Postcard For Reader

Guest Post: Sarwat Chadda

Swinging by today is Sarwat Chadda, author of Devil's Kiss. I LOVE this guest post, but maybe that's just because I'm such an avid roleplayer.

Oh, and here's the summary for Devil's Kiss, in case you were interested or something like that.

As the youngest and only female member of the Knights Templar, Bilquis SanGreal grew up knowing she wasn't normal. Instead of hanging out at the mall or going on dates, she spends her time training as a soldier in her order's ancient battle against the Unholy.

Billi's cloistered life is blasted apart when her childhood friend, Kay, returns from Jerusalem, gorgeous and with a dangerous chip on his shoulder. He's ready to reclaim his place in Billi's life, but she's met someone new: amber-eyed Michael, who seems to understand her like no one else, effortlessly claiming a stake in her heart.

But the Templars are called to duty before Billi can enjoy the pleasant new twist to her life. One of the order's ancient enemies has resurfaced, searching for a treasure that the Templars have protected for hundreds of years -- a cursed mirror powerful enough to kill all of London's firstborn. To save her city from catastrophe, Billi will have to put her heart aside and make sacrifices greater than any of the Templars could have imagined.

Anyway, read the guest post; it's one of my favorites! (You should also check out the about me section of his website; I was laughing the entire time I read it.)

It isn’t just about books

My job is to tell stories. For me, the best was to tell those stories is by writing. I love books. I love the browsing in bookshops, gazing at the gorgeous covers, moving from section to section, looking at the piles on the tables and the displays in the windows. I hardly ever leave a bookshop without a little present to myself. That’s what books are.

But writing books was not my first choice. I’d always wanted to tell stories, but the decision to do it through novels is only a relatively new decision.

I love comics. My first passion is to draw. Give me a blank piece of paper and a boring meeting and I’ll give to a bunch of superheroes fighting it out onto of the Empire State Building. I read Batman, Superman, the X-Men, Daredevil and 2000AD as I was growing up. My shelves at home were low and bowed by the piles of comics stacked on them. Those comics are still up in the loft, waiting for the shelves to be freed once more and for them to return to their rightful place.

Comics re all about pace, concise dialogue, sharpening the visuals to give you the maximum impact in only twenty pages. The UK comics are even tighter. Pure black and white most tales didn’t spread beyond five pages per week. You had to be able to pick up the story at any point, it had to be complete in itself and yet fit neatly into a whole story arc that could take months to complete. I still remember tales like ‘Fiends of the Eastern Front’. It was a story about a German soldier in World War Two and his battle against a Romanian army squad of vampires. Then the Judge Child saga. An epic quest across space and alien worlds to find a child that would save Mega City One in the future. I read it over thirty years ago but I still remember opening the first few pages and entering the world of Judge Dredd. I don’t think I ever really returned.

About the same time I was immersing myself into comics I discovered Dungeons and Dragons. Roleplaying games are pure storytelling. My background is engineering. Before I was a writer I’d spent twenty years working in construction. What I know about story-telling comes from a lifetime of playing roleplaying games. Far better than critique groups! One person must create the adventure the other players join into. It could be saving the princess from the evil wizard. It could be a cop in the far future, or a lawman in a zombie-infested wild west or modern day vampires struggling to hold onto their fading humanity. I’d written stories for all of these settings, and many, many more. Week in week out I wrote them and presented them to my group. You could tell how good the story was by watching their faces. Were they on the edge of their seats? Where they paying attention to every word? Where they laughing at the mad old witch who gave them the prophecy and were they raging against the diabolical schemes of the evil duke? The first thing I ever had published was a role-playing adventure.

Or were they staring out the window and doodling in the margins of their character sheet, checking their watches? Were they dropping out of the group or were they desperate to come back the following week to find out what happened next?

If you’re keen on becoming a story teller, you could do a lot worse than try roleplaying.

Movies. I love going to the movies. I love the spectacle, the larger than life stories and heightened emotions. I remember the moment Luke first activated his lightsaber. When James Bond lit his cigarette at the casino table. Lawrence of Arabia arriving with his retinue of wanted men to the cheers of the Arabian army. It was from movies I found my love of epic storytelling. I wanted my tales to be about characters that changed the world. Big themes in big settings.

Finally, I love books. How could I not? I’ve spent more of my life immersed in books than I have in any other medium. I still have my copy of the Wizard of Oz which I bought with my pocket money from the school book club. That was over thirty years ago. I still remember my teacher reading the first chapter of the Hobbit.

I dabbled in all the other medium but books gave me most of what I wanted. It gave me the whole world to make my own. Compared to comics, I’m both the writer and artist. Compared to movies I’m the writer, director, casting and set design. I even control the lighting. Compared to roleplaying I free the story of the rules, limits and the dice of the game.

Yes, I came to writing last because it gave me everything I wanted, and I’d tried the rest already. But if you’re keen to become a writer yourself, look around. Indulge in all forms of storytelling. Where-ever you finally end up, your stories will be enriched by the journey you took.