Writing as Transformation: Who Paul Yoon Needed to Become to Finish His Book

One of the great astonishments of living with another artist is to watch their body of work take shape over time—to watch their imaginations leap in new directions, embrace new possibilities and questions. I didn’t read the majority of the stories in The Hive and the Honey until Paul had finished the book—even as a Paul “super fan” I was not quite prepared for how thrilling it would be to encounter this new work. I sensed a fresh boldness on the page, a kind of harrowing grace. I felt a writer stretching beyond the borders of what had been possible previously. I felt innovation, experimentation, real risk. It makes me so happy that the rest of the world will now get to experience the fierce wonder that I did all those months ago. Get ready, dear reader. You’re in for a ride.

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Laura van den Berg: The Hive and the Honey is your third story collection, and I’m curious to learn more about how time has shifted your approach to the form. Were there different possibilities you wanted to explore in these stories?

Paul Yoon: I think in some ways my approach to building a story collection has remained the same since my first one: the project is one canvas, one book—I see a trajectory from the first story to the middle to the last; I want to build a world, and I want, hopefully, the reader to feel a sense of tremendous accumulation. I think what’s changed over the years is my attempt at adding as many layers as I can on to that canvas, whether that involves situations, history, characters.

I’m less interested these days in writing from, say a point A to a point B—even though admittedly I write a lot of journey narratives!—but more how can I write vertically; how can I make something rich with layers. And that’s something I think about not only for an entire book of stories but for each story in that book.

LVDB: That’s a beautiful answer; I love that idea of layers on a canvas. And it’s true that you seem to be drawn to journey narratives! What attracts you to that form?

PY: Maybe it’s because I moved around a lot when I was growing up. It felt like my family and I were never in one place for more than a few years. Life always felt like it was in motion, and also I never felt like I was able to settle anywhere. I grew up restless. Probably I still am.

We moved around a lot, too, when we were first starting to write. Always following the money and these temporary jobs. I don’t know if regret is the right word, but I look back on that and think it was crazy—I would personally never do that again. I value knowing we have a home base these days, that we’re rooted somewhere.

LVDB: Yes, I love that feeling of being rooted. It didn’t used to matter to me, but with time that feeling has become more important.

PY: But I also think I was drawn to a lot of art that depicted journeys or travels. Those were the kinds of paintings I loved the most when I was young and would visit museums; those were the movies I loved—with travelers, adventurers, searchers. Then, later, it was those books. Bruce Chatwin. Rebecca West. John Berger’s Into Their Labors trilogy. Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion. All those vast canvases filled with people who came from somewhere else and were always on the move in some way and were trying to find a place to fit in.

Except of course I don’t write huge books, though my hope is—I hope!—even a short story of mine feels vast. How about you? You’ve got three collections yourself. Has the process of writing a story collection changed at all over the years? (Where are you by the way? I’m downstairs on the couch and I don’t know where you are…)

LVDB: I’m upstairs in my office! One thing that’s funny about our house, as you know, is that it’s very old, so all the floors are a little tilted. If I don’t keep my feet planted my rolling chair will just kind of start drifting across the floor. It’s a good exercise in posture.

I think a lot about the trajectory of the collection as a whole too, but those concerns come later in the process, after some of the macro-themes and ideas have emerged. Each collection begins, initially, as a reaction to the kinds of stories I’ve written in the past, the feeling that I have gotten a little bored with a particular approach and want to try something new.

PY: Are you working on any stories right now? I realize I don’t know the answer to this. I think we’re pretty open about our works in progress, but on occasion I do think we each have a secret story or project we hold on to and don’t talk about really until just a little later on in the process.

LVDB: I started and abandoned a few stories over the summer, so I’m not working on any at the moment. I worked on two novels for the last three years, and am now seeing one of those books, Florida Diary, through the production process and will turn to revisions on the other before too long. But I do want to start working on stories again sometime this year.

Going back to the overarching architecture of a story collection: I remember that, after you’d written a draft of the collection, you cut a few stories. The stories that remain span some 500 years, and create this sweeping account of the Korean Diaspora. There is a macro-structure at work that takes on a collective power as you move through the collection. What can you tell us about how you put the book together?

PY: I talked a little about this above, so I’ll just say that yes, there were a few stories that didn’t make the cut. I think when I was thinking about this collection as a whole, there were stories I had written that overlapped a little too neatly or too much with each other—theme, historical events, how they moved, the central preoccupations of the characters—so I thought: what if I pulled back a bit, removed some stories from the stage to let the others shine a bit more brightly and strongly? Am I correct that you probably have more stories on the cutting room floor than I do? Is there one in particular that has stayed with you at all?

LVDB: I almost never go back to stories that I cut from collections, or simply decide to not finish in draft form. They seem to slide into some kind of abyss of forgetting. But I do on occasion go back to stories that I really want to write, but maybe I’m just not ready. I’m not yet the person I need to be in order to write the story. Two stories from my last collection, “Last Night” and “Karolina,” would fall into that category. Was there a story in Hive that you almost gave up on, but didn’t?

PY: Oh yeah. I almost gave up on “Komarov” and “Cromer.” “Komarov” is a kind of spy story, and I was attempting to write a short, intense story, but have it be as impactful as an entire life. Juggling this goal while pulling on the espionage strings was tough, for me—it felt like I was, at every sentence, on the tightrope.

I almost gave up on “Cromer” because I hadn’t embraced yet the possibility of a multitude of open-endedness in that story. That the story is, at least for me, about things in life unfolding and progressing infinitely, with no answers.

LVDB: What helped you to figure out what you needed to figure out for those two stories? Was it just a matter of staying with them and giving the drafts time?

PY: Time. Absolutely. They needed time away from me. Or I needed time away from them. I write two ways. In my head and then on paper or on the screen. But I always need to go back to the first way with every project and that involves some stepping away and waiting to find a way to see the thing differently, at a different angle.

I also think what you mentioned above is equally important: this idea about not yet being the person you need to be. I think that’s true even on a smaller scale—something happens a day later or a week later or a month later and it alters you slightly. And maybe that change helps you step back into to a project, to get back to the physical work.

LVDB: When we first got together we were in an apartment so minuscule that we worked at the same tiny table. Somehow we survived! I think over time I’ve become less flexible in my work habits. I used to be able to write in crowded cafes, subways, wherever. Now I really feel that I need a quiet room and a door that closes. How have your work habits changed over time?

PY: I think eventually I used a small desk, but the apartment was so small we could still reach out and touch each other! Those were the days! I love how “in it” we were. I felt like I could write endlessly—which I don’t feel anymore. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I’m more selective with the projects I chose to dive into.

In terms of work habits, I think over the time we’ve actually switched roles a little. I’ve gotten more loose in that way. It helps that in the past nine years we’ve had a high energy, bright, alert, responsive dog who doesn’t really give a shit about our writing. So I’ve learned to roll with Oscar. And find more humor and other joys in life because of him, too. For the past two or three books I was mostly on the couch, writing little bits with him beside me, until he woke up hungry and bored, but I also wrote on airplanes, trains.

LVDB: It is true that we live to serve Oscar, who makes life 500% more fun. And also I see your answer brings us back to journeys. I wanted to ask about reading, a different kind of journey. Some of these stories are historical. What kind of research did you do? Were there any texts or sources that you consulted that were particularly formative?

PY: I read two books long before I knew this book was a project, ones that blew open doors for me. The first is a book by Alyssa Park called Sovereignty Experiments which deals with Korean migrants in Northeast Asia in the late nineteenth century and beyond; the second is a book by Constantine Nomikos Vaporis called Tour of Duty which describes how daimyo, or feudal lords, were required to spend time in the capital city of Edo with their samurai retainers.

I love the hyper-specificity of both books. It’s like they were both showing me a very focused, detailed, strange corner of a house I wanted to explore but didn’t know how to yet. And staying in that corner for a long time with these narratives really brought out a way for me to build really focused worlds that, I hope, speak to that greater house.

Oftentimes, I find that it’s not that I’m researching something to see a story through, but the opposite: I find the story through research—that is, I don’t know if I can call it research? I’m just blindly reading things that I find interesting and sometimes something in there will take hold and not let me go and that’s when I know it’s time for me to respond to it—I suppose it’s not only that I’m inspired but it’s kind of like falling in love a little with some aspect of history and wanting to respond to it.

I think I fell in love a little with a settlement of Korean migrants in the late 1800s, in the Far East, as well as the long journey of samurai heading on foot toward the capital. Those became the jumping off points to create.

Do you read while you’re working on a project? I think I’ll always value above all our ability to talk to each other about what we’re reading. Like if I never write another book again—which I can live with—I know I’ll always be a reader first and foremost, and that I’ll always have you to talk to about the books I read.

LVDB: Oh yes, that long, ever-shifting conversation about books is one of the very best things. I read so much when I’m working on a project—in all directions. For instruction on a craft level; research; energy and inspiration. If my reading life is not exciting it shows up in the work before too long. And what a lucky feeling to be able to look up from a passage that has just, like, destroyed you and to be able to call out to another person Hey come look at this….

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The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon is available via S&S/Marysue Rucci Books.