Interview: Henry Lien
On authenticity, East Asian storytelling, and writing the story you want to read
Welcome back to another Wizard of Claws interview!
You may know Henry Lien as the author of the delightful middle-grade series Peasprout Chen, but his latest book, Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird, is an essential read for writers. Through helpful examples, Henry breaks down the art of East Asian storytelling. As you’ll see in my questions below, I think this is truly a game-changing book. Whether you’re a fan of the three-act structure common in Western stories, learning about other methods of storytelling can never hurt. In fact, it can only help.
General Questions
Can you share a little bit about yourself, including how you came to care about animals and creative writing?
I’m a writer from Taiwan now living in Los Angeles, CA (both of which have superb vegan restaurants, BTW). I became vegan after watching the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove on the plane up to Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle, where I got my writing training. So animals and writing have been intertwined for me from the outset.
Many of us have childhood dreams of becoming writers. When did you decide to give it a shot?
When I looked in the mirror one day back in 2012 and saw a 42-year old man with a receding hairline who had always wanted to be a writer but who had never done anything about it and who liked the idea of reincarnation but wasn’t convinced it was real, so he realized he had better step it up if he wanted to make the most of the only life he was likely to ever have.
Most animal advocacy focuses on creating tangible changes in the real world. What role can the arts play in changing how people think about animals?
We are wired as a species to receive information more emotionally and therefore more permanently through story. I first went vegetarian after seeing the film Babe. Stories reach us in a way that few other things can.
I’ve found that many vegan authors don’t talk about veganism much on social media (and there are probably tons of authors nobody even knows are vegan because they hide it so well!). You don’t make it the main feature of your feed, but you don’t shy away from it either, even asking your followers to go vegan for the day on your birthday. Why is it important to you to share your veganism with your followers, and do you ever worry about losing followers/readers because of it?
As an author, my brand is fun, enthusiasm, and joy. That’s also how I approach my vegan activism. Even though more strident approaches are powerful and necessary, we need all approaches. My approach has to do with showing how much joy veganism and animals bring me and using humor and my natural charisma and staggering sex appeal to help animals. And folks seem to treat my vegan posts as just an extension of the genuine me so I’ve only gotten enthusiastic responses.
As a vegan reader, vegan/vegetarian characters in books often feel like elements of surface diversity. Rather than “a Western story in non-Western drag,” as you put it in Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird, they can feel like non-vegan characters in vegan drag. I never want to dissuade writers from creating plant-based characters, but it can be frustrating to only see vegans represented as stereotypes—the crunchy hippie, the woke activist—rather than fully formed people. Do you think vegan representation is something that even matters in fiction, and do you have any advice for non-vegan authors to create more realistic vegan/vegetarian characters?
First, for all you non-vegan authors who have included vegan characters in your book that aren’t negative or snide depictions, thank you! Even if you don’t get it totally right, thank you! Second, the best approach is to have a chat with some vegans. I’m happy to chat with ANY non-vegan author who would like to do some research on an actual vegan in the wild. Barring that, my best advice is to have more than one vegan character in your book and have them disagree passionately about both things that have to do with their veganism and things that have zero to do with their veganism. No community is a monolith and by simply utilizing the above tip, you broadcast that no one person has to bear the burden of representing an entire population and you’re already so much further along in embracing complexity in your depiction. And thank you for trying and caring, dear non-vegan author ally!
So many writers dream of one day seeing their names on a book cover. Your debut novel, and its sequel, even featured blurbs from the New York Times on the front covers—WOW! How did it feel to see your name on a book for the first time?
It was pretty rad. But not as rad as getting to read a type of book that I literally couldn’t find anywhere else (which includes having a vegan theme). Now that sounds pretty conceited, but I’m leaving it because I do believe in the maxim, “Do what you love, and the rest will come.”
How does your writing process differ for novels versus short fiction?
It doesn’t. It’s just a matter of scale. Like cooking Japanese vegan curry spaghetti for one person versus for eight people. So maybe that means that I’m a bad novelist or bad short fiction writer. Or both.
Many of your stories have subtle vegan themes. How does veganism influence your creative process as you develop a story?
Well, my stories are very, very me. Plus, when one is awakened to the realities of humanity’s relationship with animals and the pervasiveness and inescapability of reminders of it, it’s hard to unsee it and thus, it’s artificial to remove it from whatever I’m writing about.
Story Questions
You’ve said that you wrote Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird because you wanted to see fresh stories in Western markets. What can the average reader (or listener or viewer), who likely has little to no knowledge of the intricacies of plot structure, gain by consuming a broader range of story structures?
Dear average reader/viewer/listener/gamer who has little experience with story structure, do you enjoy fangirling about your fave books, films, shows, games? Well, so do I. Just think of this book as my doing that at book length. It’s fun to not just talk about what we love but to try to articulate why we love it. And part of why I love films like Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once, Haruki Murakami books, and Nintendo games is because of their structure.
How can studying different forms of storytelling normalize more diverse or unconventional stories in popular culture?
When gatekeepers like agents and editors realize that stories in these seemingly unsellable structures have already proven to be wildly popular in the West but Westerners just didn’t realize they were told in an an Asian storytelling structure, it defuses some resistance.
Literary agents are overworked as it is, and query letters that don’t meet their expectations can be swiftly dropped in the slush pile. Do you have any advice for how aspiring authors can hook agents in their queries, especially for those whose stories follow non-Western plot structures?
First, don’t mention the act structure. I’ve never mentioned to my agents or editors that I’ve been working in a non-Western story structure. The story either works or doesn’t on its own merits. If it works, the gatekeeper will see what they want to see, including with regard to structure. An editor prasied one of my four-act structure works as a superb example of the three-act structure. [Imagine here a zippered mouth emoji.] Regarding query letters, I think the best way to write a killer query letter is, unfortunately, to write a killer book. And the best way to write a killer book is, unfortunately, to be merciless in deciding what story to write in the first place. I know that’s not helpful but I do believe that the most important early work an author can do is to be extremely selective in deciding what idea to write and being honest about whether that idea is unique enough to pursue. And then if the answer is no, aiming your firepower at brainstorming fresh ideas. I teach classes on that actually. It’s an underappreciated superpower.
I felt so seen when you wrote about how the emphasis on individualism and specialness in Western literature can harm kids’ image of themselves. In “Malia and the Magic Paintbrush,” you created a compelling main character while staying true to the theme that “[b]eing Chinese is about community.” How can writers develop memorable protagonists while focusing on collectivism rather than individualism?
Wow, thanks for seeking out that story. That was commissioned by Apple TV in connection with their Emmy-award winning series Ghostwriter and based on Chinese lore, so I had a limited footprint within which to maneuver. I’m glad that you found that it successfully conveyed the community theme. Regarding creating memorable protagonists while focusing on collectivism, look at the things that necessarily require cooperation. Heists. Bands. Team sports. Look at the personalities within stories about these three things. Look, in particular at Leigh Bardugo’s fantasy heist duology SIX OF CROWS/CROOKED KINGDOM. That’s a master class on how to emphasize community while also creating differentiated and unforgettable individual characters.
You wrote in Spring that “stories are empathy engines.” How do you think fictional stories can/do influence the way people treat animals?
I think they are perhaps the most powerful tool we have to convey meaning and expand a mind, and that includes with regard to animals.
I’m always surprised to see any sort of animal rights theme in a traditionally published novel, and you managed to do it with a Big Five publisher in the Peasprout Chen series. Did your agent/editor have any notes on that small but important part of Peasprout’s story? How have readers responded to it?
We toned down the graphicness of the depictions of what is done to animals, since the readers could be as young as eight years old and also not in a position to control their own diets. But I made sure that the veganism was critical as a character point (i.e., the kindest character in the book is vegan, and he demonstrates it with his treatment of animals) and that’s how I was able to build it integrally into the novel. I did that purposefully to make it seem to be about the human character and minimize the possibility of an editor pressuring me to remove it from the novel. It worked. As stated above, people see what they want to see.
The Peasprout books take place at a martial arts school, and there are many competitions between the students across the books. How do you keep the action sequences fresh and exciting?
I worked very hard at them. I made sure that their dynamics, visuals, scenecraft, environment, etc. were all differentiated and escalated. I had to treat the task as if I were the director, fight choreographer, production designer, and editor of a film. It was a ton of work.
What’s the key to an effective cliffhanger?
Great question — the bad cliffhanger is to pose a question and then not answer it. The good cliffhanger is to pose a question, then answer it, but then open the door to show the vast, uncontemplated consequences of that answer.
Closing Questions
How can readers find you and your stories online?
Website: henrylien.com
Any upcoming projects?
Yes!! But I can’t share publicly yet. If you connect with me via my website or social media, I’ll be spraying you with info about it when I can. And yeah, the main character is vegan and actually, every character in the book chooses to eat vegan with him for the duration of the book. My world, my rules.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I’m trying hard to popularize this quote that (I think) I came up with: “Animals make people better people.” I’d love for you all to use it.
