r.f. kuang

Best moment of Katabasis so far is when they meet the cohort of dead students who voluntarily stay in Hell when they don't have to, because they'd rather stay charred ghosts if they're the charred ghosts of prestigious Oxbridge attendees rather than risk reincarnation as a farmer or laborer . That bit is C.S. Lewis-worthy.

I could fill up pages and pages with things I’ve learned about outlining from Jeanne Cavelos and Kij Johnson. I think one rule of thumb I always come back to is this: at each bullet point of the outline, make sure your main character is doing something. Each stage must be the direct result of the protagonist’s choice, whether or not they are... See more

Before Odyssey, I gave myself just one hard and fast rule: write 2,000 words a day, every day, no matter how bad they are. (To be fair, I was on a work schedule where I could make time to do this, whereas now I count myself lucky if I can squeeze 1,000 words in on a good day.) I’d never taken a creative writing class before, so had absolutely no... See more

Kuang seems to be someone who sees the beauty in the madness and thrives while working with a jumble of ideas and straightening them out as she goes. “My writing process is so messy and chaotic that I can’t really in good faith give it as advice. It also keeps changing from book to book but what stays the same is that it all has to originate from a... See more

I think another idiosyncrasy I have that helps with writing satisfying third acts is that I always think of the ending before I come up with anything else. I can’t write from an outline and I don’t like doing too much planning, but the reason why I can “pants” my way to a coherent story is that I always have a clear end point in mind—I know where... See more

I think I’m really funny! Am I not funny?

I’m not particularly drawn to writing about darkness. Writing about tragedy and trauma for the sake of tragedy and trauma makes me feel icky. It feels voyeuristic—sensationalist, is the word? Trauma as spectacle? I try not to do that. I’m just interested in stories about a range of topics that happen to... See more

In any case, I do feel a lot freer to do whatever I want now that I’m moving on to a completely new project. There’s no baggage. I have no foreshadowed promises to deliver on. Do you know how much it sucks to be tied to finishing story lines that a teenager came up with? My nineteen-year-old self was a terrible coauthor.