K-Lit Craft Writing Exercise No. 1

Inspired by Yi Sang and O Chung Hui

The Inspiration:

“The sun comes into the outer room–a book-jacket-sized chunk of early morning sunlight; by afternoon when it leaves, it’s reduced to the size of a handkerchief.” (p. 19 O’Rourke translation)

“The front part of the room has a little bit of the sun. That sunshine, as large as a wrapping cloth in the morning, shrinks to the size of a handkerchief later and then slips out of the room.” (p. 12 Ahn & Lee translation)

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“Before I know it, the sunlight handkerchief has left the room; my wife isn’t back yet.” (p. 23 O’Rourke translation

“The sunshine that had been as large as a handkerchief had already slipped out, but my wife was not home yet.” (p. 14 Ahn & Lee translation)

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I love the way Yi Sang uses the metaphor of light as a handkerchief here. It’s unexpected. It makes me think about the light, and the way that it moves, the way that it slips through the cracks and under the doors. But what it also does here is demonstrates the child-like mind of Sang’s protagonist. The way the handkerchief moves is playful: it shrinks, it slips. I think Ahn & Lee’s translation is better at capturing this characteristic than O’Rourke’s, at least in this instance. But they both point to the protagonist’s limited scope of references as well; the protagonist spends the majority of his time confined to a room, in a house. He likens things he observes to household items:

“But at the moment of falling asleep, every project of my imagination would dissolve into the damp air like soap bubbles melting in the water, and waking up, I would find myself a mere congestion of a nervous system, a lump like a pillow stuffed with buckwheat husks or cotton shreds” (p. 14-15 Ahn & Lee translation). 

This is a revealing passage because it mixes this domestic metaphor, this child-like evocation of soap bubbles melting in water, with an indication of some outside learning, some evidence of maturity: the “congestion of a nervous system,” or as the O’Rourke translation puts it: “I’m a raw nerve in clothes” (p. 25).

And so we see a couple of examples of how Yi Sang uses metaphor to characterize his protagonist. These metaphors show us how this man sees the world, reminding us of the limitations of his sight. 

O Chong-hui does this as well, and brilliantly. I shared this excerpt when I wrote about her short story, The Wayfarer. 

“The snow had started that morning. Hye-ja opened the window, sat on the sill, and watched the carefree flakes turn the world giddy. The neighborhood was still, the snow muffling every tiny, squirming noise.” (p. 3)

I love how O uses these adjectives and verbs to breathe life into Snow. The “carefree” flakes, the “muffling”. And then of course–what are the carefree snowflakes muffling? The squirming noise. 

Unsettling, as is this story–unsettled, as is the frame of mind, we will come to see, of O’s protagonist. It’s a brilliant use of personification to ground an entire vibe, to foreshadow this woman and how she sees her world.

And so what can we do with this? 

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The Exercise:

I offer you the opportunity to practice a bit of what Yi Sang and O Chong-hui do so brilliantly in these examples:

Practice writing a scene where metaphor, simile, or personification is used to characterize at least one character within the scene. Avoid using direct language to describe the character or the character’s state of mind. 

If you’d like to share, please do so in the comments, in a note, in your own post, whatever, and/or direct message me! I’ll share mine next Wednesday, along with some of yours (if that’s okay with you, and if I get any :) ).  Let’s keep them between 200-500 words…unless you’re really feeling it, then go to town. I find word count windows helpful (bird by bird, as Lamott says). 

As my favorite high school teacher used to say before every test, “Good luck and have fun!”

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A NOTE ABOUT TRANSLATION:

Thanks,

Brooks Riley

for the great comment below. Here’s the Google Translate of the original Korean text:

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