Crafting Magic & Mystery: Reshma K Barshikar on 'The Lost Prisoner', Book II of The Hidden Children Series
I think you would agree with me when I say that young adult fantasy is a genre that's managed to capture the hearts and minds of readers and not just the younger folks. For it's a realm where the boundaries between reality and the extraordinary are delightfully blurred. It's not just about all the magic and the adventure, but it's also about self discovery, growth and the universal experiences of navigating the roller coaster ride of youth
But it would have been nice to see myself in those stories. And as soon as I had the opportunity, I realized that that is what I wanted to do. So that prompted the idea of writing young adult fantasy fiction for an Indian audience with respect to the actual story. During the time when I started writing, Instagram was just taking off at that point, and so was this idea of being extraordinary at a very young age
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And that is explored in The Lost Prisoner, because they're at that age of 16 where, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? And I can't imagine going through that again. It actually felt gave me goosebumps to even write about it. So that was something that I'm hoping will resonate with the readers. Now, with respect to lost business
And that wall becomes my map, a template by which I write. Once all the character building and the world building stuff is done, once the reading, the character building and the world building stuff is done, that's where I go. The Lost Prisoner's plotting took a lot longer. I wanted it. It took a long time to rectify. In my head, it's a fairly complicated plot, slightly more complicated than the first. Sequels are harder to write
I think this brings me to my last question for you, reshma. But before that, let me thank you for taking the time out, for joining in and giving us a ringside view of what went into the writing of the book. It's been really fascinating getting to know your creative and your writing process. So you once again and more power to you. So, yeah, here comes the last question. For in addition to being an author, you're also a feature writer and a teacher
So with these workshops, I try and bring a community together and try and build a community of writers together. It doesn't matter if you want to get published or not. It is just about writing and being able to express yourself. That's it. And between this and the writing, the freelance writing, I traveled a lot. And during my sabbatical, I sent a piece into a friend. She said you can write. Why don't you send this into the India today, traveler?