THE STORYIt centres on Lyra Belacqua, 13,who lives in Jordan College, Ox-ford, with her uncle Lord Asriel.She is believed to be an orphanand is brought up under thewatchful eye of the college’s mas-ter. However, when her uncle re-turns from an expedition, sayinghe has seen new worldsthrough the Northern Lights,he is shunned by the collegeand he leaves to find out more.

Simultaneously, Lyra’slife is turned upside downwhen the mysterious and ma-nipulative Mrs Coulter comesinto her life – leading her ona journey of self-discoveryand adventure.

And with other children go-ing missing and nobody trying tofind them, Lyra sets off to theNorth Pole, to follow in her un-cle’s footsteps. Lyra’s world has,for centuries, been controlled by

an oppressive church, called theMagisterium – except in theNorthern wilderness, wherewitches fly.

THE MYSTERY The Alethiometer,

also known as the

Golden Compass, was given toLyra by the Master of JordanCollege. The mysterious gadgetis powered by ‘dust’ and is usedto tell the truth. It usually takespeople years to learn how to useit, but Lyra has a unique skill forreading it.

ENTER THE DAEMONS In Lyra’s world, all human beingsare attached to a daemon – a phys-ical manifestation of their soul inthe form of an animal.

Humans and their daemonscan interact, speak and comforteach other. But they are still justone being. Lyra’s is an erminecalled Pantalaimon. A daemon isthe expression of your soul. Justlike a human child, a daemonevolves and takes the personalityof its owner.

POLAR BEARS‘His Dark Materials’ also featuresarmoured bears, or, Panserb-jorne. These spectacular crea-tures are a race of highly-intel-ligent polar bears, who are ableto talk to humans and have op-posable thumbs.

Instead of having a daemon,they consider their armour to betheir soul and this builds up grad-ually as they mature.DAILY MIRROR

Asterix, the in-domitable pint-sizedGaul forever outfox-

ing the Romans, returnsthis week for his 38th com-ic book adventure ‘Asterixand the Chieftain’s Daugh-ter’ featuring for the firsttime in its 60 year history, aheroine.

Who is Adrenaline?The action in the new edition re-volves around a character calledAdrenaline, the teenage daughterof famous Gaulish king Vercinge-torix. With her long red-braidedhard, black trousers, gold head-phones and grumpy teenage dis-position, Adrenaline will keep As-terix and his sidekick Obelix chas-ing her to ensure her safety.

The writers sayThe last three editions ofAsterix have been written byJean-Yves Ferri and drawn byDidier Conrad, sticking closelyto the original format.

“We didn’t want to develop acharacter who would be basedon her seductive side as we usu-

ally do with femalecharacters in Aster-ix. Most of the timethey are young, attrac-tive women who seduceObelix and their role stopsthere,” Conrad said.

In the latest edition, As-terix and Obelix must pro-

tect Adrenaline, who is beinghunted down by the Romans,while also being confronted bythe intergenerational gap be-tween them and the youngchieftain’s daughter.

Thinking like a teenager“In terms of the vocabulary, itwas quite amusing because I

had to create a sort ofteenage language for the

time. We don’t have a lot ofdocumentation about that.

So the idea was to use cer-tain expressions like

teenagers do,” said Ferri,the scriptwriter.

Asterix’s 38tha d v e n t u r e ,

printed infive million

copies, wasreleased in late Octo-ber. The Asterix bookshave become a main-stay in the publishingindustry, with more

than 370 millioncopies sold world-

wide. IANS

IDENTIFY THESE AUTHORS

This year marks the20th anniversary of the NationalNovel WritingMonth project(NaNoWriMo),which challengespeople to write a50,000-wordnovel inNovember. If you think youhave a novel inyou, here is aquick guide todigital toolsto help youalong your way

Books! Books! Books! There is no end to knowledge. All youneed to do is flip through the pages to get that extra dose ofinfotainment. So simply read on...

■ DAVID ROCCO'S DOLCE INDIA, FOXLIFE, 3.00 PM: David heads out on acrab fishing expedition with localfishermen before exploring Goa'sfamous beach shack culture.

■ FISHING IMPOSSIBLE, SONY BBCEARTH HD, 5.00 PM: The team is inNorway to catch the king crab.

■ YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, DISCOV-ERY CHANNEL, 7.00 PM: Smart andbrave people use science to taketheir skills to the next level, fromdoing a wheelie in a boat to usinginline skates off-road.

■ WILDLIFE: AFRICA'S DEADLIEST, NA-TIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL, 8.00PM: Equipped with super-senses,Africa's animals are at the top oftheir game and their prey do notstand a chance.

■ THE TRANSPORTER, STAR MOVIES,3.27 PM: An ex-soldier turned mer-cenary 'transporter' moves goods,human or otherwise, from one placeto another. Complications arisewhen a job goes astray and he hasto save the life of his female cargo.

■ SALT, &FLIX, 4.55 PM: CIA agentEvelyn Salt's life takes an uglyturn when she is accused of plan-ning the assassination of theRussian president. However,

MOVIES ON TVTELEVISION

MUST DOMUST SEENOVEMBER06, 2019

she flees and sets out to prove her innocence.

■ 300, HBO, 6.58 PM: In the ancient battle of Thermopylae,King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fight against Xerxesand his massive Persian army. They face insurmount-able odds when they are betrayed by a Spartan reject.

1. Reshma Qureshi2.Nandana Sen

3. Anand Neelakantan4. Jhumpa Lahiri

5. Devdutt Pattanaik

03BOOKS

T he NaNoWriMo site has useful writing guides and othermaterial to help you map out your plot and developyour characters before you dive in. Check your app

store for software like Novelist, which has a texteditor function and templates for organising plotpoints, themes and characters — along with tools

for tracking word-count goals and backing up your work. WritingShed, Bear and Writer Tools are similar options. For those seriousabout book writing, Scrivener is a full-fledged composition andmanuscript-management programme. It uses a clever interface tobreak long documents into sections so you can write easily.

I f you’ve already done your prep work, fire up your word processor. Most common programmes — Apple’s Pages, Dropbox Paper, Google Docs, Microsoft Word — work on computer and mobile devices. You can

write on the screen you are currently using and get the text update every-where, although you may need anOffice 365 subscription for syncing

Word files. And to keep youfocussed, especially, if you don’t have the willpowerto go off social media, inexpensive productivity aids

like Cold Turkey, Freedomand RescueTime, block the

internet and time-wast-ing apps.

2STEP PROCESS IT

H ow do you want to physically produceyour words? Scrawling in longhand on alegal notepad has an old-school flair to

it, but you will eventually have to retype it. Somewriters prefer to compose at the keyboard fromthe start. If you are using a tablet but hate

typing on a glass screen, casesand covers with built-in key-boards are readily

available at a variety of prices. Youcan also connect a keyboard toyour Android or Apple phone ortablet for less than $30 (`2121.68approx.). But if typing for longstretches is uncomfortable orimpossible, a speech-to-textapp might help.

3STEP POUND IT

W hen you’vecompletedyour manuscript,

whether by finishing the NaNoWriMo con-test or working independently, pause for a

minute to congratulate your-self. You’ve written a book. Next,decide what you want to do with it.

If you want to share, post your chapters on a socialstorytelling platform like Wattpad, Penana or Radish. Oryou could self-publish it as an e-book using free toolslike Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing or Apple’s iBooksAuthor. You can also go back, rewrite your manuscriptand make it better, possibly for professional publication.After all, Sara Gruen’s 2006 best-selling novel “Waterfor Elephants,” which became a feature film in 2011,

started as a NaNoWriMo draft.

5STEP PUBLISH IT

Scrivener

Novelist

Novelist

If the thought of crank-ing out an average of1,667 words a day in theNaNoWriMo challengedoesn’t fit in with yourschedule, or you needmore prep time, don’tdespair. Use Novemberas a booster, and writeit at your own pace

1STEP PLAN IT

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o:Ge

tty

Imag

es

Set time aside to read yourwork after you’ve written it. Lookfor plot holes and other flaws in your

story — and don’t forget to useyour app’s spelling and gram-mar tools. Most word

processors include a basic spell-check-er, but you also have options likeGrammarly, which uses artificial intelli-gence to improve your overall writing.

ANSWERS

21 3

Philip Pullman’s best-selling book trilogy ‘His Dark Materials’ has hit the screens as the most expensiveshow ever made by BBC. But before you watch it, here are all the reasons you should read the

much-loved ‘epic novel of all time’ first

The Asterixand Obelixseries havebeen translatedinto morethan 100 languages

This mighty polar bear is Iorek Byrnison,panserbjørn and the king of Svalbard. He is agreat friend and comrade of Lyra Belacqua

Www.now novel has plenty of free e-guides, including one onhow to write effective story arcs

54

After 60 years, Asterix gets an update with a heroine in latest outing

RescueTime

Sara Gruen’s

2006 best-

selling novel

‘Water for

Elephants’,

which became

a feature film in

2011, started as

a NaNoWriMo

draft.

Who did it?

NEED A GUIDE?

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o:Ge

tty

Imag

es

4STEP PROOF IT