A Finalist for the Bellwether Prize 2008

My novel Living Treasures is one of the top finalists for the Bellwether Prize 2008. Why didn’t I win? It’s a good question.

As I see it, there are 3 big categories of stories:

Black and white: good people conquer, and evil people suffer. It takes great skill to write this type of stories. Masters include: Shakespeare, J. K. Rowling.

Stroking the wound: a person suffers a trauma, could be small and could be big, but it changes his life. He reflects on this trauma and discovers his fragile, complex humanity. Masters include: James Joyce, many popular contemporary writers, Ha Jin.

Survivor stories: a person overcomes enormous obstacles to achieve success and/or maintain his dignity. Master include: Leo Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. Books include: Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, War and Peace, etc.

None of the category is inherently better than the other; it all depends on the writer’s skill. Most writers are best at one type of fiction and can attempt the other 2 types clumsily, because they don’t have enough tools or energy to employ their gift to the fullest. Type 3 novels may have many “stroking the wound” episodes (Tolstoy is a master at doing this), but the main structure of the book is a survivor story, even when the protagonist dies. For this reason, I consider Thomas Hardy a Type 3 novelist, and James Joyce a type 2.

I write type 3 novels, partly having to do with my personality, my experience, and my profession. I am an engineer. Every problem has a solution, not a perfect one, but one you can live by. You find a way to attack the problem, and that’s half the success. Some problems are truly without a solution--stroking the wound story--you can only attack it so many times and then give up. I read this type of stories to gain self knowledge, but I don’t write them.

I came to the States at age 19 with $100, and my English was poor. If I dwell on the discouragement/insults people have given me over the years, I would never have written a word. I choose my “opponents” carefully: get angry over material things and ignore the verbal abuse. Similarly, my fictional characters also do the choosing, they are the masters of their own lives. They do not drift--they simply don’t dwell on a trauma like they have to sink with the Titanic. To me, this temperament to choose the course of life and stay focused to solve one important problem is the way to navigate the modern, internet life.

Readers may not admit it, but nobody represents the “Western reader” or the “Asian reader.” In fact, everybody gravitates toward a type of fiction, and it is not an intellectual choice but a physical sensation. Imagine when people see a young woman, they usually have different opinions about her looks.

“She’s gorgeous.”
“She’s okay, a next-door girl type.”
“She’s too skinny.”
“Her mouth is too big.”
Etc. etc.

You can argue with the other person until you’re blue in the face, he still doesn’t have the same physical reaction as yours. Everyone thinks he’s right, and he represents everyone else, but no one does.

I did my best with Living Treasures, and I could’ve won. In the end I believe that a writer’s intentions don’t matter. A book should move and entertain the readers. But you cannot move all the readers, it’s an unrealistic goal. Trying too hard to please the readers who are not in your camp, you may sacrifice your art and diminish your motivation to write.