Crime writing is much more of a craft than it is an art: Ashwin Sanghi at Times Litfest Bangalore

Ashwin Sanghi ‏, Ravi Subramanian, Anita Nair and Vish Dhamija enthralled the audience with their talk on the topic “Banking on Crime” at the Times LitFest Bangalore 2019. The perspective of these eminent authors on crime fiction and why people love them was quite a revelation.
They spoke on how the genre evolved in India, first with the international authors always dominating the lists and, due to the easy availability of those books and how it was difficult for the Indian authors writing on the genre to convince the publishers.
"Crime writing is more of a craft than it is an art", Ashwin Sanghi explained and elaborated that the story was like a picture which he would cut up and keep giving parts to the reader in a tantalising sequence so that the story would only be complete at the end.
Vish Dhamija, the author of legal thrillers, was the moderator and he asked the authors to give tips to the audience on how to make their stories appealing to publishers.
Ravi Subramanian said his style was different from Ashwin’s, explaining that he writes as he goes along and finds this helps him maintain unpredictability in his plot. Giving the example of his book, In the Name of God he said, "I was done with 90% of the book and I didn't know who the murderer was."
The authors discussed about the broad genre of crime and how it has evolved to where it is today, touching lightly on how the book market has changed over time. They spoke about movie and web series adaptations of books in the genre and how both print and screen have their own charm.
"As far as books are concerned I think that I would like to have some element of creative control to ensure that my character doesn't become something else," Anita Nair said about having her work adapted, "But I really don't want to get into the dimensions of production and direction", she went on to say.
The talk was good for those who wanted to learn more about the genre or needed tips for writing their own crime book.