, or add some, some suspect building to it.

Lathish Shankar:
And then once we start and I don’t think that we can outline complete story, and then we can do the first draft because experience wise, I couldn’t do it actually many a times. I got stuck up with the first chapter after I’m writing, and I stop it for a while, and I don’t really have any ideas how to continue with it. So what I usually used to do is I’ll take a break, I’ll come back once again to finish with the first draft, and then I see that a different idea pops up to my mind, which I have never thought of before. And then I’ll continue with the story once again, take a break, and then when a different idea comes, I’ll continue the story. And finally, I can see that the ideas, what I have never thought of before, has come out in my story. And the story is taking a new way, which I have now never dreamt to before. And if that story is interesting to me, I’ll try to go ahead with that. And then I’ll give to the reader readers too because I want to convince myself that the story, what have written is understandable, comprehendible to the readers. And that’s how my writing process goes.

What kind of research do you do for your books? For instance, you are in India and you know, you’re writing about Alaska in the United States two very different places. How do you do your research and how long do you spend researching before you really start writing the book or developing it?

Lathish Shankar:
Okay, researching about, this is another pass time to me because I wanted to write the plot should be something which I have never been before. And Alaska is such a place, Alaska, I have considered that place because I a, the green sky, that, that phenomena takes place in Alaska in some other regions. So I wanted to plot in that particular area, but I do not know about the, the geographical location of that place. So I will do a research on it. I’ll do a Google search, and I will do a Google Earth. I’ll I’ll in the Google Earth app, I will I will locate that place and I’ll see the surrounding areas. And not only that, I, I wanted to I’ll take a 3D major, and I wanted to feel like I have been to that place, so I can see that there’s a river.

Lathish Shankar:
They said there’s a mountain. They said, there’s a, a restaurant that said, oh, like, I’ll, I’ll get a brief idea about the, about the situations I, about the people over there, about the location over there. And then I try to plot the things. And moreover, I also wanted to wanted to get to know about the climate conditions there. I wanted to get to know about the food habits there the behavior of the people over there. So I would like to call this a spice, spice in the sense, yes, for social, p for political, I for intellectual c for cultural, and e for economical, all this, I’ll have a study of that, brief study of that, and only then I’ll try to plot it. And if in case if I got any doubts on this, I’ll just quit that place and move to a different place. But I’ll select some places where I haven’t been before, because that gives me that also gives me a little feeling that I, I’ve been to that place and as a reader and as a writer also, I can enjoy my novel with much.

So how do you manage your work schedule? You said that, I picked up on a couple things. You like playing chess, you play the violin, and you’re a teacher, you write in your free time. How do you manage your schedule and block times to write maybe when you’re feeling creative? You said that when the ideas come to you, you write, how do you manage your schedule?

Lathish Shankar:
Yeah. Actually, many of the interviewers ask me this question, and not only interviewers, the people who who I see around, they ask me this question, how do you get the time to write? You write lot, many books. Do you play the violin? You play chess? I’m, I’m very good in that. And many ask me, how do you be actually thing is that we have 24 hours in a day. In that eight hours, I, I dedicate to teaching during that eight of us, apart from teaching, nothing will be there in my head because all I see is my students around me and my colleagues, my workplace. Only that, and once I come out of my school, my workplace, then the next thing is my thought flow will go. And all this thought flow is the is approaching towards my writing process.

Lathish Shankar:
The thought, what I think is what I write in the paper. Okay. So that being said, when I, after I reach home the rest of the time if I’m quick bored off with something, I’ll play with the musical instruments a bit, because I, I dedicate just one half, one and a half hours for the music. And then based on my mindset, my mood at that time start into writing, because writing is a process. It may not come when we want something to be written at that time, we may not be in the mood. I’ll switch onto a different task there. And once I come back to writing process, we, and also, one more thing I wanted to tell at this point of time is that when we are not comfortable with any of the situations that we see around, will try to think too much of that situation.

Lathish Shankar:
We’ll imagine so many things. If this would’ve been this way, I would’ve done something else better. If this would this, this situation was like this I would’ve done like this. Like so many thought flows happens in our grade and all those things, I can, I can creatively merge into my writing process. And finally, without even my knowledge, I, I say that this writing processes are going at it. Maybe I may take a break, a break of a day or a two, but the third day, no, it doesn’t usually go beyond two days. But the third day, I will dedicate myself towards the writing.

What books and authors have inspired you? You said that you’re very inspired and moved by horror. This book is sci-fi, some of your other books, what books and authors have inspired you and that you look up to?

Lathish Shankar:
I used to read a lot during my childhood, but most of the I’m 45 now and I’m born in the 70 eights. And those times we didn’t have much entertainment other than the tv TV when television was not popular during those types. The only entertainment we had was either we should go to a movie, we just not practical enough, and others, we have to read a book, do. It was during those times of my life. I have read lot, many number of books, maybe I said that bra Stock Astra was the first book that I read. And after that, I deliberately, I was searching for some horror novels, but it wasn’t available at those times. And then some comical series, like fin and mok and lot many during the during my childhood all the books that are available, they was read by me.

Lathish Shankar:
I have selected everything there. And after that, when everything became popular, when social media became popular, the reading habit reduced you a bit. But since after that, even then, I tried to, my fellow authors, I have beta reading, and I tried to read their books as well. I also read a book called, as the title of the book as Apple. It was just written by Ra Black and those books and so many books. But among every books, the thing that I love to read is horror science fiction, paranormal. Those books will always hook me, and I deliberately try to try to approach the libraries to select, not to select the books of that particular genre. And then I used to read.

When you write books, you know that it’s powerful, that words are powerful. When did you experience and learn that language in words and writing had power?

Lathish Shankar:
This happened when my first book was published, at the name of the book was May Flowers. It was written in 2014. It, I didn’t feel much difficult to write that book. Why? Because that book, it, it, it was not a horror. Maybe that’s the only book which I have not written in a horror genre. And that was an extract from my childhood. I was thinking about my childhood during those days, and the ch during the eighties and the situations, what we have now has entirely changed. I have mentioned about the spice that the social, political, intellectual, cultural, and the economical situation has changed from eighties to nineties, nineties to 2000, 2020 has changed a lot. So those glorious times will never come back Our childhood, there are no chances that we get that once again. So those memories shouldn’t fade away.

Lathish Shankar:
Those should not be cherished. So what I used to do is the memory, what I have about my childhood, the nostalgic memories, I’ll jot it down in the paper, then I’ll start editing, editing once second, reading, taking a break, once again, the process. And finally, I got into that book, then I sent it to many beta readers. First, I sent it to my friends, my English teachers said, no, but actually they couldn’t do much to be frank. Then I searched online, many beta readers online, and then I requested them, could you please take a look into my book? Then I came to know that there are not many things that I have to learn in the writing process because the sentence, every sentences appear to be choppy at first. Not only that most of the sentence structures were like it was not easily understandable, understandable by the readers.

Lathish Shankar:
And then there may, there were many cultural things also, which the differs from the geographical location. Suppose what I write in the Indian accent, it may not be easily understood by the people, those who live in the African continents or US or uk, whatever it is. So there is a neutral accent, is what I have to search for. And then I quite managed to write at those times when I wrote the first book, I was not aware of the dialogue tax and all those things have Googled, and then I just found out how it has to be written. I’m not saying that I’m perfect in the writing style even now, but there’s a lot of things that I have to learn. Even now, the experience made me made me realize that I have to learn a lot. And then, like consistently, I try to build up my, my career as a writer, and I hope that I can do better in the coming days.

Do you try to be original and kind of step out into new territory when you write, or do you try to deliver what readers basically want to hear and read?

Lathish Shankar:
I’ve thought of it before, but many a times I fail that I could not reach the reader’s expectations. But I always try to try to update myself, like what the readers need actually. What, what are the, what genre does they prefer? The majority, at least the majority of them. And what do they like to read so that I can many times I couldn’t do it because the things, what I have in my mind is entirely different from what the readers wanted to have. So what, what I used to do is I used to club up all those things. And whatever is in my mind, I used to, I used to produce that as a story, something, and I used to find the target audience, and I used to promote it in among those target audience.

Lathish Shankar:
For example, there are lot many people who allow paranormal, and I’m I’m good in writing. I, I suppose I’m good in writing parallel stories. And there, I what I used to do is I keep reading the different books from different authors on that particular genre, and I see how it is different from there. Even movies, horror movies. When I see the horror movies, I used to compare the eighties horror movies and 2000 horror movies, and I tried to jot it. Conjuring is a horror movie, and there are many horror scenes in that. And how are they different from the horror scenes of eighties movies or nineties movies? I just see that basically there are lot, many things that are saying there. Similar scenes, are there, everything is in the writing field also, that is the case then I don’t think that based on the reader’s requirements, I would transfer my writing to what I know. I will write it and I’ll try to polish it depending on how the readers wanted to pursue those sightings.

So how do you get into your characters, the development? Where do they come from? Tell us about your character development.

Lathish Shankar:
The character development is like in the character introduction, character development the crucial part of writing, I can understand that, but in the character development, I read one editor, I suggested me this once, I have returned the protagonist about the family of the protagonist. He had two brothers. He had a grandfather, grandmother, and fab. And everybody was living in harmony, peace, and harmony with each other. And I I wrote the story. Somehow. He managed to write something I said to, to the editor, the editor, she asked me, why do you need the character to have two brothers? Does it is a crucial part of the story? Do we need exactly two brother? What is the purpose of the second brother? Why not? They have only one brothers. When I said, yeah, two brothers are not needed, but I, I don’t know, why did I add two brothers?

Lathish Shankar:
Then she asked me to cut down one of the characters, one brother, and then the the reason what she told us, if there was only one brother, the affection will be, will increase. And you can portray more about the affection, because readers tend to think about that particular character in their mind. So when the readers have a emotional attachment to a character, then as a writer, we are successful. That’s what I say, that if I create a character and that character, the readers can emotionally attach to that character, then I can say that I’m successful. That and if the readers cannot relate with the character at all, then they may not be able to express that to us because they cannot relate to the character, our writers or editors. But a normal reader may not be able to may not be able to grasp that particular point.

Lathish Shankar:
So the characters has to be selected in such a way that they should relate to the readers because I am morally good character. It can do, or a, a bad character also. But that, that feeling should be there. And to answer the question that how do I create the characters in general, I’ll create a character and I’ll attribute the the the characters of the behavior to the people, what we see around us. For example if I wanted to write the character of a woman, we the opposite sex at that time. I, I don’t know how a woman will think in this particular situations, or I may not be know how, how a old man will respond to this situation. No, I may not be knowing if a small kid, how they respect, how they deal with this particular scenario.

Lathish Shankar:
What I used to do is I will, I’ll approach somebody, maybe a female, I’ll approach them and I’ll request them, and it’s not requested, sorry. And I’ll ask them, like, this is the situation. How would you react to this? Because I’m an, I’m a writer and I, I need a help with this. Suppose that you face this situation in your life, how would you react normally, she may say something th this is the thing that I do. And the those things I will tweak, I will, I will structure those sentences in a different paper. The point what they say will be the the dialogues there, and that’s not why you do it. Then when I give it to the beat readers, so before giving to the editors, I give, give to the beat readers, and if they give a different opinion then I consider changing my sentence that way.

Lathish Shankar:
Okay. So my name is Lathish Shankar. And my books my book is available in Amazon right now. It has been released only in Amazon, but in the subsequent days to come, it’ll be released in more platforms like Barnes and Noble. But now it is available in amazon.com, amazon.uk, and other places too.

J Ware:
Lathish, thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing about your book. I know you’re passionate about it. I can tell that you’re putting in a lot of time. You’ve written many books and it seems to be that you’ve really thought through what you’re doing, and I appreciate that as somebody that’s also a creative person. I hope that this inspires people to go out and get the book, the Green Fire and the Night Sky, and check it out for yourself. Thank you for being with us and and anytime that you want to come back, we’d love to have you back if you write another book, and we’ll talk to you more from.

Green Fire in the Night Sky is available now.