Radha Vatsal‘s debut novel, A Front Page Affair, was published this May by Sourcebooks Landmark. It is the first in the Kitty Weeks mystery series and received a starred review from Library Journal, which also selected the novel as Debut of the Month. Vatsal has a PhD in English from Duke University and lives with her family in New York.
What made you decide to be an author?
It’s not an explicit decision that I made. I kept setting myself goals and then pushing the bar higher. Can I write a mystery? Okay, now can I write a novel? Now, I have a novel. Do I have the guts to send it out? Can I find an agent? Am I able to revise to her satisfaction? Okay, now she’s sending the novel out. Will it find a home? Oh, look, suddenly I’m going to be a published author. Of course, there was nothing sudden about it. It’s taken years of work and a lot of ups and downs. I revise like crazy, I never know when to stop. But I think telling myself that I was just trying, that I would take it one step at a time and see what happens helped me to handle setbacks and stick to what I was doing for long enough to reach this point.
Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants?
A bit of both. I chose the historical moments that anchor the story first, then plot carefully, and then try to forget all my plotting so that unexpected things can happen. I really need to have anchors along the way though — they can change, but I need them to be there — or I would be too daunted to begin writing.
What non-crime books do you enjoy reading?
For some reason, writing fiction has made it hard for me to read fiction. I read a lot of nonfiction these days and also in-depth journalistic novels. For instance, recently I read and loved Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s News of A Kidnapping. I am hoping to read the Elena Ferrante books though. If I like a novel, I want to be able to read it in a single sitting and that’s no longer an option for me between work and kids, which may be why I can’t get into fiction so easily any more.
How do you handle rejection or bad reviews?
It’s hard, but you have to move on. This might sound crazy, but I use a clothing analogy to put things in context. If someone only wears short-sleeve shirts and then you send them a long-sleeve shirt, they’re not going to want it or like it. It’s not personal even if it feels like you’re being rebuffed. Say they do like long sleeves but they don’t like stripes and you send them a striped long-sleeved shirt. They tell you this is a great shirt, but it would be better if it’s a single color, and also stripes aren’t in fashion. You have to remember that you wanted to do stripes, and stick to your guns. If, on the other hand, they say this is a great striped long-sleeved shirt, but it would be more attractive if the stripes were narrowed or came in a different color — then that’s something worth listening to.
What advice would you give to beginning writers?
Break it down. Come up with a big goal, say, writing a novel. Then forget the goal and realistically try to plan it out with dates. Figure out how long it will take to get you halfway there, then work backwards to set smaller chapter goals. Once you finish the first half then you can figure out how you’re going to do the next half. If you think of everything all at once — I have to write an entire novel, revise, find an agent, find a publisher, build a website, create a platform, it becomes too overwhelming. I didn’t think about the publication side — I didn’t look at guidebooks or attend conferences or anything — until I was ready to send the book out. That’s just me though. I like to keep things manageable.