Salient Points
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‘O.N.’ (in the manuscript) stands for Omniscient Narrator, which is explained within the story itself (but not in the sample chapters).
This practice is not entirely uncommon. For example, among the novels that I read in recent years,
Albert Camus clearly created a narrator in ‘The Plague’ and let him narrate a good part of the story.
‘The Face of Another’ by Kobo Abe is another example; the narrator is referred to as ‘Excursus’ in this novel.
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You'll find quite a few sentences that start with ‘Which’. For example, I wrote like the following:
I ate grilled chicken. Which was delicious.
Technically speaking, this is grammatically incorrect, but this writing technique is a bit of a trend nowadays, it seems,
especially in popular fiction such as the Jack Reacher series. The author Lee Child does this all the time.
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You’ll find ‘Then:’ at the end of some paragraphs; ‘Then’ is basically moved up from the next paragraph.
For example, I wrote like the following:
I ate grilled chicken. Then:
I took a sip of beer.
I found this writing technique in ‘The Woman in the Window’ by A.J. Finn. Given the success of the novel,
I think it’s fair to assume that aside from myself, many readers find it works well. So, I adopted it into my own novel.
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I used onomatopoeias extensively. I emulated Japanese mangas.
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Here and there I over-exaggerated actions and portrayals of objects. This, I also kind of emulated Japanese mangas.
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I basically adopted different writing techniques from different novels and other media – I was not trying to create something radically new.
At the same time, I was attempting to create my own distinct work. For this reason,
I used some Japanese words and sentences as well including Japanese onomatopoeias.
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This is a novel, but it’s written a bit like a memoir. It’s a bit like ‘Post Office’ by Charles Bukowski.
I also modeled after ‘Shantaram’ by Gregory David Roberts which I read during the 2021 Covid lockdown.
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Like ‘Post Office’ by Charles Bukowski and his other works, the readers will find that many parts of my novel are crass and coarse.
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Chapter 1 is a hook. The purpose of the chapter is to grab the readers’ attention.