Adventures of a Writer

The Hindi movie industry is one of the most prolific film industries in the world. According to available figures on the Internet, revenue collections in 2019 stood at Rs 19000 crore. This includes revenues earned from films, television, OTT, etc. Over the last couple of years, thanks to the pandemic, movie viewing in theatres has seen a significant decline. People are preferring to watch streaming channels where there are scores of movies and web series to choose from at the press of a remote button.  2022 has seen more movies releasing in theatres but it seems like audiences are not returning as fast as the filmmakers would like them to. So much so that a string of big budget films including the much awaited Aamir Khan starrer Lal Singh Chadha has had a shockingly disastrous opening at the box office. Something that would be unthinkable for a mega star of his stature. Akshay Kumar, another mega star has had an equally tepid release in Raksha Bandhan .  It's not as if all fi...

Welcome to Week I of Authors' Tips: A to Z of Writing. If this is the first time you are visiting this series, here's a quick recap. Authors share their tips on writing fiction - and each week we talk about various aspects of writing. This week it's time to take a closer look at Inciting Incident Every story has a beginning, middle and end. But what exactly is the beginning of a story? Do you start at the very beginning with the birth of a main character and move up to one particular point in your protagonist's life? Absolutely not. Doing that would be the easiest way to lose your reader (if you are writing a novel) or audience (if you are writing a movie)! Beginning actually refers to the sequence of events  which is Relevant to your story. And the Inciting Incident plays a big role in acting as a trigger for your story (as well as the Main Character). Screenwriting guru Syd Field says, 'it sets the story in  motion' while Joseph Campbell cal...