Let’s Write a Book! | Part IV: Inspiration
No idea’s original, there’s nothing new under the sun
It’s never what you do, but how it’s done – Nas
The book is slowly dripping out of my fingers like a warm goo. This week I want to talk about my inspirations and whose ideas I’ll be stealing.
I didn’t realise how much I read until I took more control of what I was consuming. I usually read gigantic books like War and Peace and Anna Karenina. It took me a year to read each of those behemoths.
I would also consume dense historical books, usually about the Middle Ages, so I could explore the areas that I didn’t get a chance to study while studying History at university.
I have an hour commute each day and long ago made the conscious decision to use this time productively by reading instead of playing on my phone. This time was mainly spent with gigantic books.
In 2025, I’ve been reading more fiction. Deep down, I’ve always believed that I could write one.
Recently, I have been aiming to read the kinds of tales that my book is aiming to become. I want to write a straight love story about a relationship that begins in South Korea and explore the complexities that it creates for the couple and their immediate family/friends. Therefore, I’ve been reading to better understand the mindset of modern South Korean women.
Understanding British men will be easier.
I found Cho Nam-Joo’s Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, tragic, as we follow Jiyoung through her life stages and see the sexism that comes to define her life. Whereas Nobel Prize winner Han Kang’s The Vegetarian shows the gender imbalance in a more subtle way and explores the life of the main character who chooses to rebel against gender and societal norms. The second part of this novel was one of the most gripping things I’ve read this year, she is a master of tension.
Addressing the prevalent sexism in Korean society without making the female characters feel like plot devices will be crucial.
This morning, I finished Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s acclaimed Norwegian Wood, which follows a young love story with tragic consequences. The way he builds the characters’ love story and describes their connection made a big impression on me. However, the shagging was implausible at best and detracted from an otherwise understated ending.
I am aiming to synthesise the various elements of these books I’ve read into my own story, and this Easter weekend I have two critical chapters to tackle.
So far, I have the main characters meeting and their first interactions in a nightclub. We follow this with a drunken debrief with the male characters in an all-night gukbap restaurant. I am conscious of making my female character feel three-dimensional, so Chapter 4 will explore Minji’s home life and the societal pressure that affects her daily life. This is where Han Kang and Cho Nam-Joo will help me and, of course, my wife’s guidance.
Chapter 5 will be their first date, and this is where I will rely on Murakami’s influence in how to build up a realistic first meeting that justifies the strife that they will later endure. This is a critical chapter, and I already have 500 words of notes for it.
If anyone has any good book recommendations out there, let me know in the comments. I am looking for books with grounded plots and a strong love motif throughout, ideally set in modern-day South Korea.
I am also a card carrying member of West Greenwich Public Library.
I’ve been posting sassy reviews on Good Reads.
Related Posts
2 Responses
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I enjoyed Revolutionary Road. It’s about a failing marriage. It isn’t really plot-driven but paints the main couple really well.
Thanks, I’ll try and track down a copy