Twice Upon a Time: Two Novellas

Two novellas in one. Sunshine Girl by Jazz Singh is about a young orphan girl Aanya, and Gaurav, the hardened businessman. It's a story of idealism and materialism locking horns. Guess who wins?
Yours Truly by Zeenat Mahal is a story of two people growing up together. Zoya and Sheru, have loved each other all their lives, but now their love is tested in new ways. Will it survive the storm?

Q&A with Authors by Preethi Venugopala-Author of WITHOUT YOU

PV: Describe the differences in your styles of writing? I would like if you analyze each other’s style.

JAZZ: Zeenat has a more serious approach. She puts in so many details that I feel I should too in my stories. Her characters are more nuanced, her stories have many layers and there’s a nice balance between her plot and characters. Also, intentionally or unintentionally, her work is rich with social content.

ZEENAT: That sounds really wonderful, thank you Jazz. I actually always thought of Jazz as being a writer with a purpose. All her books so far have been about latent social issues. Class distinction, betrayal and forgiveness, and now Sunshine Girl in Twice Upon a Time is about materialism versus idealism. Jazz’s heroines are very modern, strong and independent women. Her heroes are practical and pragmatic. I’m a huge fan because she writes about everyday romance without frills and rainbows. That’s a difficult thing to do.

PV: Why did you choose to compile two novellas in one book? What makes Twice upon a Time special?

JAZZ: We’d been chatting and Zeenat mooted the idea. I thought it was great. We both write furiously and love the whole process of writing and developing our stories and discussing each other’s work. This seemed like a natural progression and was born of those interactions. We decided individually which of our stories to put out there. Quite by coincidence, it turned out that both novellas are about orphans, but that’s not why we put them together in one book.
Twice upon a Time is special because it’s a labor of love! Both the stories are kinda cute if you ask me.

ZEENAT: They most certainly are! Jazz and I are both novices at self-publishing. This is our version of holding hands and jumping into unknown waters. Also, we wanted to make a statement for Words without Border. We are friends, and hope one day our countries will be too. Our readers don't choose us for our nationalities but our stories. Thank you, all!

PV: What kind of a writer are you? Do you plot the entire novel/story or make it up as you write?

JAZZ: I write around a theme and build the story around a central idea. Everything else comes after – the plot, the character, the setting…. Only a Dream was about betrayal, Against all Odds was about class divide. In Twice upon a Time Aanya is an orphan. So then I asked myself: how did she get orphaned, how does she earn a living, where does she live, why and where does she meet Gaurav, what brings him back to her time and again. Her character and his, too, developed from the dialogue that I had no control over. The conversation between them took a life of its own.

ZEENAT: It’s always characters with me. Sometimes it begins with a conversation between two characters and I just start writing as they talk and then one thing leads to another. Sometimes it’s one character, and her/his thoughts and feelings that just come pouring out, like with Fardeen, in She Loves Me He Loves Me Not. It was his anger and feelings of bitterness after his accident that got me started on that story. With Yours Truly, in Twice Upon a Time, it was Zoya and Sheru’s confused feelings for each other.