Breaking stereotypes: What strong heroine should look like (IANS Interview)

By Vishnu Makhijani New Delhi, Feb 6 : It was 10 years in the writing and breaks stereotypes of what a strong heroine should look like, with a heroine who is introverted, feels inadequate and powerless, and is conditioned to believe she is weak.
“It took me ten years and multiple drafts to write the story because I knew nothing about fiction writing. I don’t have an MFA degree. I have never attended a writing workshop in my life. I am a journalist, but writing news reports isn’t really writing, it is just conveying the news in simple, direct language. So, I had to teach myself to write fiction,” Veena Rao, the editor of Atlanta-based community newspaper “NRI Pulse” told IANS in an interview of her debut novel, “Purple Lotus” (SWP-She Writes Press).
“I read books in the immigrant fiction genre (Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Chimamanda Adichie, Akhil Mishra etc) over and over again, paying attention to character development, plot progression, style etc. until I evolved as a fiction writer,” Rao, who grew up in Mangalore and moved to the US in 2001, explained.
Thus motivated to write a book of her own and realize her childhood dream, she sat with a blank page and the first thing she typed was the title, “Purple Lotus”.
“The lotus is such a beautiful symbol of rising above one’s circumstances. It grows in muddy waters but rises unblemished and beautiful toward the sun. The purple-colored lotus is considered rare and symbolizes self-awakening. I suppose I knew what direction the story would take, but I had no story. Writing ‘Purple Lotus’ was a very long, messy journey where I taught myself to write creatively as the story developed,” Rao said.
Then came the even harder part.