My views on writing precisely: “I have never claimed to create anything out of nothing; I have always needed an incident or a character as a starting point, but I have exercised imagination, invention and a sense of the dramatic to make it something of my own” — Somerset Maugham, in ‘A Writer’s Notebook.’
In the writing of my upcoming novel, Entwined Lives, I read and reread almost all of Maugham’s novels back to back and I only read him for the close to three years it took me to write this novel.
My characters, plots and subplots are all inspired by real people and incidents, but my detailed handling of their psyche is inspired by Maugham’s. The novel of his I was most inspired to base the mental workings of mine by are Mrs Craddock, Liza of Lambeth, and varied characters from ‘Razors Edge’, ‘Of Human Bondage’ and ‘Moon and Sixpence’
So though my novels plot, location and characters are contemporary, they have received historical and classical treatment. 🤗
I have immensely enjoyed, though often to the point of exasperatedly frustrating insanity, from creeping around the minds and under the skin of my characters, living as them, I do hope you enjoy living the lives of my characters, in reading my novel “Entwined Lives.” It truly has been an adventure on my soul. 😃
— Shuvashree Chowdhury Ghosh
