Questions and Answers

Some of the many questions asked to the authors feature here.

As time passes more questions and answers would be added. You too can ask questions, click on the Contact link for more details.

 

1. What is your book 'I Know Who You Are!' about?

Mariam: 'I Know Who You Are!' is a book about people and life. It presents the concept of Character Skins which will, in general, help people understand their family members, friends, colleagues and strangers in a better way. 

Fatima: The book progresses on two fronts, the first being the story of Sultan and how he, along with his family, moves into their new house during the summer holidays. During this process he finds a treasure and comes into contact with his long lost friend, his grandfather.
The other front is the establishment of the concept that people have different Character Skins which are responsible for their behaviour and actions. This concept is woven beautifully into the life of Sultan.
  

2. What inspired you to write this book?

Mariam: Our inspiration came from our sensitivity and observation of the happenings around us – people, relationships and their interactions. Our analysis and discussions about people's thoughts, beliefs and ideologies motivated us to share our philosophy of life through our book.

Fatima: Being humans we have problems with humans; actually, it should be the contrary. I think this fact lead us to form these Character Skins and to write this book.

3. Could you elaborate the concept of the Character Skins that you have presented in the book?

Fatima: Every person has a Character Skin, which affects the type of interaction and relationship he has with others. In the book we present five Character Skins which are all unique in appearance, insight and behaviour. If you are able to understand the Character Skins, you will be able to get an insight of the many people around you.

Mariam: At no point of time do we say that every person has a Character Skin, nor do we claim that there are only five Character Skins, types of people, if put broadly.

4. How long did it take you to write the book?

Fatima: It almost took us one year.

Mariam: The concept was visualised in the last days of January 2007, however the first document on our record was made on 2nd February 2007. It was a brief outline about all the Character Skins. We finished the manuscript on 21st January 2008.

5. How was the experience of getting your work published?

Mariam: There were times when we used to feel stressed and disappointed, waiting for publishers and literary agents to respond. As they are really busy, the entire process takes a lot of time. However, Alhamdulilah, for us it wasn't a long wait. From the time of sending the queries to signing the publishing contract, it only took us three months.

6. Did you approach UAE based publishers?

Fatima: We did approach them, some had busy schedules and for some the book did not meet their publication genre.

7. When you reflect back, do you come across any difficulties that you had anticipated would come your way?

Mariam: We always knew getting the book published would be a real challenge. We had identified the possible difficulties in advance, so we did some online research. It helped us greatly.

8. Was there any point of time when you doubted the concept of the book?

Mariam: No.

Fatima: Not at all. We had complete belief in the book because we always found more than one reasons that contributed to its appeal. Actually, when we were waiting for a response from the literary agents and publishers, we used to, quite often, read from the book. This assured us of our hard work, dedication and assured us that the book was commercially viable.

9. What were the challenges involved in writing your book?

Fatima: The biggest challenge was to complete the book as soon as possible. As we progressed in our writings the challenges changed... it was crucial to reveal the Character Skins the best possible way in Sultan's story, the placement and the length of each inset mattered a lot. Another concern was to create incidents and conversations where the traits of the Character Skins would get exposure, their behaviour needed great focus.

Mariam: Ensuring that all the aspects of the story were connected was vital. This required reviewing and analysing the plot of the story a number of times. We used in-depth analysis and discussion as a tool to achieve this.