What do great writers like to read? Gary Henry and Mohana Rajakumar

Image courtesy Mary Okeke Reviews. 

This week, two very different authors answer my unscientific survey of best sellers.

Gary Henry is author of the urban fantasy novel American Goddesses and a collection of short stories, What Happened to Jory and Other Dark Departures.

Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is author of a number of literary novels that explore such as Love Comes Later (excerpted two weeks ago in Written Words), An Unlikely Goddess, The Dohmestics and Qatari Voices, among other works of fiction and non-fiction. Over to you!

Name three characteristics of books that you like. What makes you keep reading a book? What are some books that you weren't able to put down until you finished them?

Gary Henry: I like simplicity. It should be easy to follow the narrative and stay on top of what's  happening. That doesn't exclude plot twists and turns. But I don't like having to backtrack to figure out what's going on.

I like character description so that I can get an idea of what the characters look like, in addition to what they say and do. I call that — what characters say, do and look like — the character triangle.

I like books written in active voice and with vivid verbs.

Mohana Rajakumar: I love books that give readers insight into culture they wouldn't otherwise have; features strong women behaving in empowering ways; are a mixture of history and imagination.

Responding to the voice of the author (if non-fiction) or the characters who the story is about; of course not knowing what will happen next is always a plus.

Right now The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber is my current favorite read. She remembers everything and there are recipes included!

Do you consciously try to emulate these books? If so, what form does that take: plot, structure, characters, settings, author's voice and word choice?

Mohana Rajakumar: I am thinking about how to revise my own memoir to be more compelling! Readers have loved it but some have found the essays disjointed. Diana's takes a chronological approach so I'd have to go back and create a lot of content if I hoped to adopt her style completely.

Gary Henry: I do. It's these kinds of books that inspired me as a kid to want to write books like them. Specifically, books by Robert E. Howard (Conan), George MacDonald Fraser (Flashman) and Len Deighton (too many to name). Biggest influence on me has been their handling of characters and word choice — active voice and vivid verbs.

Do you try to avoid any of the techniques or conventions followed by your favourite writers?

Gary Henry: No. I just try to avoid overtly copying. I have turned to favourite writers during my own writing at times to see how they, Fraser for instance, might have described a woman's face, and try to follow his technique, but draw the line at lifting copy.

Mohana Rajakumar: Not yet but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen in the future.

What rules of writing do you intentionally break?

Mohana Rajakumar: Staying in one point of view the entire story; sometimes if you have an interesting cast of characters, it's better to hop around and give readers a 360 experience.

Gary Henry: I've broken the rule about introducing important characters late, but that's not something I'll make into a habit. Rules are good, especially when we're getting started as writers. Always remember, though, it's your story, and if you don't please yourself with it, it'll be hard to please anyone else. Take that rule with a generous bit of salt, too.

Gary Henry is a writer, runner and dog dad, who lives in Lawrence, Kansas with wife Karen and canine kids Lambchop and Sophie Jones. He is managing editor at Durability + Design Magazine, a glossy print monthly covering architectural design, technology and construction. He is the author of AMERICAN GODDESSES, a sexy super-powered paranormal fantasy thriller for e-book readers, available on at Amazon.com  

Visit his blogs, Honest Indie Book Reviews, and his new Indie Universe. Follow him on Twitter @LiteraryGary. And visit his Author page on Independent Authors International.

Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a South Asian American who has lived in Qatar since 2005. She has since published seven e-books including a mom-ior for first time mothers, Mommy But Still Me, a guide for aspiring writers, So You Want to Sell a Million Copies, a short story collection, Coloured and Other Stories, and a novel about women’s friendships, Saving Peace. 

From Dunes to Dior, named as a Best Indie book in 2013, is a collection of essays related to her experiences as a female South Asian American living in the Arabian Gulf. Love Comes Later, a literary romance set in Qatar and London, won the Best Indie Book Award for Romance in 2013. The Dohmestics is an inside look into compound life, the day to day dynamics between housemaids and their employers.

Visit Mohana’s website  or follow her latest on Twitter @moha_doha, on Facebook, Youtube or Pinterest.

You can visit Mohana’s Author Page on Amazon. Also, visit her Author page on Best Selling Reads.

Monday blog: What do best-selling authors read?

Creative Commons image courtesy http://bethtrissel.wordpress.com/

This week, I asked two very different writers to tell us what they look for in the books they read.

Kathleen Valentine writes a mixture of horror, humour and historical novels, novellas and stories, including The Old Mermaid’s Tale and the award-winning Depraved Heart, which could be described as paranormal romantic suspense.

Alan McDermott is the bestselling author of the Tom Gray trilogy, which has been profiled on this blog before. His writing is fast-paced, tense and explosive.

You’d expect them to have very different reactions to books, and in a sense they do — but I think that you’ll find some parallels, too.

Name three characteristics of books that you like. What makes you keep reading a book? What are some books that you weren't able to put down until you finished them?

Kathleen Valentine: The number one thing that I look for in fiction is a sympathetic character that I can care about. There seems to be a trend these days toward characters that are just awful—mean, calculating, whiny, self-absorbed. I refuse to spend time with people like that in real life so why spend time on the page with them? I want at least one character I can root for.

I'm also drawn to place. It doesn't have to be an exotic or glamorous place, just a place that I can imagine spending time in. Then, of course, comes a situation that interests me. It doesn't have to be intricately plotted but it does have to engage the characters. Writing style is also important to me. It doesn't have to be overly descriptive but I get bored with passive voice, clichéd descriptions, and repetitive word use.

Two books that I've recently read that I found hard to put down were The Orchardist and The Light Between Oceans. Both had central characters that were deeply flawed but had beautiful hearts. The settings were also mesmerizing—an orchard in a canyon and a lighthouse on an island. They were wonderful reads for me.

Alan McDermott: Easy. They must be fast-paced, full of intrigue and realistic. Like everyone else, I have my favourite authors, but I will abandon their book if I’m not being drawn in after a couple of chapters. Tom Clancy did that very well, and his books kept me mesmerised. I particularly enjoyed Rainbow Six and Red Storm Rising, books I have read more than once.

People say that a book must have a beginning, a middle and an end, but I like those which start and never let up until the last page.

Do you consciously try to emulate these books? If so, what form does that take: plot, structure, characters, settings, author's voice and word choice?

Alan McDermott: Clancy was the master at having multiple scenes going on at the same time, and he brought them together cleverly. I tried that with my first three books and was happy with the result.

Kathleen Valentine: No, not at all. I think I have a pretty distinctive voice—at least that is hat my readers tell me. I think sometimes characters in books will inspire me to want to create a character with many of the same qualities. For instance in Donna Tartt's The Secret History I was mesmerized by Henry Winter that I think parts of him have crept into a couple of my male characters.

Do you try to avoid any of the techniques or conventions followed by your favourite writers?

Kathleen Valentine: Not really. Most of my favorite writers—James Lee Burke, Dennis Lehane A.S. Byatt, Isabel Allende—have very unique voices and if I tried to emulate them it would be foolish. I do aspire to write as well but that's just a dream.

Alan McDermott: Yes, I try not to go into too much detail about surroundings and what people are wearing. If the protagonist is in the jungle, let the reader know if it’s raining or not, but don’t explain how green everything is. Okay, mention the bugs and other wildlife, but not every other page. I don’t like padding out a story for the sake of hitting a word count. I’d much rather race through and finish a book in a couple of days than spend a month getting to the climax.

What rules of writing do you intentionally break?

Alan McDermott: I think I break just about every rule there is! I know that some authors study the art of writing for years and make sure they structure their books in the “conventional” way. That’s absolutely fine, and I wouldn’t knock anyone for approaching writing in that manner.

I left high school aged 16 with a C grade in English and that’s about as far as my studies went, so for me, the only rule is: entertain the reader and make them want to come back for more!

I write my books the way I like to read them, and that means keeping the action going, and introducing new twists whenever I can. A lot of authors may criticise my books for not following all the rules, but we are living in the Internet era, where attention spans are dropping with every passing day. Folks are used to reading an article on the Internet and then moving on to the next one. If we keep producing books that don’t first grab the reader and then keep a strangle hold on them, we risk losing the next generation of readers. I’m confident that my books will stand that test of time. I’ll never win a literary award, but hopefully I’ll continue to make a living, and that’s what matters to me. Thirty thousand people have read my third book, which suggests my style of writing has already built a following.

Kathleen Valentine: I don't think I do but that's because I don't pay attention to rules in the first place. I pay attention to grammar and punctuation, etc. but writing rules? I don't think I even know of any.

Thank you for these insights, Alan and Kathleen.

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Kathleen Valentine is the author of three novels: The Old Mermaid's Tale, Each Angel Burns and Depraved Heart and numerous short stories and novellas. Her Beacon Hill Chronicles, including The Crazy Old Lady in the Attic, The Crazy Old Lady's Revenge and The Crazy Old Lady Unleashed, are Amazon Top Sellers. Her blog, KathleenValentineBlog.com, has been read by thousands of readers since its beginning in July 2005.

Her most recent work includes The Whiskey Bottle in the Wall: Secrets of Marienstadt and The Monday Night Needlework and Murder Guild. She has been listed as an Amazon Top 100 Author in Horror. She is a member of BestSelling Reads. Kathleen lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, America's oldest seaport, and is writing every day. Her website is KathleenValentine.com

Alan McDermott is a husband, father to beautiful twin girls and a software developer from the south of England. Since 2005, he has been working as a software developer and currently creates clinical applications for the National Health Service. Alan’s writing career began in 2011 with the action thriller GrayJustice, and his subsequent Tom Gray trilogy has been picked up by Amazon division Thomas and Mercer. Alan is a fellow founding member of Independent Authors International.

A Valentine's Day excerpt treat: Love Comes Later

For Valentines Day, Written Words presents an excerpt from the opening of Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar’s award-winning Love Comes Later.

This novel won Best Indie Book, Romance, 2013; was a Finalist in the Romance Festival New Talent Award in 2012 Best Novel; and a Finalist in the 2013 eFestival of Words.

They returned from the funeral to gather at the home of the grieving parents for the ’azaa, the receiving of condolences. Abdulla rode in the back seat of the Land Cruiser, his father at the wheel, his cousins and brothers messaging friends on various applications. For him there was no sharing of grief. This was his burden to bear alone. 

He was the last to climb out of the car, but the first to see Luluwa hunched on the marble steps of Uncle Ahmed’s entryway. The lines around her mouth, pulling it downward, aging her face, drew his attention; the stooped shoulders spoke of a burden heavier than grief for her sister. His mother saw it at the same time and hurried over to the girl, concerned. 

“Yalla, what is it?” she said, pulling her up. 

Luluwa shook her head. 

“Go inside, habibti,” said Abdulla’s mother, but Luluwa shook free and drew back, panic in her wide eyes. Abdulla’s mother turned her face back to the men. Then they heard the shouting. 

“When? When did this all start?” Hessa’s voice screamed, raw and startling, from inside the open door. “Leave this house.” 

The family halted in their tracks, exchanging uncertain glances. 

Ahmed emerged, looking shaken but defiant, a weekender bag in one hand. Abdulla’s father, the eldest of the brothers, stepped forward and took him by the arm. 

“Everyone is upset,” he whispered harshly. He was trying to lead him back inside, as his wife had done a moment ago with Luluwa, when Hessa burst forward into view, her face aflame with indignation. 

“Tell them,” she spat at her husband. “Tell them now, so when you don’t come back here everyone will know why.” 

The words made no sense to Abdulla. His first thought was to speak up and still the voices. He had already forgiven Ahmed in his mind. The accident hadn’t been his fault. “There’s no reason to throw him out,” he called out, half-climbing the steps. “It was my fault, not his. I should have been driving them.” 

Hessa turned towards him and laughed in a way that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “Who needs to throw him out when he’s leaving?” she said. “Leaving his daughter to a house with no man to look after her. She might as well have died with her sister.” 

“Yuba, no,” Luluwa cried, moving toward her father, but her mother grabbed a fistful of her abaya and spun the girl around by the shoulders. 

Abdulla’s mind whirred to compute what they were witnessing. A sudden white-hot rage stiffened his spine. His gaze narrowed on Ahmed. So the rumors were true, he thought. 

“He doesn’t want me and so he doesn’t want you,” Hessa hissed, nose to nose with her daughter. 

The family froze in the entryway as understanding sluiced them like rainwater. Ahmed stood for a moment in the glare of their stares. He shifted the weekender bag into his opposite hand. 

Saoud, the middle brother, stepped forward to question Ahmed, the baby of the family, but Hessa wasn’t finished yet. “Go,” she screamed at her husband. “You’ll never set foot in any house with me in it ever again.” She collapsed onto the floor, her abaya billowing up around her like a mushroom, obscuring her face. 

Saoud moved quickly to stand in front of his brother as his wife helped Hessa up. “Think of your daughter,” she added pointedly. “The one that’s still alive.” 

Abdulla brought Luluwa forward. Her face was tear-streaked and her body trembling so hard it was causing his hand to shake. 

“Keep her, if you want,” Ahmed said, his glance flickering over Luluwa’s bent head. “My new wife will give me many sons.” He sidestepped Mohammed and Saoud, continuing on down the stairs towards his car. 

The look Hessa gave Luluwa was filled with loathing. She dissolved into another flood of tears. 

The girl darted inside. Abdulla followed as his parents tried to deal with the aftermath of his uncle’s leaving. His aunt looked as though she might faint. His cousins’ faces were ashen. 

Mohammed and Saoud murmured in low voices about the best way to deal with their brother’s child. She couldn’t live in a house with boys; one of those boys, her cousins, might one day be her husband. 

He followed Luluwa’s wailings, sounds without any force, the bleating of a cat, like one of any number roaming the streets of the city. Without a male family member to look after her, she would be as abandoned as those animals. And, in the eyes of their society, as susceptible to straying. He found her on the sofa, typing away on her laptop, and hoped she wasn’t posting their family’s mess on the internet. Wedged next to her hip was an opaque paper bag stamped with their grandfather’s name, the white tops of a few pill bottles visible. 

Abdulla came and sat on the sofa next to her, unsure of what to do next. He was assaulted by her screensaver, a photo of Fatima and Luluwa on the evening of the wedding reception. He hadn’t yet arrived with the male relatives; the bride and the rest of the women were still celebrating without hijab. His wife’s eyes stared back at him even as her sister’s now poured tears that showed no sign of stopping. 

With trembling hands Luluwa wrenched open the bag of medicine and dug around for pills. She let the laptop slip and he caught it before it hit the floor. As he righted it, the heading of the minimized Google tab caught his attention: suicide. For one moment he allowed himself to admit that the idea she was apparently contemplating had begun to dance at the edge of his own mind. 

“Don’t,” he said. “What will we do if both of you are gone?” He put the laptop aside and, as if calming a wild colt, reached out slowly, deliberately, to take the bottle from her shaking hands. With little effort he wrenched it from her, and with it any remaining shred of strength. She dissolved into incoherent sobs, a raging reminder of what it meant to be alive, to be the one left behind. 

Abdulla folded her into his arms, this slip of a girl who used to hide his car keys so that her weekend visits with her sister and brother-in-law wouldn’t have to end, this girl who had already lost so much, a sister and now a father and mother. Instead of shriveling into himself, as he had felt like doing from the moment he saw his family in mourning, Abdulla’s heart went out to Luluwa. He murmured reassurances, trying to reverse the mirror of his own loss that he saw reflected in her eyes. 

“We can do this,” he said. “She would want us to.” 

She pulled away to look at him. 

“Together,” he said. From deep in his own grief he recognized the despair that would haunt him for years, and made a pledge to keep the decay he felt growing inside him from tainting someone so young. He would bear the guilt. It was his alone to bear. 

He would speak to his father. If nothing else, perhaps Luluwa might gain a new brother, and he a little sister. Small comfort, but tied together in the knowledge of the loved one they had lost, a bond that might see them through what was to come. 

Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a South Asian American who has lived in Qatar since 2005. Moving to the Arabian Desert was fortuitous in many ways since this is where she met her husband, had a baby, and made the transition from writing as a hobby to a full time passion.  She has since published seven e-books including a mom-ior for first time mothers, Mommy But Still Me, a guide for aspiring writers, So You Want to Sell a Million Copies, a short story collection, Coloured and Other Stories, and a novel about women’s friendships, Saving Peace. 

Her recent books have focused on various aspects of life in Qatar. From Dunes to Dior, named as a Best Indie book in 2013, is a collection of essays related to her experiences as a female South Asian American living in the Arabian Gulf. Love Comes Later was the winner of the Best Indie Book Award for Romance in 2013 and is a literary romance set in Qatar and London. The Dohmestics is an inside look into compound life, the day to day dynamics between housemaids and their employers.

Since joining the e-book revolution, Mohana has dreamed in plotlines. Learn more about her work on her website or follow her latest on Twitter @moha_doha, on Facebook, Youtube or Pinterest.

You can find Love Comes Later on Amazon and visit Mohana’s Amazon Author Page. Also, visit her Author page on Best Selling Reads.

Good reading: Two best-selling authors tell what they like to read

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What makes a book a good read? Three more independent authors give me their perspective: 

Mohana Rajakumar is author of So You Want to Sell a Million Copies?, Love Comes Later and a number of other books. Her latest is An Unlikely Goddess.

Jesi Lea Ryan is author of Arcadia’s Gift, Arcadia’s Curse and Four Thousand Miles.

Name three characteristics of books that you like. What makes you keep reading a book? 

Mohanda Rajakumar: I love the characters or at least want to know what happens next. Books where the writer takes me into a world totally other than my own and I learn something new. And I talk to other people about what's happening in the world of the story — it's that compelling.

Jesi Lea Ryan: I like books with unique characters who don't irritate the crap out of me.

Plot is important, but it is becoming emotionally invested in the characters

that keep me interested. Richelle Mead's books (yes, all of them) are my

best example of this. Her books are action packed and filled with intrigue

and adventure, but she has such an amazing way of tying me in emotionally

that I feel like I am in the book. It's amazing! 

I also like books that run at a faster pace. I don't like a lot of pointless

musing. I'm a firm believer in what doesn't add to your story should be cut.

I can give you about fifty bad examples of this, but where I find it most is

in erotica. Good erotica uses sex scenes to further the character or plot.

Bad erotica has little plot or character and things it can survive on

gratuitous sex. It's annoying. 

What are some books that you weren't able to put down until you finished them? 

Mohana Rajakumar

Mohana Rajakumar: Gone Girl, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, and The Night Circus.

Jesi Lea Ryan: Stacia Kane's Downside series have really unique characters, beautifully flawed.

  

What makes you keep reading a book? 

Mohana Rajakumar: To see what happens next and how we get where we are going.

Do you consciously try to emulate these books? 

Mohana Rajakumar: I do try to take readers into worlds they don't know because that's what drew me into reading as a child. And into writing as an adult. There were so many things to think about, I wanted to get out and share them with others. In terms of keeping the reading guessing, suspense I struggle with as a writer but character development I have much more confidence in my ability to deliver. 

Jesi Lea Ryan: I don't consciously emulate other books, but I'm sure they influence me to some extent. I read over 250 novels a year, and I don't have a stellar

memory.  I can't quote even from my favorite books. Part of this is because

I rarely read the same book more than once. I can tell you that I

consciously try not to write the things that irritate me. For example, I

detest indecisive heroines. And god, there is so much of that in YA and NA

romance.  Makes me want to hurl books across the room.  Indecisiveness does

not create plot tension, it creates reader tension, and that's not a good

thing!  So I don't drag things out too much in my books.  If the heroine

needs to make a decision, she's generally quick to act on it. 

Book launch: Binder

David Vinjamuri, fellow member of Best-Selling Reads and a columnist with Forbes magazine, has released his second novel, Binder.

What's it about? 

In the mountains of West Virginia, hooded men ambush and beat a group of environmental protestors. An Army colonel’s daughter goes missing, and ex-operator Michael Herne travels to West Virginia to find her.  But the girl wasn’t with the protestors and as Herne tracks her he encounters cults, communes and supremacists on the path to unraveling a deadly conspiracy. 

Binder is the sequel to the best-selling thriller, Operator.

Advance praise

"A terrific, fast-paced read.  It’s not just technically accurate but really gets into the mindset of the Tier 1 operator." 

– Master Sergeant Rodney Cox,  Instructor, SWCS (U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, NC)

After a brief stint as an intelligence analyst, David spent nearly 20 years working with corporate brands. He writes for Forbes, teaches at New York University and loves reading and the outdoors. He is an active member in Best-Selling Reads, as well.

Check out his book on Amazon.