The Art of Eastern Storytelling 起承転結

Spring, Summer, Asteroid Bird by Henry Lien

1.

Early twenty-first century dialogue in the West around diversity in the arts tends to focus on the identities of characters, creators, and performers. As important as that is, diversity can be about more than just popping different faces into stories that are 100 percent western in spirit. It can and should also encompass diverse story structures from non-Western traditions and the themes and values that inform them. Just as values are not universal across cultures, the shape of a satisfying story is not limited to one model either. Henry Lien

I was such a newbie (!!) the first time I sat down with a literary agent. This happened several years ago during my first ever in-person fiction workshop. The “agent meet” was like a cattle call with the aspiring writers paying $50 per meeting. It was pay-to-play and many of the writers left in tears. The man I was scheduled to talk to was a big NYC agent. And sitting down, he scanned the opening page of my novel. He then said, “After reading your first page, I would’ve stopped reading, because there’s not a clear idea on the first page of what the character wants and what the conflict is. I directed him to page two, where my protagonist says: “Just get me that jar or I’m out.” The agent smiled and said, “Start your novel here.”

Once you begin participating in writing workshops and attending conferences, you can’t unsee things anymore. Story is discussed, as a general rule, in terms of conflict and something they call “stakes.” Plot is driven by this and so is the character arc—sometimes called the hero’s journey.

What does the character want? What is standing in their way? This is considered both in terms of the character’s outer life and inner. So my character wants that ceramic jar (but what does he really want? He wants love that he can count on and to do work that matters to him).

When I first started writing, this was something deeply unsatisfying for me. In part, because over and over again reading American fiction I felt like I was reading a screen play. It was uncanny and I think it makes sense in scene-driven writing that it has something of that TV quality.

Don’t get me wrong, I love many kinds of books, including thrillers and family dramas with a lot of tension and in-scene writing. But, like Henry Lien, I also love storytelling from other traditions. After twenty years in Japan, my own writing came to reflect Japanese storytelling styles. And even now, I really do prefer less linear writing with constant pivots and diversions. I love surprises, and prefer the lyric over the concrete, the “nobility of failure” over the hero’s journey. And more than anything, I love books that refer to other books. Love idea novels and narrative exposition.

2.

Lien, in his witty and fascinating book that I cannot recommend enough, cites Chinese, Korean, and Japanese stories, which “developed from a four-act, rather than a three- or five-act structure: in Japanese it is called kishōtenketsu (ki: introduction; sho: development; ten: twist; ketsu: reconciliation). The kishōtenketsu structure informs fiction, nonfiction, theater, and even the movements of the tea ceremony. It is a profoundly different aesthetic system from the Western model, with its primary focus on conflict and individual overcoming. Perhaps the most common critique I hear from Western readers about Japanese fiction is that nothing ever seems to happen.

ki (起)': introduction, where 起 can mean rouse, wake up, get up
sho (承)': development, where 承 can also mean acquiesce, hear, listen to, be informed, receive
ten (転)': twist, where 転 can mean revolve, turn around, change
ketsu (結)': conclusion, though 結 can also mean result, consequence, outcome, effect, coming to fruition, bearing fruit, etc.

Lien looks at many examples, from the movie Parasite to Ghibli films. These types of stories are characterized by protagonists working together (not a hero’s journey) and a comparative lack of conflict. The stories tend to have repetitions, told from other perspectives, exposition, and non-linear storytelling.

For my money, it is the “twist” or pivot, coming more than halfway through that is the best part. This in contrast with the usual “inciting incident” that kicks off most contemporary US fiction, for example.

Think of the pivot in a haiku… Here is the classic Japanese example of kishōtenketsu (and you can see other examples on the wikipedia page).

起 Daughters of Itoya, in the Honmachi of Osaka.
承 The elder daughter is sixteen and the younger one is fourteen.
転 Throughout history, daimyō killed the enemy with bows and arrows.
結 The daughters of Itoya kill with their eyes

Like Lien’s evocative and witty title: Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird. The asteroid is the pivot.

3.

I am heading out next week for this summer’s second writing residency, in Virginia. I am excited and hopefully along the way, I will get a chance to see a work of art that I believe is the most important (and wonderful) work of Japanese art in a US collection… Am pretty sure most people will disagree but still hoping to share more next week.

After that, I will go straight to Sewanee, in rural Tennessee. I am excited to be heading back there to the Writers Conference again, this time in poetry, not fiction. Was disappointed not to be put in AE Stallings workshop. She is my favorite living poet. But maybe things turned out for the best because I also love Donika Kelly’s work, especially her Bestiary collection. I am so thrilled that Yuki Tanaka will be the fellow for my workshop. I am a huge fan of his work—poetry and translation. I wrote a bit about him here.

Finally in August, I will head back to Bread Loaf, also strangely in poetry and sadly not in fiction! One of my other favorite poets is on the faculty there—am crossing my fingers I get into his workshop!

4.

July is such a fun month of reading too! Every July, Daniel Silva comes out with a new spy novel—and then later Obama has his summer list and the Booker Prize has their long-list. For the longlist, I am rooting for Fundamentally, by Nussaibah Younis, Kitamura’s Audition, Xiaolu Guo’s Call Me Ishamelle, and maybe Nell Zink’s Sister Europe.

Others I am excited about that could be longlisted are:

1. Abdulrazak Gurnah- Theft

   Helen Oyeyemi- A New New Me

   David Szalay- Flesh

   Anne Tyler- Three Days in June

Do you have any favorite 2025 novels so far?

** Here is my essay on Robert Frost and Bread Loaf & my essay on workshops from the Millions.