Alina Khawaja: On Understanding the Genre You’re Writing In

Alina Khawaja is an author from Ontario, Canada, with a never-ending love-hate relationship with the snow. She is a graduate from the University of Toronto, where she majored in English and double minored in History and Creative Writing and is now pursuing a master’s degree in the Literacy of Modernity at Ryerson University. Alina can be found studying, writing, or bingeing k-dramas when she is not sleeping. Follow her on X (Twitter) and Instagram.

Alina Khawaja

In this interview, Alina discusses how a lifetime of reading romance led her to writing her own adult romance, Maya’s Laws of Love, her advice for other writers, ad more!

Name: Alina Khawaja
Literary agent: Uwe Stender of TriadaUS Literary Agency
Book title: Maya’s Laws of Love
Publisher: Mira Books/Harlequin, Simon and Schuster U.K.
Release date: March 26, 2024, U.S.; March 28, 2024, U.K.
Genre/category: Adult romance, contemporary romance
Elevator pitch: A young woman who is unlucky in love may have finally met the love of her life when she sits next to a cynical lawyer on a flight to Pakistan. The only problem is she’s already engaged, and her final destination is her wedding.

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What prompted you to write this book?

I’ve always been an avid adult romance reader. I started reading it when I was about 14, which is definitely way too young, but it was mostly low-heat romances. I knew I wanted to write an adult romance book because it’s one of my favorite genres, and I wanted to write books that starred Pakistani Muslim girls like me because I knew we deserved to be reflected in the stories we read too. The book idea itself is an amalgamation of a lot of things; I had two separate book ideas—one about a young woman unlucky in love, and another about a road trip.

Further inspiration came from a conversation I had with my mom when I was about 21, where I casually thought aloud that I’d like to teach English abroad for a while, and she said, “You can go if you get married.” Immediately I thought, Why would I get married to do something like that? and then after a while, I started thinking, What if there were a woman who did have to get married in order to teach abroad? I put all three ideas together, and Maya’s Laws of Love was born.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I had the idea for the book sometime in 2020. I put a pitch in the Word document, and then I left it alone for months before I sat down and outlined the whole thing. Then I wrote the first draft in 31 days in 2021, revised with my agents, and then went on submission in March of 2022. We received our offer in August, and then the book’s release was set for March 26, 2024. So, all in all, about four years.

A lot of the first act I added in when I first started drafting. Originally, Maya and Sarfaraz went straight to Pakistan from Toronto, but it didn’t feel like enough time with them. So, I went back and added all the Switzerland scenes, which allowed me to bring in the Crash Landing on You element, which I was so happy about.

There is one other major change I made during the plotting process of the novel that basically changed the entire trajectory of the second half, but that would be a huge spoiler! I’ll probably reveal the change sometime in the future, but it won’t be until months after publication. Other than that, the book still looks very similar to the outline I made in 2020.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

I learned a lot about the editing process—I didn’t realize a book went through so many revisions before it went to print! But luckily, I work with such lovely people who are very happy to answer all of my questions.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I think I was surprised by how much I was willing to change in the process. Usually, I stick very closely to the outline I initially conceive of. But this time around, if I felt the book was going in a direction that was different from what I had written in my outline but that I thought would work better, I followed the thread to see what happens. Most of the time, it actually did end up being better than what I initially thought of. It taught me that while it’s good to have an outline, sometimes what comes to you in the moment can be surprising.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope they realize that life is theirs to live. As a person of color for my fellow POCs, I know it can be so, so difficult to reconcile what you want with what is expected of you, but at the end of the day, you have to live with your choices, and I hope you realize you find the most happiness in the ones you make for yourself. That, and you deserve everything the world has to offer you. I hope you find the strength to reach out and take it.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Read very widely in the genre you write in! I know it’s a generic answer, but it really does have a huge impact on what you write. If you’re writing in a genre with no idea of what the conventions are, then it’s going to be very difficult for you to figure out what works and what doesn’t. There’s a reason people return to genres like romance, thriller, and fantasy: They find something in each genre that they can’t get enough of. Once you figure out that key, it’ll open the floodgates.

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