After 35 years of teaching fiction writing, the prize-winning author shares her wisdom. First tip? Don’t write what you know…

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to write a first sentence so idiosyncratic, so indelible, so entirely your own that it makes people sit up or reach for a pen or say to a beloved: “Listen to this.” A first line needn’t be ornate or long. It needn’t grab you by the lapels and give you what for. A first line is only a demand for further attention, an invitation to the rest of the book. Whisper or bellow, a polite request or a monologue meant to repel interruption. I believe a first line should deliver some sort of pleasure by being beautiful or mysterious or funny or blunt or cryptic. Why would anyone start a novel, “It was June, and the sun was out,” which could be the first line of any novel or story? It tells you nothing. It asks nothing of you.

Yes, it’s messy, derivative and occasionally incomprehensible – but so is life

Fan fiction is democracy in its purest, most chaotic form. It’s the people seizing the means of production. Every “what if?” is a tiny revolution. What if the side character got a backstory? What if the finale didn’t end in heartbreak? What if Harry Styles and Zayn Malik kissed just once, for morale?

Of course, many would argue that fan fiction isn’t real literature. It borrows worlds and characters that someone else created. It’s often unedited, published online for free and written by people with no verified experience. To the purists, it lacks originality, polish and commercial value, the hallmarks of what they believe “serious” writing should be.

Urooj Ashfaq is a Mumbai-based comedian, writer and actor.

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