Author Kinshuk Srivastava born in Gorakhpur, a small town in the state of Uttar Pradesh, Kinshuk had a spark of writing right from his childhood. He wrote his first story when he was in 7th standard. While he used to write diaries and short stories during his teenage years, he started his own blog at kinshuksrv.blogspot.com when he was in the final year of college. Apart from this, he is also an active writer on Quora (a famous question and answer site) where he has written over 230 answers on different topics till date. He is also one of the co-authors of an anthology of poems which is currently in the publishing stage.
According to Kinshuk, he does not want to limit his writing skills to one genre. But horror has been his favorite genre and this book is a testimony of that. This is his debut book as an author and he is very optimistic about getting good feedback from his readers. Other than writing fiction, Kinshuk has a passion for reading also, both fiction and non-fiction. In his own words, books have been his best friends since his early childhood days. He is a software engineer by profession and is currently working in one of the MNCs in Gurgaon.
Lets Talk With Kinshuk Srivastava author of the book “Delusional Horror”
The Rise Insight: Welcome to The Rise Insight, author. Congratulations on the release of your book. What responses are you getting from your readers? Please share your experience with this book.
Author: Thankyou for your warm wishes. The response has been amazing so far. As I have started the promotion for the book, I am continuously getting congratulatory messages from the people. It’s really overwhelming for me and I am enjoying this phase. In the coming days, we will come to know how the book is really doing, but I am hopeful that the readers will enjoy reading the book as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
The Rise Insight: What encourages you to become an Author?
Author: I am fortunate enough to be born in a family where there was an atmosphere of reading and writing and thus I was into reading books since a very young age. I remember that I wrote my first fiction story when I was in 7th grade. I also used to write diaries whenever we went to trips with our family. In today’s age, we have vlogs and travelogues but in my childhood days, maintaining a personal diary, where we can jot down our experience of trips or any special events, was in trend. So that’s how I discovered the writer in me.
I can’t think of any specific source that encouraged me to become an author and I had never thought that I would be able to write a book. I wrote the story ‘Delusion’ (which is the first story of my book) in Dec 2019 and shared it with some of my close friends. I got a positive feedback and it encouraged me to write more. After I wrote my second story, the thought struck in my mind that why not write stories in this genre only and later compile them in the form of book. So that’s how I got to complete my first book.
The Rise Insight: What are your favorite topics of writing? Please tell us something about your interest areas in the literature.
Author: Well, going by the title of the book, you can guess my favourite topic and genre. I enjoyed writing stories in the horror genre and broadly speaking, my favourite genre is thriller. I like to read thriller and mystery novels which have a fast pace and can keep me hooked. My favourite books are: All of Dan Brown’s books, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. It’s not that I only seek for thriller novels. I also like to read romantic novels, specially if it’s an emotional and fresh story, otherwise romance can be very cliché sometimes.
The Rise Insight: We were hoping you could tell us about some of those writers who had inspired you and whom you follow!
Author: Since my favourite genre is thriller, Dan Brown is my favourite. When you will read his book, you will bow down to his knowledge in history and technology and the amount of research he must be doing to write such brilliant masterpieces. He is clearly an inspiration for me and I religiously follow and read all his books. I also like Chetan Bhagat’s novels. His style of writing has its own fragrance. The characters and the plot are so relatable that you can relate it with your day-to-day life.
Other than these two writers, I also like to read Stephen King, although I have read his only one book i.e ‘Outsider’. But it just blew my mind and I would be reading his other novels in the future. So I always look up to these writers and draw my inspiration from them.
The Rise Insight: The titles seem different and catchy; how you decided it? Please let us know the story behind it.
Author: Great if you liked the title! Initially I had decided it to keep the title same as the title of one of the stories of this book. But after thinking for quite some time and taking suggestions from a few people, I decided to keep it as ‘Delusional Horror’. I believe horror is something which is delusional i.e. it conflicts with reality. This is the reason why we discard it on the basis of scientific grounds.
The title is also derived from the story ‘Delusion’ (which is a part of this book). When you will read the story, you will come to know that the protagonist Aman starts living in delusion after he meets Rupa (who is basically a ghost as she had died a few years ago before Aman met her for the first time). So I combined these words ‘Delusion’ and ‘Horror’ to create a title out of it.
The Rise Insight: What are your achievements so far? Tell us something about your writing career.
Author: Writing is just my passion and hobby. Since I am working as a software engineer in the corporate sector, I don’t get that much time for writing. But still, I utilize my leisure time to pursue my love for literature. I don’t target for any monetary benefits with writing. All that matters to me is love and appreciation from my readers. Writing a book all by myself was a very tedious task and managing it in the busy schedule of life was not easy at all. But I am satisfied that I managed to do this and it’s an achievement for me on a personal level. The rest is up to the readers to decide whether I had been able to live up to their expectations.
As I said earlier, I started writing at a very young age. Although I couldn’t maintain the consistency due to my busy life but I am proud of whatever I have done in this field. I have my own blog titled ‘Spicy Corner’ where I have written articles on different topics like TV show review, current affairs and my travel journeys. Other than this, I am an active writer on Quora and have written close to 235 answers till date and some of my answers have gained close to 50K views. So I am very happy that I can share my experience and knowledge to such a wide variety of audience. Digital platforms have opened a plethora of opportunities to budding writers to showcase their talent.
Besides, I have also written a poem ‘When I saw you for the first time’ which is to be published in an anthology soon. It’s in the romantic genre and I have already got an overwhelming response from people for this poem.
The Rise Insight: What is your current goal in writing a career? How do you see your future in writing?
Author: As of now, I have never thought of making a full time career in writing. I just want to go with the flow and enjoy this phase. But writing is something which I will continue to do throughout my life in some form or the other.
The Rise Insight: Are there any other books being worked by you? Please let us know about your future projects.
Author: I would be taking a break of few months before I start thinking about writing my next book. But I have some ideas in pipeline for sure. I don’t want to restrict myself to a particular genre so I would be writing in a different genre for my next book. It could be romantic or science fiction. But it’s too early to comment on that.
The Rise Insight: How you see Indian writing in the 21st century? What changes do you see in the modern way of writing? Do you feel it has been changed by the time?
Author: The advent of digital platforms and self publishing platforms has started a revolution in the field of writing in India. In the 21st century, we don’t have to necessarily go through the traditional way of publishing where we would be at the mercy of traditional publishers to get our book published. Self publishing is a great way to become a published author and to bring your book to the gaze of the readers.
The modern way of writing deals with the topics relevant in today’s world and what the youth wants to read. I think in non fiction category, self-help books and books written on the topics of finance and business will get the attention of the readers. The fast changing world will slowly change the taste of the audience as well.
The Rise Insight: How easy/ difficult it was for you to publish your book? What message would you like to give to budding authors?
Author: The thought of publishing a book was overwhelming in itself but once I was ready with the manuscript, the entire process of publishing was very smooth. I would like to thank my publisher Evince Pub Publishers for doing their job well and it’s due to their efforts that my book is out there in the market today.
To all those budding authors who are reading this, I would give just one advice- Be consistent in your writing if you want to write a book. It may sound very cliché but this trait will work wonders for an author. If you are targeting for writing a best seller book, that’s a different story altogether. But if you just want to tick off your bucket list of publishing your own book, don’t lose hope and work on it consistently because it will be a long and painful journey. But you will surely get the fruits of your hard work and your efforts. And believe me, there is no better feeling in this world than holding your own book in your hands one day. So just have faith in yourself and you can make it big in this field.