M. Prashant Krishnan, all of 15, is a newly-published author with the release of his novel, The Rise of Palnea . It is the first in, what Prashant plans, a ten-part series set in fictional Palnea.
While a young child, unlike children who crave stories, Prashant wanted to tell the stories. The young storyteller’s audience would be either his mother, Poornima, or his grandmother. The ‘audience’ dwindled when his parents moved to Kochi from Thiruvananthapuram.
His grandmother was in Thiruvananthapuram, his mother got busy with work - “Sometimes my mother would be busy and her mind would not be in what I’d narrate. She’d tell me to put it down on paper and promise to read it when she had time. I guess that’s what got me writing a novel. I used to write down my thoughts when I was as little as four or five.” He attributes this interest to watching his parents who’d either be reading or writing something. His mother is Associate Professor, Sanskrit at Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit (Kalady) and his father R. Mohan, is Additional Commissioner of Income Tax.
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He started writing the novel at 10, when he was in Class V, and completed it by the time he was 13 (Class VIII). The book was published this April by Drishti, an imprint of Prism Books.
Of his ‘work’- study balance he says, “At that time, balancing studies and story-telling was not difficult; getting my hands on my parents’ computer was. Over the past two years, my writing-pace has come down (though not taken a backseat completely), whereas in studies I managed to maintain A1 in all subjects.” The former student of Bhavan’s Vidya Mandir, Elamakkara has secured admission to Class XI at Saraswathi Vidyanikethan, Elamakkara.
There is no particular time of the day to write, “Inspiration comes sporadically and spontaneously. The thing is, once I begin, I tend to get totally involved in whatever I do. Then the time of day (or night) is not a factor at all.”
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Since The Rise… belongs to the fantasy genre, the question of influences is inevitable. “I have read fantasy novels such as the Chronicles Of Narnia , works by J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Paolini and others. I have enjoyed reading Nesbit and Burnett too though these are different. But the point is, I got to read all these long after I began my own novel. The flow of imagination was continuous from early childhood, long before I actually started reading fantasy.”
The question of influences settled – he says, the seed (of the novel) germinated much before he read these works and therefore “no author has influenced the core of my books. But I cannot deny that I highly relished the works of these authors when I got around to reading them and was inspired a great deal.
With nine more books to go, he has already started work on the next which takes off where the first one ends. A ten-book series seems huge. How does he go about working the plot? “I have thought up a rough plot for the dekalogy though the finer details and nuances in character emerge as I key in the story.”
His friends know that he is a published author and a few, he says, seem to be in awe of the fact. The younger set (10 to 12 years old) has read the book while his peers are getting around to it.
“Friends in my age-group are reading it but are progressing slowly since most have put away fiction for the time being. Most of my friends are working hard for the engineering and medicine joint entrance. My own pace of writing has slowed.” He plans to take up research in Pure Science and being an author on the side.
As for The Rise… “I will be happy once I get the whole plot off my chest and on paper, but there is still time and with the grace of God, the dekalogy will see the light of day.”