BHUBANESWAR: Research is integral to the writing process, said Vikas Swarup, former diplomat and author of four bestsellers including ‘Q&A’, which was adapted into the Oscar-winning motion picture ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
In conversation with author and consulting editor of The Sunday Standard Ravi Shankar Etteth during the session ‘From Words to Pictures: The Alchemy of Adaptations’, Swarup gave insights into his writing process to a full house at Odisha Literary Festival.
“After an idea gets into my head, I keep developing it mentally for five to six months. This is also when I work on the characters. Then I start my research because for me it is the most important thing. My characters are fictional but the background in which they are operating is real, be it the cities or other mundane places, etc. I have to ensure that the backdrop is authentic,” said the critically-acclaimed author.
He added that despite being a diplomat for 35 years, there is nothing diplomatic about his novels. “When you are writing a novel, you have to be true to the characters you want to create. One has to be very involved in the life of the characters. Without that you will not be able to write with a sense of authenticity,” the novelist said.
Swarup, who identifies himself as a visual writer, said he ensures that all his books are well-structured and plotted carefully so that they have a surprise element at the end. To a query on what is writer’s block for him, Swarup quoted poet Megha Rao who in her session on ‘poetry and prose’ said characters become people and they start talking to you.
“I think that is what happens with me. Writer’s block for me is not that I do not have any ideas with me but because my characters do not agree with me. And that’s enough for you to take a step back and realise that you took a wrong turn somewhere and have to rectify it,” he said.
So what’s next in his literary oeuvre? Swarup said he is currently being pulled towards geopolitics, his vocation for 35 years, apart from fiction. He has been approached by two publishers for a book on geopolitics. “I am still debating if my next book should be a fiction or a non-fiction book on geopolitics,” he said.
Commenting on geopolitics, the former diplomat said the Russia-Ukraine war has shown that the West still calls the shots.
“The West may be on the decline but it cannot be written off. Most of the levers of the modern-day world, like the World Bank, are still controlled by the West,” he added.
