FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

which inevitably means: Frequently Given Answers

Jyoti, Can you do the laundry?
This really is one of the most FAQ! – my family is always asking me. And the washing up. And my room. And the post. And the shopping… As for the answer: I can, but would rather pass.

Suresh, why boarding school?
Let me think…

How old were you when you began to enjoy writing?
Three.

Do any specific authors inspire you?
Of course.

Jyoti, when are you going to get an education, get a job, and get a life?
Whenever I feel the urge… (sometimes people do ask silly questions!)

Jyoti, When did you “know” you wanted to write professionally?
Writing stories was always enjoyable, but I suppose it was after finishing the first book and realising that (very few!) people actually made a living doing this, I knew I needed to take it a lot more seriously. 

Jyoti – what is with the hair?! (Cut on Swiss TV in March 2008)

Now to some “real” FAQs – perhaps what you’re looking for. Transcribed, from speech, so a little long-winded.

1) Why write a book together, instead of two separate ones? As twins, we did everything together. I (Jyoti) actually began writing Calaspia by myself, but after two sentences Suresh walks into the room and says, “Cool, another story. Can I help?” I responded by saying “as long as we finish the whole book this time”; we had had numerous forays into the world of writing but had never conquered the 15-page mark. Calaspia, and indeed the Insanity series that evolved, drew on many ideas we had invented for earlier stories and make-believe adventures we had acted out. It would have been unfair to exclude Suresh.
So although we could have written two separate ones, working together on a project as extensive as this was excellent. One advantage was that it provided extra motivation since we both wanted the novel finished, and obviously perseverance is the most important single factor in trying to write a book. Planning and plotting the series would have also been less fun had it been a solitary undertaking. Perhaps the best part of working together on the Insanity series was – is – bouncing ideas off each other, testing and trying them critically against one another. Having another person’s sober perspective on your beloved creations is imperative, especially at that age, and we had to listen to each other because we were partners.
I don’t think we would have had the energy to achieve our goal of finishing the novel – forget a series – had we worked on separate projects, let alone to rewrite and revise our work. Now we would.

2) What is the Insanity Saga about? The Insanity Saga is primarily about a cast of heroes great and small pitted against the powers of Insanity, a corrupting force both internal and cosmically external. We play a lot with appearance and reality, surface and substance. A “good” character often ends up having to fight himself by turning into his own bane.
Like most fantasies we try to transport the reader to a new yet believable world – Calaspia – to witness the life and struggles of her people. Here we encounter various plots: deception and betrayal, friendship and trust, enmity and suspicion, mystery and murder abound.
You often hear in promotional descriptions of epic fantasies that this is “the ultimate battle between good and evil”. Very well, but in our day and age, we must first of all examine what is good, what is evil?
I think the best about the Insanity series is that we try not to answer this type of question, we hope to portray both sides and let the reader come to their own conclusions. We understand that everyone has goals and motivations; they are rarely evil for the fun of it. So although an antagonist’s actions are sometimes most blatantly wrong, we try to examine his side of the story. Key values throughout the series are perspective, truth, loyalty and redemption.
Unlike most fantasies, the clash between the creatures of light and dark is not the focus. Instead we explore the light and the dark within each character, and how this effects the rest of the world. Precisely because of this, we don’t have monsters who are just here to burn and loot, like Orcs. Usually they are very tragic cases and we must ask the reader to be patient until they have gleaned all their secrets. Eventually the series gets quite metaphysical, but in Book One we are limited to deception, again appearance and reality, body and soul, but we won’t say more for fear of spoiling the story. It’s only the beginning.
Playing with expectations and reversals, we take pride in restoring one character from the brink of Insanity to sanity’s most important asset. The Insanity series is split into sub-series – of which Bryn is one, a quartet – that bounces backwards, rather than forwards, chronologically. The sub-series are plotted this way according to the characters’ understanding of Insanity. The second-last volume will be chronologically the first, and the last will indeed end the Saga in every way, including chronologically.

3) What are your fiction influences? We firmly believe that everything you ever see, hear, or experience in any other fashion has an impact on you at some level. Therefore, subconsciously, every fiction book we have ever consumed could be classified as a fiction influence! But we assume names are more interesting, where we would obviously have to name George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien – their influence on the fantasy world is inescapable. More modern writers include J. K. Rowling, whose gift for creating atmosphere we covet; Terry Pratchett, the comic genius; and Stephen Lawhead, a master of children’s stories, science fiction and fantasy, mythic history and historic fiction. Early influences include the children’s adventures Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome and Biggles, stories of the eponymous British pilot, by Captain W. E. Johns. Recently we have made a point to read as widely as possible and enjoyed discovering writers from Homer through Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe) to G. K. Chesterton and P. G. Wodehouse, although I would not say they have had the chance to influence us yet.

4) The book is being called a LOTR type fiction. Is it inspired by that? Inspired, yes, but only in that whenever we read a good author, it inspires us to strive to reach that level. Tolkien conjures a very special epic senses of despair and hope in the face of overwhelming odds, but also the familiar senses of trust and disappointment among friends. Let’s face it, Tolkien’s influence is omnipresent in the fantasy world. However, we set out to do something entirely different from what he did.

5) How much fiction do the two of you read? Who are your favourites? Not as much as we would like! (More than most people our age, however, tragically, this means little.) How bitter the irony of a writer who has not the time to read! See questions 3) and 4) for authors.