Paul H.B. Shin‘s debut novel Half Life follows a career as an award-winning journalist for more than 20 years, most recently for ABC News. He was previously a reporter and editor for the New York Daily News. He was born in South Korea and lived in London during his childhood. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
What made you decide to be an author?
My family lived in England for about seven years when I was a child due to my father’s job. And I think moving back and forth between the U.K. and Korea at a very impressionable age made me very inquisitive about what makes people tick and why certain cultures are the way they are. That’s probably at the root of what made me want to become a writer. In terms of a more direct influence, the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn played a pivotal role in me wanting to become a writer — specifically his novella called “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” It’s about a prisoner in a gulag. The ending just blew me away. It gave me new appreciation for what words could do to move the reader.
Do you outline or fly by the seat of your pants?
I use an outline. It took me more than 10 years to research and write the story — in part because I was writing the novel while also working a full-time job. As a way to keep myself on track during that time, I created a relatively detailed outline that hit the major plot points of the story. And occasionally, as I fleshed out the narrative and the characters, I would go back and tweak the outline accordingly.
What non-crime books do you enjoy reading?
I find that I’m reading more and more nonfiction lately. A book that I enjoyed recently was a book about freediving called Deep by James Nestor. I’m currently enjoying a book called Forgotten by Linda Hervieux about the untold story of African-American soldiers in World War II. When I’m looking for inspiration for beautiful language, I’ll read poetry. I’m a fan of the works of W. S. Merwin and the transcendentalists like Longfellow. And my guilty pleasure is science fiction. Andy Weir’s The Martian was an incredibly fun read.
How do you handle rejection or bad reviews?
Because the history of literature is full of anecdotes of now-famous authors who endured years of rejection, I had steeled myself for the very likely possibility that I would get rejection letter after rejection letter. So when it actually happened, it wasn’t that big of a disappointment.
Also, having worked as a journalist for more than two decades, I’ve learned not to take it personally when someone edits my copy or asks me to rewrite it. That’s just part of the process. Writers who aren’t used to the editing process sometimes get upset when someone edits their words. But having a knowledgeable reader give you input is invaluable.
As for bad reviews, I think you have to accept that not everyone is going to like your work, even if you have confidence that it’s good. You have to do your best to connect deeply with the most important reader of all for any writer — which is yourself. If you can do that, then I think chances are you will also connect deeply with other readers.
What advice would you give to beginning writers?
Don’t wait for inspiration to strike you to write. Set aside a time every day when you can write uninterrupted, even if it’s only 30 minutes. You won’t be very happy with the results at first, but that’s a good thing, because that just means you have good taste, as Ira Glass, the creator of the radio program This American Life, once said about the creative process.
The more you write, the more you will narrow the gap between your good taste and the quality of your own writing. Also, one of the most important lessons I learned while writing Half Life is how important it is to keep up the momentum, especially the first draft. For me, I started making real progress when I focused on getting words down on the page without re-editing those words over and over again. There’s a saying that perfect is the enemy of good. I’ve found this to be very true when it comes to that first draft.
Very cool, Paul!