Have you ever read a fantasy novel that contains real life lessons? ‘Wizard Bakery’, written by Ku Byeong-mo, is that exact book. Her work, which gave enlightenment to youths as well as adults, became a big hit, and she recently came back with another sensational novel called ‘Pagua’. Aren’t you curious about why she started to write novels and what she values the most when she’s writing? To find those answers, the CBT reporters interviewed this amazing author. - Ed.
 

 
▶ The dream and the life of being a novelist
  As I look back, I think I was 12 when I thought if I should be a novelist in the future. However, making up imaginary stories was way before that. When I imagined, my imaginary stories would continue to pile up as I wrote them down on a piece of paper. Then, when I was 12, I decided to become a writer because I thought it would be a waste if I threw out what I’d written that far. Since then, my dream as a novelist continued as I grew up. I chose to be a novelist because I didn’t know I could write anything else but novels. These days, there are a variety of genres, such as scenarios, dramas, cartoons etc. to write about. However, when I was young, a thing that a ten-year-old kid could easily buy with pocket money was a thin pirated book from Japan. At that time, a lot of pirated products came to Korea easily. 1,800 won worth of cheaply pirated novels for children was the easiest genre that we could find. Therefore, there wasn’t any special reason why I chose novels; it was because I didn’t know there was any other genre I could write besides that.
  Actually, I didn’t really have any expectations of becoming a novelist. People around me used to tell me and worry that I would starve to death if I lived as a novelist. Even now, there isn’t a big difference for me to see that life as a writer isn’t really beautiful. As I wrote, I felt more like I was desperate and clingy about writing instead of having fun and dreamy positive thoughts. Normally, unlike other jobs where you belong to a group and work together, being a writer, a lot of the time you work all by yourself. Since it’s mostly a battle with myself, I will definitely hit a slump someday. However, because it has been only 13 years since I became a writer, if I fall into a slump anytime soon, it will be around now.
 
▶ 3 things to keep in mind to write good novels
  When you write, how you are going to lay out the story is very important. To do that, you have to beware of a few things. A lot of people think that if you come up with an interesting and unique idea, it will become a novel right away. If you write whenever there’s good material in your head, it would cause a situation where there would be multiple novels written every day. Even if an idea pops up, it’s very uncommon for a writer to write a novel about it immediately. Let’s assume that there are 100 ideas. If that happens, throw out 90 ideas and shape up the 10 remaining ideas. After that, if you filter out the leftover ideas, only one will remain. It is important for writers to find an interesting topic to write about, but it’s more important how the writer sees the topic and how they will write about it. In other words, ideas aren’t everything when it comes to writing a novel; it’s just a part of the whole.
  If you chose your writing material and decided the outline of your story, you need to think from which point of view you are going to tell the story. Viewpoint is very important when it comes to novels because it influences the story’s atmosphere greatly. In my case, I sketch the storyline first and then decide if it’s better to tell the story from my point of view or from the others. I’ll give you some examples from my novels. In the novel ‘Gill(Agami)’, I thought an omniscient viewpoint wasn’t a good point of view in this story because it’s narrated by multiple characters and not by the author. However, in the novel ‘Pygmalion’s Children’, it is written from an omniscient viewpoint. I chose that viewpoint because I needed a narration that could explain everything in every detail about how people in society bring themselves into uniformity as they grow up.
  Lastly, to deliver the story well, I focus on how well I portrayed my characters in the novel. To specifically describe a character, you need to gather up all the information that you can obtain. For example, if I have to describe about the character’s job, I gain information from the books that are about the job. I tend to read the books that are written by a person who is currently working in that profession because it tells you about the job and the job experiences more vividly. However, until you experience the job, you will never be able to fully grasp what the environment of the workplace is like. Therefore, for the parts that are lacking, writers use their imagination to fill in the blanks.
 
▶ Message to the readers 
  There are many fields and genres in books. People around us suggest that people should read various books, but people don’t read them. People who are interested in books should read voluntarily, without any encouragement. For example, someone who wants to be a writer of mystery books can be a good writer if someone piles up and reads mystery books such as Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle. However, some readers might have some questions while they read. Some people might be interested in the social backgrounds and ask, “Why was this person killed?” or “How has the person been murdered?” To solve these questions, you will naturally read books that are based on society, economics, humanity, and so on. If this process continues, the possibility to become a good writer of mystery books will increase.
  After reading the whole book, there are many people who can’t remember anything about the book. I think it wasn’t meaningful if you can’t remember about it. But don’t feel bad even if you can’t remember all the contents. Since there are numerous books that exist in the world, if there’s a book you really like, you will remember it no matter what. I think you don’t need any special tips like how to read effectively. If you meet a book that hits your soul, you will take it with you all year round or read it out loud or copy all the pages. In my case, I underline sentences and stick many post-its as I read. I know those are not effective, but I just want to leave some traces in it.
  These days, I heard so many times that people rarely read books because smartphones are more convenient to read than books. However, I think this is your choice, because there are bound to be people who read and others who don’t. Before we used smart phones, if we asked children, “Do you want to read a book?” or “Do you want to play a game?” all of them will want to play a game, so I won’t judge this trend because there will be people who enjoy reading books no matter what. Therefore, I think there is nothing to worry about it.
 

By Heo Jae-rin / jr34@cbnu.ac.kr
By Ko So-young / sy35@cbnu.ac.kr