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I can’t have composite characters. I can’t attribute dialogue to someone based simply on my memory and not based on notes taken at the time that the words were spoken.

Akhil Sharma

While a dramatized scene is a way of proving and guaranteeing an emotional experience for the reader, exposition assumes that the reader is sophisticated and can see the universal.
AKHIL SHARMA

Dramatixed Emotional Experience Guarantee Proving Reader Scene Sophisticated Universal Way
To me exposition always contains tenderness.
AKHIL SHARMA

Assuming Contain Emotional Exposition Tenderness Way
Sandeep Jauhar gives us an insider’s look at the medical profession and also a dramatic account of the psychological challenges of early adulthood.
AKHIL SHARMA

Account Challenge Dramatic Look Medical Person Profession Psychological
Why do people always think hurting others is all right, as long as they hurt themselves as well?
AKHIL SHARMA

Always Hurt Long Themselves Thinking Well
Ernest Hemingway has been the most important influence on me as a writer. But at a certain point as a writer,
AKHIL SHARMA

Doing Good Important Influence People Realize Thing Writer Writing
It is hard to write about physically difficult things without causing the reader to disengage.
AKHIL SHARMA

Causing Difficult Disengage Physical Reader Writing
If anybody reads an Indian newspaper, all these things are obvious, and so I am not breaking news. All I am doing is representing my community as it actually is.
AKHIL SHARMA

Abortion Breaking Community News Newspaper Obvious People Read
The monsoon is such a dominant part of Indian life that it is hard to overstate its importance.
AKHIL SHARMA

Country Different Dominant Importance Indian Life Monsoon Rain Such
When someone gets a success, and we, too, have done good work and sometimes even better work than the person who has just triumphed, we wonder: Why did success pass me by?
AKHIL SHARMA

Better Done Good Person Sometimes Success Wonder Work
As a teacher, I can help my students see what is working and not working. I can show them certain solutions.
AKHIL SHARMA

Book Help Memories Student Teacher Working
There are also so many emotional aspects to money – feelings of inadequacy, feelings of security. I am not sure if there needs to be more about money in fiction, but the absence of this aspect can make a story feel somehow frictionless and unreal.
AKHIL SHARMA

Aspect Emotional Feeling Fiction How Inadequacy Money Security Unreal
I tend to think that we are all pretty much alike. We all feel despair. We all have problems with relationships.
AKHIL SHARMA

Alike Much People Pretty Thinking Unique
I can’t have composite characters. I can’t attribute dialogue to someone based simply on my memory and not based on notes taken at the time that the words were spoken.
AKHIL SHARMA

Attribute Based Character Composite Dialogue Memories Note Simply Spoken Taken Word
For me, a lot of the humor comes not from innocence but from characters trying to figure out how to get what they need. I don’t try to be funny, but am relieved when an opportunity comes up for humor.
AKHIL SHARMA

Character Come Figure Humor Innocence Opportunity Trying
People often need to describe things quickly and so they use a shorthand. The problem is that after they use a label, they begin to think only in terms of the label instead of the totality of the experience a novel provides.
AKHIL SHARMA

Describe Need Often People Quick Shorthand Thinking Use
The tears loosen their memories so they can slide away. They cry at the life they have lost, and then they cry at everything they’ll forget.
AKHIL SHARMA

Away Cry Everything Forget Loose Lost Memory Slide Tear
Novels should be judged rigorously. Either a book works or it doesn’t. The fact that something is true in the real world should not lend authority to it in fiction.
AKHIL SHARMA

Authority Book Fact Fiction Novel Real Something True World Writing
Also, I have to assume that readers are sophisticated enough to know that not every person in a community is the same, and so there are many people who would not force an abortion just because a fetus is female.
AKHIL SHARMA

Assume Community Female Many Person Reader Same Sophisticated
Certainly the details of our life are unique. Spending time thinking of how I am different from someone else, however, does not tend to be very productive.
AKHIL SHARMA

Certainly Detail Different How Life Someone Spend Think Thinking Unique
The babies have old souls and the old souls have to shrink to become little babies.
AKHIL SHARMA

Baby Become Little Old Soul Shrink
Exposition suggests a great trust in the reader, and this expression of trust makes a book feel tender.
AKHIL SHARMA

Book Exposition Expression Feel Reader Suggest Tender Trust
Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind.
AKHIL SHARMA

Lose Mind Novel Seven Started Writing Year
I realized that he was writing about good people doing good things. This did not match my experience of life and so I found my sentences stretching and becoming less plain.
AKHIL SHARMA

Experience Good Less People Plain Realized Sentence Stretch Thing
Even within my stories, people hold opposing views.
AKHIL SHARMA

Hold Oppose People Story View
Money is part of how we move through the world, what stores and restaurants we go into, whether we take a train to the airport or a taxi. Describing characters living in the real world requires describing them engaging with money.
AKHIL SHARMA

Character Info Money Moving Part Real Restaurant World
Intern will resonate not only with doctors, but with anyone who has struggled with the grand question ‘What should I do with my life?’ In a voice of profound honesty and intelligence,
AKHIL SHARMA

Doctor Grand Honesty Intelligence Intern Life Profound Question Resonate Struggled Voice
I can guide them to books that will serve as role models. Largely, though, one learns to write almost like developing muscle memory, and this requires years of effort.
AKHIL SHARMA

Book Develop Effect Guide Large Memory Model Muscle Require Role

I can’t have composite characters. I can’t attribute dialogue to someone based simply on my memory and not based on notes taken at the time that the words were spoken.

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I can’t have composite characters. I can’t attribute dialogue to someone based simply on my memory and not based on notes taken at the time that the words were spoken.

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Popular Authors

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