» Ratika Deshpande

How to Make Your Creative Nonfiction More Cohesive

Ratika Deshpande In the kind of short fiction I write, there are clear starting and ending points. However, these markers are almost always absent when I’m writing nonfiction. I’m not even clear about what it is I’m talking about until I’m a few paragraphs in, let alone where I’m taking the reader with me. This…

Issue Six Hundred Fifty Five

7 Myths About Writing Creative Nonfiction

By Ratika Deshpande Sometime around the beginning of my twenties, I fell in love with creative nonfiction (CNF). So I set to studying the form, reading work published in magazines like Longreads and Literary Hub. I tried writing some essays and I read articles on how I could make them better. But it wasn’t long…

Issue Six Hundred Forty Eight

Why You Should Write About Other People’s Writing

By Ratika Deshpande Some of the best writing I’ve done has been about the work of other writers. I’ve read their stories and compiled them into themed recommendation lists; I’ve written personal essays and deep dives into books that I couldn’t stop thinking about. It’s work that I’ve both enjoyed and am very proud of,…

Issue Six Hundred Forty Seven Special Feature

Craft Lessons from Reading Hundreds of Short Stories

By Ratika Deshpande It’s an infallible rule that the more you read, the better you’re able to write (provided, of course, that you’re also doing a lot of writing). For about two years now, I’ve been reading science fiction and fantasy short stories and flash fiction to curate lists of recommendations for Reactor magazine. After…

Issue Four Hundred Forty Eight Issue Six Hundred Forty Two Special Feature

How and Why to Bring Novelty into Your Writing

By Ratika Deshpande Often, when I need inspiration or a reminders that I’ve dealt with my present insecurities a dozen times before, I turn to my blog to get some wisdom from my past self. Until recently, she always offered what I needed to hear. Lately, however, I started getting bored with her. I couldn’t…

Issue Six Hundred Thirty Three

How to Get Started With Writing Essays

By Ratika Deshpande The essay is a form that can take diverse appearances: travelogues, memoirs, lists, drabbles. As exciting as its variety feels, I’ve also found it frustrating that there are hardly any guides detailing how to work with the form. The following is a sort of beginner’s guide I wish I’d had when I…

Special Issue

Why You Should Question Your Writing Goals

Ratika Deshpande When I first found my calling as a writer, I imagined myself writing novels. A couple of years later, I thought I’d write collections of short stories. Today, I mostly write articles and essays, although I’m again entertaining the idea of publishing books. I’ll probably have a different writing goal in a…

Issue Six Hundred Twenty Nine Special Feature

How to Identify and Fight the Demon of Perfectionism

By Ratika Deshpande I wrote for years with no particular goal in mind. I blogged and wrote stories because it was fun. Occasionally, I’d submit a story or an essay, and get an acceptance here and there. Then, a couple of years ago, I started sharing my work more actively and purposefully—I blogged more regularly,…

Issue Six Hundred Twenty Eight

How to Get Back Into Writing

Ratika Deshpande Last year, while I wrote a lot, I also went through long phases where I couldn’t find the time to write, or didn’t feel like writing, until the state of not-having-written became too much to bear. When I did sit down to write, I couldn’t. The built-up frustration of the time away from my…

Issue Six Hundred Twenty Five Special Feature

Lessons from My Most Prolific Year of Writing and Getting Published

Ratika Deshpande I got 33 acceptances and published 194 blog posts in 2024, making it the most prolific year of my writing life. I took more chances; I experimented with writing different stuff. I applied to writing jobs and grants, submitted flash fiction, participated in contests, and wrote articles and essays I’m very proud of….

Special Issue

Why I Stopped Tracking My Daily Word Count

Ratika Deshpande I previously wrote here about the benefits of maintaining a writing log and setting concrete goals, such as finishing first drafts or writing 500 words every day. Word counts have always been an integral part of my writing process; reaching the daily goal gave me something to work towards. However, for the past…

Issue Five Hundred Ninety Six Special Feature Special Issue

How and Why Authors Should Write for Other Websites and Their Own

By Ratika Deshpande Recently, I was looking up authors who had contributed short stories to an anthology of South Asian SFF. As a fan of the genre and an Indian, it’s always exciting to find stories written by my people. So I Googled their names, hoping to read more of their stuff. Unfortunately, many of…

Issue Five Hundred NInety Two

How to Generate Plot Ideas for Flash Fiction

Ratika Deshpande My main struggle with writing fiction has always been coming up with a plot. I believe in writing the kind of stories one likes to read, but it’s not always easy to actually put that into practice. For example, I love reading about fantasy shops, scholars, palaces, and small villages. Yet it wasn’t…

Issue Five Hundred Seventy One Uncategorized

5 Ways You Could Be Rejecting Yourself as a Writer (And How Not To)

By Ratika Deshpande I’ve been writing for about eight years now, during which I’ve gone through several phases of rejecting my writing before others could do so. Over time, I’ve learned to recognise these thoughts and developed ways to fight them. Here they are: 1. You think you are not ready This thought is especially…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty Seven Special Feature

Scary Things for Writers to Do to Challenge Themselves

By Ratika Deshpande In my psychology classes in school, I learned that you overcome your fears not by avoiding them but by facing them. So, as a young, ambitious writer, I started doing the things I was afraid of doing, such as submitting my work to a magazine I really admired. I don’t know if…

Issue Five Hundred Forty Nine

Articles by Ratika Deshpande