A Goodreads user
asked
Yangsze Choo:
How do you come up with fiction ideas?
Yangsze Choo
Hi Mamie,
Story ideas come to me at various times. Sometimes I'll be walking around and I'll see or hear something odd and start wondering "what if..." I wrote THE GHOST BRIDE partly because I happened to be doing research in the archives of our local Malaysian newspaper on something completely unrelated, when an article about spirit marriages amongst the Chinese happened to catch my eye. I wondered what it would be like to be married to the dead, and so I sat down and wrote the first chapter, pretty much as it appears in the book.
I remember reading that Roald Dahl used to carry a notebook around to jot down ideas, which is probably a good idea, though I don't always succeed in doing that. On the other hand, I've sometimes gone to sleep and dreamed that I wrote a really fantastic book, only to wake up and realize that it was just a garbled, nonsensical idea!
Best wishes,
Yangsze
Story ideas come to me at various times. Sometimes I'll be walking around and I'll see or hear something odd and start wondering "what if..." I wrote THE GHOST BRIDE partly because I happened to be doing research in the archives of our local Malaysian newspaper on something completely unrelated, when an article about spirit marriages amongst the Chinese happened to catch my eye. I wondered what it would be like to be married to the dead, and so I sat down and wrote the first chapter, pretty much as it appears in the book.
I remember reading that Roald Dahl used to carry a notebook around to jot down ideas, which is probably a good idea, though I don't always succeed in doing that. On the other hand, I've sometimes gone to sleep and dreamed that I wrote a really fantastic book, only to wake up and realize that it was just a garbled, nonsensical idea!
Best wishes,
Yangsze
More Answered Questions
Max
asked
Yangsze Choo:
I absolutely loved reading Ghost Bride. The setting of colonial-era Malaysia was utterly captivating. I’m from the region myself. The colonial times can be, well, emotionally stirring, but you have done something truly unique with this one. I really hope you write a sequel to the novel. Until then, can you perhaps recommend fans other books like Ghost Bride, in the sense of the setting and the mythology?
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