An Interview with M.H. Rahman

M.H. Rahman is an Indian author popularly known for his best-selling debut novel, Half Life. He is the creator/writer of the popular fan fiction of the US TV series The Vampire Diaries. And he owns an artist management agency called Bombay Dreams. He currently lives and works in England.

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Tell us the story of your book’s current title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

Actually, I was lucky to find the title of the story before I even started conceptualising the story. So, when I was about sixteen, I was skimming through different television channels in order to find something worthwhile to watch. And that’s when a movie title struck me. It was titled Half Life. The title intrigued me and while I didn’t watch the movie, I got the concept of my story from the title itself, and over the course of six years I spun the whole story around that title. Personally, the titles of stories are of great importance, as much as the opening scene of the story. So, I usually take a lot of time before finalising the title of my stories as well as while writing my opening scene.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

1. Shadow by Livingston (2024)

2. Heathens by Twenty One Pilots (2016)

3. Enemy by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D. (2021)

I could go on about this for an hour. I love music and it has a crucial role in my storytelling process. And I always think of stories in terms of scenes with a background score or song in my mind. I go about my stories like some of the actors do. In order to build a character or scene, I listen to a lot of songs that are in the same zone as the character or scene.

What books are you reading (for research or comfort) as you continue the writing process?

My stories and writing process are actually inspired by screenwriting and American television. So, unlike other writers who read a lot of books in their own genre for research, I try not to read or watch anything related to my stories because I feel that consciously or subconsciously that tampers with originality of thought and ideas. Others may disagree with me but that’s just my process. My research is mostly drawn from factual sources on the internet, rather than another work of art.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I have worked in half a dozen different job roles but being a marketer has been the love of my life. I have been a marketer for over eight years now. But speaking of professions, from building and running a celebrity management agency that represents the leading Indian television actors to being a software engineer who wrote code/programming – I have done it all.

One thing that most readers wouldn’t know about me is that I produced and hosted a radio show called Going Vinyl at the Chesterfield Radio in Derbyshire, UK. It was a finite chat show where I interviewed up-and-coming UK-based music artists (singers, bands, musicians, etc.). Amongst others, I had the good fortune of interviewing a Grammy nominated artist.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

A school friend of mine actually put the idea of novel writing in my head. So, I have been writing poems since I was eight years old. And one fine day, back when I was in high school, a friend asked me why I didn’t write stories. He gave me the example of J.K. Rowling (author of Harry Potter) and suggested that I could be a millionaire someday if I were to switch to novels. Well, to be fair, that was the beginning of this beautiful journey.

As for who influenced my work or art, I’d blame Hollywood, American television, and Sidney Sheldon. So, since I was a kid, I have been a massive fan of Hollywood movies and TV shows like The Vampire Diaries, Prison Break, so one could say that I learned the art of storytelling from America. However, when we speak of writing books/novels, I learned that from the American author, Sidney Sheldon, whom I have been reading since I was a teenager. He taught me how to write thrillers that are a constant page-turner. Weirdly, some of my early readers in India have even called me ‘The Indian Sidney Sheldon.’

Where is your favorite place to write?

I love writing from my study desk. I find myself more focused when I work at a desk.

What advice would you give your past self at the start of your writing journey?

Back up your work on the cloud. I am not kidding! I lost almost a dozen chapters of Half Life when I first began typing out the story on my laptop. My laptop decided to crash one day, and all of my work was wiped out in a second and I had to start from scratch again. So, I’d say always back up anything that you write either on a cloud-backed server or physical drives.

Another piece of advice I’d give my past self is – start with the story, you’ll eventually figure out how it ends. For some more context, when I began writing my story, Joan’s Trial, I had a few conflicting ideas how I’d end it. And one fine day, while returning from work, it just came to me. And I was like ‘Yes, this is it. This how the story ends.’

What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?

Wow, eleven years in this business and no one ever asked me that! It is a great question.

I would say that I want the readers to know that despite our often-sharp caricatures of protagonists and antagonists, life is still more complex than that. Noone is a complete saint, nor is anyone an absolute evil. Always be curious about the backstory that made someone who they are today and you’d be surprised.

I now focus so much more on the backstory of characters to understand them better and to portray them better. And you will see that in my next book, the sequel to Half Life. It is called The Other Half Life. Just between us, the readers will find the answers to so many questions that weren’t answered in Half Life. But having said that, you will also see a lot of character development of old characters happening in the sequel.

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