Grace Shim On Writing Family And Drawing On Lived Experiences

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview.

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Grace Shim who writes books with Korean-American protagonists that she wished she had read about as a teen and is the author of The Noh Family.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

 This is quite the question…I’ve written several manuscripts so far and the inspiration for each of them have come from a general period of time in my life, except for The Noh Family. Unlike the others, this one had a very specific origin point, down to the month and day. My sister had recently received her results from a DNA test and in April 2020 she had gotten a message from a complete stranger saying she was related to us. Soon, we found out how we were related to each other and why we had been kept a secret from each other for so long. And I won’t forget how quickly our relationship changed in the blink of an eye. One minute we were strangers, the next, we’re family. The sudden emotional shift is inexplicable and I knew I wanted to explore this further in The Noh Family.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

On more than one occasion, my sister and I marveled at how surreal our experience was, only being able to compare it to something we had seen on a K-drama (Korean Drama). Since it was during the pandemic, I had reignited my interest in K-dramas and binged quite a few while on lockdown. One in particular stood out to me called Hospital Playlist which has been informally dubbed as the Korean Grey’s Anatomy. Several of the episodes dealt with the complexities of liver transplants and the drama around the donors, which then gave me the inspiration for the rest of the plot.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Oh definitely. I think it’s because I’m more of a plantster (combination of plotter and pantser) where I have a general idea of how things are going to happen but I don’t really discover things until I start writing the scenes. Which, as you can imagine, leads to some unexpected surprises.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I write contemporary fiction, so most of my story ideas come literally from every day life experiences. I’ll be overhearing an interesting conversation or struggling with something deeply personal and find myself wondering how I can make that into a story.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

I’m always thinking of the next thing while I’m writing one thing, so I usually have something to look forward to. If I have more than one project percolating in my head, it usually comes down to what I’m most excited about.

I have 6 cats and a Dalmation (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

6 cats?! Ack, I’m jealous. During covid we were fostering kittens and they gave me so much joy. It was not, however, the most conducive to my writing process. When it comes to writing, the least amount of distractions, the better. My idea of a writing retreat is being holed up in a room with no tv or wifi. Ah, heaven.

Grace Shim lives with her husband and three children in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Noh Family is her first novel. You can find Grace Shim on Twitter and on Instagram.

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.

Kelly Sokol on Starting Over With Her Second Novel

We all like to hear about the journey to publication, and hopefully other people's success stories help bolster the confidence of those still slogging through the query trenches. But what happens after that first book deal? When the honeymoon is over, you end up back where you were - sitting in front of a blank Word document with shaky hands. Except this time, there are expectations hanging over you. With this in mind, I’ve created the SNOB (Second Novel Omnipresent Blues) interview.

Today’s guest for the SNOB is Kelly Sokol, the author of Breach which is a story about the blurring of the boundary between the battlefield and home front.

Whether you’re under contract or trying to snag another deal, you’re a professional now, with the pressures of a published novelist compounded with the still-present nagging self-doubt of the noobie. How to deal?

When I signed with an agent who then sold my debut novel, The Unprotected, to an editor at a sizable, respectable New York publishing house, I naively thought I'd accessed the keys to the publishing kingdom. I'd done those two, nearly impossible things, and surely everything in my writing and publishing life would be easier from then on. On top of that, The Unprotected had earned back in its first month and I was already accruing royalty payments. My debut novel was out in the world and it was a small success.

So much for the keys to the kingdom. Within a couple of months after publication day, I was left reeling. It started with an email from my editor: "I'm moving on to another house." Then the marketing and PR folks said the same. I didn't know that a third of the publisher's staff left or were let go that summer. It continued with an unanswered email and a second unanswered follow-up email to my agent. She had suddenly stopped agenting completely, and her clients found this out from one another.

I was completely on my own now to market and promote my novel. Impostor syndrome roared between my ears. The two professionals who'd championed my novel left it back in my lap. What did that say about my work? About me as a writer?

Fortunately, I'd formed partnerships with communities like Postpartum Support Virginia who were interested in The Unprotected and its subject matter--a driven woman who overcomes infertility to have the daughter she's sacrificed everything for and who is driven to the brink of insanity by the life she created for herself. I connected with book clubs who enjoyed arguing over protagonist Lara James's complicated decisions. I learned that, ultimately, no one cares about a novel like its author. No one will support my work if I don't.

But it still royally messed with my head.

Is it hard to leave behind the first novel and focus on the second?

Yes! In the months leading up to publication day for The Unprotected I wrote personal essays. I couldn't find the energy for fiction while swirling in the outward facing parts of an author's job (that part that I thought I wanted so badly--interviews, questions, early reader reactions).

At what point do you start diverting your energies from promoting your debut and writing / polishing / editing your second?

I am always writing, whether it's a novel draft or in the form of personal essays for publication, race reports to share with fellow trail and ultra runners, or morning pages to mine what my o'dark-thirty mind has for me. I'd written for years prior to publishing any of my writing, and I've always known that writing is how I make sense of the world.

The moment I decided to let go of my first novel and devote myself to Breach is fresh in my memory. It was the summer of 2017 (The Unprotected debuted in April 2017), and I was sitting with a group of writers all scribbling to the same prompts. As I made a prose list from one of the prompts, I met Marleigh, the protagonist of Breach. I knew she wouldn't let me go until I got her story down onto the page as truthfully and faithfully as I could. For me, stories always begin with a character, and when I meet a character that keeps me up at night worrying and wondering, I can't help but devote myself to her.

Your first book landed an agent and an editor, and hopefully some fans. Who are you writing the second one for? Them, or yourself?

I write my early drafts for me, and then revise and rewrite for readers. First drafts are compulsive. I'm tugging a knotted thread to see how far it will go before it breaks. I'm writing for the moment that my main character takes control of the plot and shows me her full humanity, power and truth. That experience is like nothing else. When reworking the later drafts, it's imperative to keep the reader in mind. How do I pace the book to keep them from putting it down? How vivid can I make setting and atmosphere? I tell my creative writing students this frequently, too. The joy of creating doesn't necessarily translate into a joyful read. An enjoyable read takes work!

Is there a new balance of time management to address once you’re a professional author?

It's incredible when a reader of my first novel asks when or where they can find Breach. I knew I had multiple novels inside me, but I wasn't sure I had the stamina or discipline or thick skin to write and publish more.

I'm incredibly thankful that I had dedicated students who motivated me to keep at it. Who wants to learn from someone who has stopped writing and publishing? And my family took my writing more seriously after I had one book in the world, so I could be more protective of my writing time and schedule when I worked on Breach. It still took nearly five years from that first night of writing until publication! Nonetheless, my third novel is now finished and in the late draft revision stage. I'm much better at structuring and adhering to the writing schedule and process that work for me.

The months immediately surrounding publication are a heady whirlwind of promotion and touring, and they require serious time management. I'm definitely better at that this time around.

What did you do differently the second time around, with the perspective of a published author?

I didn't spend more than nine months looking for agency representation for Breach. That was a major change. I researched independent publishers, and quickly found two that took a serious interest. The experience with koehlerbooks has been terrific so far. I've had transparent insight into every step of the process, as well as much more input than I expected. I think it's important to know that there are different roadmaps to traditional publication.

I learned after The Unprotected that even if I sign with an agent and even if that agent sells my book to a large publisher that no one will care for my novel more than I do. I knew that ultimately I was on my own not only in writing the best book I could, but also in marketing, promoting and selling my work. No one is going to do that for me. Like Marleigh in Breach, I realized I am in charge of keeping my book and myself well afloat.

Kelly Sokol is the author of Breach and The Unprotected, which was featured on NPR and named one of Book Riot's 100 Must-Read Books of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood. She is a Pushcart Prize-nominated author and MFA creative writing graduate. Her work has appeared in Alpinist, UltraRunning Magazine, The Manifest-Station, Connotation Press, and more. She teaches creative writing at The Muse Writers Center. When she is not reading, writing or parenting, Kelly dreams, in color, of the mountains. She can often be found running in the backcountry. She resides in Virginia with her family.