Roselle Lim on The Importance of Food when Writing about Culture

My large, extended family from my mother’s side immigrated to Canada from the Philippines. My eldest aunt was the first to come over and the rest followed her like goslings across the water. We packed our traditions and recipes into our suitcases and moving boxes, and hoped it would help us navigate the strange, new beyond.

In Canada, our tongues, which spoke Hokkien and Tagalog, felt swollen and clumsy wrapping itself around the syllables of English. Our feet stumbled, trying to navigate and learn new roads and customs. The only source of stability and comfort was family and food—in each other and in the familiar tastes of the country we left, we found strength in the dishes my aunts and my father cooked in our new homes.

In general, my family found the same spices and ingredients, and in the case when they didn’t, they substituted to recreate the flavor profile. What they simmered was something old yet new, with the distinct zest of the diaspora. The immigrant experience centres around community and food. The sharing of meals facilitates kinship and a way to connect to our heritage.

When I write about food, it’s not only an expression of my culture and my family—it’s a culmination of my life experiences through one specific lens.

Conversely, I am not lumpia or a bowl of salted duck egg congee.

Writing culture relying on food is reductive. It treats cuisine as the goal when in reality, food acts as the medium to convey nuance, traditions, and history. To write using a character’s traditional foods as a sole means to validate identity or representation is lazy and dismissive. It opens up the writer to perpetuating harmful stereotypes and problematic content.

Without acknowledging or respecting the history and subtleties in the dishes you are writing about, there is much lost in translation. For example, a bowl of arroz caldo on a cold, wintry day is comfort in a bowl and without the context of culture, you might as well write about a bowl of cereal on an ordinary weekday morning.

Food is life for me and often a passionate topic in the cultural framework. While its importance is unquestioned, writing about it in terms of representation and as a reflection of heritage should be taken with great care—the way my father marinates his short ribs with a secret spice blend and sliced kiwis for a day. After all, the act of cooking and feeding can be expressions of love, the way writing is an extension of creativity.

While food can be important to culture, it shouldn’t be the only tool in the arsenal. There are many other ways to convey the complexities of my identity. To me, food is best as a garnish that further enhances what I’d already established and prepared ahead of time. It’s meant to be savoured and act as one of the ways to understand the context and nuances of our identities.

Roselle Lim is the critically acclaimed author of Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune, Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop and her newest release, Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club. She lives on the north shore of Lake Erie and always has an artistic project on the go.

How To Lure, Trap, and Write About a Damaged Main Character (or, at Least What Tools to Bring)

by Tyrell Johnson

Main characters, especially damaged, baggage-laden, snarky ones, tend to be fairly illusive. It’s tricky to get at the heart of what really makes them tick. But with this buzz-worthy, clickbait list of tools you’ll need, you’ll be able to lure, trap, and successfully write about your local damaged character.

1. Hard candy

Damaged characters need sweetness in their lives. They’re constantly looking for the next thing that’s going to give them immediate joy but with lasting, emotional repercussions. In my novel The Lost Kings, the protagonist, Jeanie King, is involved in numerous self-destructive behaviors such as drinking too much and sleeping with a married man. That’s why hard candy (think Werther’s Original) is the perfect lure for characters like her. It promises sweetness, but is ultimately disgusting, which will give your character the perfect amount of immediate gratification along with the tongue-slicing, teeth-gnashing pain they so crave.

2. Hand Mirror

Once you’ve lured in the specimen with hard candy, that’s when you take out a hand mirror—something small that you can carry in your back pocket. While they’re sucking on the hard candy, hold up the mirror to their face. First of all, no one looks their best while eating hard candy, second of all, damaged characters hate and love mirrors. They hate taking a hard look at who they’ve become but are also absurdly fascinated with the process. Is that me? some part of them thinks. Is that really who I am? No damaged character is truly happy with who they are in the moment, and yet, when presented with the facts, they tend to enter into a state of shock. (Please skip the next sentence; it’s another shameless plug). When Jeanie King is confronted by her childhood sweetheart, who claims to know the location of her long lost father in The Lost Kings, Jeanie is frozen to the spot, unable to come to grips with the mysteries of her past and the image she has of her present self.

3. Rope

Now, while the character is cutting their tongue and gums with the lacerating hard candy, staring at the image of themselves and wondering how they’ve become the person they see in front of them, that’s when you bring out the rope. The trick here is to get a hold of their hands without them noticing. They’ll be fairly catatonic at this point, so it won’t take much. Once you’ve tied their hands behind their backs, they’ll know the jig is up. The knot doesn’t even have to be tight. Damaged characters like being led to their own destruction. They like finding where the wound is and sticking their fingers in. They also like not having to make decisions for themselves. They like to let the blame fall on someone else, to claim to be the victim, even if it’s only for outward appearance. Lead them slowly away, tell them everything is going to be all right—they won’t believe you, but they’ll come along.

4. Getaway Car

This is the easy part. Once you’ve got your character tied up, self-conscious about the way they look, candy nearly coating their entire mouth, lead them to your getaway car. Let them sit in the front seat. Have a little empathy here. A damaged character isn’t born, they’re created. Chances are they’ve seen some shit. They probably want the same things as every other character you’ve ever captured, but they disguise it in self-righteousness or a hardened outer shell. Untie their hands too. Turn on the AC. Play their favorite music. Start the car and slowly begin to unravel the mysteries of their past, lead them to their epiphanies with gentleness and an understanding that, in the end, we all have baggage, we’re all damaged, and perfect characters are no fun to write about anyway because they’re not real. 

At this point, you can put the car into gear, signal, shoulder check. Good. Now take them someplace surprising. Someplace new.

Tyrell Johnson is a father, writer, and editor. His post-apocalyptic novel The Wolves of Winter (Scribner 2018) was an international bestseller. Originally from Bellingham Washington, he now lives in Kelowna British Columbia.

Shut Up & Write Founder On Deep Work

 by Rennie Saunders

Have you ever noticed that sometimes, when you write, you concentrate so completely that you might not hear a phone ring? You can temporarily forget about the bills you need to pay, or the dentist appointment you should probably make, and instead you become completely immersed in your work. This state of intense focus, or “flow state,” is what I am hoping to achieve every time I write. It’s something productivity expert Cal Newport termed “Deep Work.”

Deep work improves your ability to hold multiple threads of thought, piece together seemingly unrelated topics and bits, and see the root cause of actions. It is the ability to achieve a creatively meditative state for doing a thinking-based activity to the exclusion of all else.

So how do we achieve this state of deep work, especially when it’s so easy to pick up a ringing phone? Critical thinking and analysis practices, meditation, prayer, Tai Chi, and ecstatic dancing are all different forms of mental, emotional and physical mindfulness. By practicing mindfulness in different aspects of our lives, we can train our brains to enter in the mindful state more readily. And when we feel comfortable entering into this space, we can begin the process of deep work.

Imagine that your writing project is a train on a track, speeding towards a destination. When you’re in a state of deep work, distractions fly right by the window as you focus on riding that train. If you are able to recognize distractions and let them go, rather than having them capture your attention, you can focus entirely on your project. In other words, don’t get off of that train!

So, what if the doorbell rings, or your friend texts you? That’s where mindfulness comes in. Because I’ve practiced mindfulness for many years, I’ve learned to prioritize my own focus, and minimize the importance of these disturbances. If the phone does ring, I write a quick note to myself and then set it aside for later. Unless something is a true emergency, I can detach myself from most interruptions and just let them fly past me.

In my experience, the best way to develop a sense of mindfulness and arrive at that ideal flow state is to simply practice. Just as in martial arts, regular practice will help you learn the mental choreography you need in order to focus. You can learn to recognize distractions and let them go, and you’ll remember what it feels like if you find yourself in a state of deep work. By regularly practicing mindfulness as well as scheduling writing time, you’ll find that your focus improves as you become accustomed to a creative routine.

Learning to notice your own writing process, particularly your ability to focus, can be just as rewarding as finishing up that first draft. And it may even put you on a faster track to the finish line.

Rennie Saunders has built an 80,000 -person global writer’s community based on his simple, highly effective formula – Shut Up & Write. Since 2007, SU&W has inspired writers of all genres and experience levels to meet for weekly writing sessions, no critiquing or feedback required. With hundreds of chapters in over 350 cities across the globe, the process is proven to work.