Dead Manuscripts by Yu-Han Chao
I’ve written many unpublished novel manuscripts. In fact, I’ve spent my entire twenties, 2001-2010, working on various novels, hoping to become good at this. Short stories I can do, but as a short person who naturally writes short, longer works stump me. They are like pulling teeth. In fact, if any dentist, licensed or unlicensed, told me s/he would accept all four of my wisdom teeth being pulled out without anesthetics and paid for with no insurance all over again in exchange for him/her somehow handing me a well-written novel manuscript authored by me, I’d call it a good deal. I’ve tried everything—the “writing 300 words a day no matter what” approach, the “only write when one feels inspired” approach, the “follow a chapter by chapter outline approach,” the “go wherever the wind blows you approach” (incidentally, bad, bad idea for me—that manuscript ended with, and was destroyed by, apocalyptic asteroids), and I’ve also tried National Novel Writing Month many times.
Let’s see. So far, seven shelved and, amazingly, completed manuscripts in ten years:
Chocolate Island: A postmodern novel about an aboriginal cultural park that doubles as a writers’ retreat. Other characters: Yam-Hen and Shit-Egg (symbols for Taiwan and China). Has NaNoWriMo written all over it, doesn’t it?
Desert Opium Flower: A martial arts novel about a matriarchal martial arts clan in the Gobi Desert. The women’s weapons of choice: iron ballet slippers. The men of the clan are blinded at birth and used as blacksmiths and reproductive slaves. Also, in a period of zeal, the novel was transformed into a screenplay during Script Frenzy.
Untitled document unceremoniously labeled “newnovel.doc”: A mostly realistic, humorous account of the lives of two paralegals and the weird cases, clients, and lawyers they encounter. Also: Asian prostitutes, sex shops, family drama. Hint: I worked at a law firm then.
The Regift: Using the central idea of how Asians like to regift gifts, the story follows a gift from family to family as it is regifted, gaining psychological insight and depth. All is good until the main storyline/love story somehow ends in an apocalypse via aforementioned asteroids.
Media Girls: Follows four media girls who work in the red light karaoke district of Jia Yi City. This one has some promise, but has been rewritten from three different perspectives at least four times already. (Head, meet desk.)
This Day the Moon Breaks: The Joy Luck Club meets The Butterfly Effect. Becca wakes up on New Year’s Day to find herself married to a man who was supposed to be dead, but isn’t.
The Traveling Gown/The Abortionist’s Daughter: Bad sign when you can’t decide between two entirely unrelated titles. Votes, anyone? A bloodstain from the finger of a Chinese factory girl hides under embroidery on a wedding gown, which embarks on a decade-long journey through the American bridal industry and the hands of several brides.
Okay, now I feel slightly suicidal, but the point is that everybody has dead novel manuscripts somewhere on their computer hard drive or a backup floppy discs from 2001. It’s hard, demoralizing and depressing, but we need to keep on writing! (All those authors interviewed in Poets and Writers when asked about their first novels say that this Pulitzer Prize Winner was not really their first novel, and the previous ones sucked.) Or maybe God is trying to tell me something by only publishing my poetry book, essays, and short stories when I really dream of becoming Amy Tan…
Yu-Han Chao is Poetry Editor for Rose & Thorn Journal. Her poetry book, We Grow Old, was published by Backwater Press. Visit her writing and artwork at her website.
This was funny--in a good and humorous way, of course! Look forward to seeing one of these books in print!
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OMG - Those brief synopsis actually sound interesting - some sound like something an agent/publisher would pounce on in a minute!
But you made me laugh - thank you! loved this post
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vote: The Abortionist's Daughter
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It is depressing how much stuff I have on my hard drive that is dead. Still, I think some of those stories sound quite interesting! Thanks for sharing this.
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I want to see your martial arts novel made into a movie!
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What a brilliant post! Like Kat said, you've got some good fields to mine in those mss. Go get 'em!
Apocalypic asteroids? LOL
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I think some writers just have a knack for developing long stories. Personally, I prefer to read long stories but to a limit. I've been reading a lot of trilogies lately and I've enjoyed the anticipation and development longer reads brings.
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