The Writer Story | featuring Swati Hegde
Meet Contemporary Romance author, Swati Hegde, her sophomore novel releasing on Feb 11, Can’t Help Faking in Love.
Hello and welcome to the Writer Story!
Today we have the first interview of the year with contemporary romance author Swati Hegde and I am really excited about it, as she candidly tells us her journey to publication.
Swati’s debut novel, a desi contemporary romance set in Mumbai, Match Me If You Can, was released in the summer of 2024, and her sophomore novel will be out this February 11, just in time for Valentine’s day.
Before we begin the interview, here’s Swati’s official bio.
Swati Hegde is the author of Can't Help Faking in Love and Match Me If You Can, as well as a freelance editor, mindset coach, and self-proclaimed coffee shop enthusiast who lives in Bangalore, India. She can often be found at the nearest café with a hot mug of tea or singing her favourite songs off-key at karaoke night. She looks forward to a long career bringing Indian stories and voices to light.
Welcome Swati to The Writer Story, really excited to have you here and congratulations on your debut, MATCH ME IF YOU CAN, published last year and the sophomore novel, CAN’T HELP FAKING IN LOVE, releasing in Feb, just in time for Valentine’s Day. How exciting. Tell us how you get your ideas for Desi romcoms. What’s your inspiration behind the stories and characters?
Hi Anima, and thank you for having me! The ideas for Match Me If You Can and Can’t Help Faking in Love originated in very different ways. With MMIYC, I consciously wanted to write an Emma retelling set in contemporary Mumbai, whereas with CHFIL, the barista-as-a-fake-paid-boyfriend idea came to me while I was sitting in a café and chanced upon an influencer’s Instagram post showing off her ‘perfect’ man. I was single and bitter about it (lol), so I thought to myself, “I bet she hired him or something, she can’t be THAT lucky.” And boom, the idea for CHFIL was born!
I have read your first book, MMIYC, and I could see that you were able to seamlessly integrate Indian values and culture into the characters. How did you make sure to make it so ingrained in the characters as well as catering to a global audience?
I think there’s definitely a learning curve for writing your culture authentically in a way that connects with diverse readers while still being welcoming to global audiences who are new to the culture. The first part was easier for me because I’ve grown up in India and have been here my whole life, but my publishing team and agent definitely helped with the latter. In the end, I’m very happy with how Match Me if You Can turned out in terms of its desi/Indian representation!
What is your writing journey? How did you start? How did you find out about the publishing industry? Get an agent? Book deal? Tell us your Writer Origin Story.
I’ve always wanted to be a writer since I was a little kid, but I only started querying and trying to get published in 2018 once I had some more knowledge of how the publishing industry works. Fast forward to 2022, and I finally had an offer from my now-agent for Match Me If You Can after 400+ rejections on five shelved manuscripts. Four months later, my agent helped me secure my first book deal, and today I’m proud to say that I have at least one romance novel being published by Penguin Random House each year until 2027!
Here, we love to talk about the writing process and find out how different every one’s processes are. Tell us what was your process for Can’t Help Faking in Love, for writing and editing and then editing again with your agent and editor.
After I got the paid-fake-relationship idea for Can’t Help Faking in Love, I spent the next eight months writing, editing, and querying the book. This was in 2019-2020, well before Match Me If You Can got me an agent! Countless rejections later, I gave up on CHFIL, but after I signed with my agent, she was happy to help me revise it again and bring it back from the shelf of ‘dead’ manuscripts. My publisher chose it to be the second book in my 2-book deal, and then I did another 4 or 5 months of developmental editing with my editor at PRH before we ended up with a finished product we all loved to pieces.
What is your advice for authors starting out, who are waiting to make their mark on the publishing industry?
Humble yourself and develop a thick skin. No matter how ‘final’ you think your draft is, be prepared to edit it heavily or sometimes even rewrite it from scratch once you sign with an agent or publisher. Your writing isn’t perfect—it will never be perfect—and rejections are inevitable, even from somereaders who might 1-star the book after all these edits. Learn to swallow your pride, stay in your lane, and write the next book. That’s all you can control, after all.
Since you’re also a fiction editor, tell us your best tip for editing, and something writers should pay more attention to than they are while editing.
I don’t know why this works, but changing the font on your manuscript to something different or wacky, like Comic Sans, really helps you see the story through fresh eyes. Try it out and see for yourself how much your editing speed improves! And as for what to focus on while editing… this is cliché, but I have to say the concept of ‘show, don’t tell.’ A lot of newer writers show what should be told, and tell what should be said. As a general rule of thumb, SHOW important scenes, emotions, and flashbacks, and TELL transitionary scenes, basic context and information, and unimportantbackstory.
What is next for you? Are you writing another RomCom or something else? Whatever it is, I can say we can’t wait to read.
Thank you! After Can’t Help Faking in Love releases on February 11, 2025, my queer young adult rom-com called As Long as You Loathe Me comes out (pun intended) in Spring 2026, followed by other romance projects I can’t talk about just yet! I’m so excited that I get to make a living writing all these desi stories that are so close to my heart.
Finally, where can our readers find you online?
You can find me on:
Instagram and Threads: @swatihegdeauthor
Bluesky: @swatihegde.bsky.social
Website: swatihegde.com
I love connecting with readers, so please do reach out. And once again, thank you for having me, Anima!
That’s all for today.
Thanks for reading The Writer Story. You can find me on social media - Twitter/X - @authoranima or Instagram - @authoranima or Bluesky - @authoranima.bsky.social
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Until next time,
~Toodle-oo~