Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.
Today’s guest for the WHAT is Gloria Chao the critically acclaimed author of American Panda, Our Wayward Fate, and Rent a Boyfriend (Nov 10, 2020). Her wayward journey to fiction included studying business at MIT, then becoming a dentist. Gloria was once a black belt in kung-fu and an avid dancer, but nowadays you can find her teaming up with her husband on the curling ice.
Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?
For Rent a Boyfriend (out November 10, 2020), there was a clear origin point. When I learned that women in some Asian countries can feel so much familial pressure to bring home the ideal spouse that they hire fake boyfriends, my gut response was, I get it. As a Taiwanese American with traditional parents, I understood that pressure. I found myself wondering how a rental boyfriend would work and what it was like for both sides, and I decided to explore it. I brought the practice to America and created a company, Rent for Your ’Rents, that specializes in training fake significant others.
Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?
Because I wanted to explore what life was like for a Rent for Your ’Rents operative as well as for a client, this book had to be dual point of view. I also wanted the protagonist/client, Chloe, to fall for the operative, but the real person behind the role, not the persona her parents get to know. And real Drew is not someone Chloe’s parents would approve of.
From there, I worked backward to figure out who Chloe and Drew are. Chloe needed a reason for hiring Drew. Enter Hongbo, the rich, misogynist flagship bachelor of Chloe’s tightknit Asian community. I drew upon my own experiences to create the Asian community that put miànzi/reputation above all else, even their daughter’s happiness. And for Drew, I wanted him and Chloe to understand each other but to be at different points on the journey: Drew has dropped out of college to pursue art and is now estranged from his family because of that choice, and Chloe is still trying to find a way to appease her parents.
Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?
For all three of my books, I draft with only the big points planned out, and those did not change. However, the path to those points has taken some very surprising (and very fun!) turns. My favorite part of drafting is when you come up with an idea that ties everything together and you suddenly can’t type fast enough.
For Rent a Boyfriend, there’s a big showdown scene that happens in the middle of the book that came to me as I was drafting, and I was worried it was too out there (I remember texting a writer friend and asking her if it was too much), but it became the scene that most of my early readers brought up to me as a memorable, powerful moment.
Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?
When I first started writing, story ideas felt elusive and hard to come by. Now, I have more ideas and it’s getting harder to choose what to focus on next. My debut novel, American Panda, was very much inspired by my experiences and almost everything in that book is from my life or from the life of someone I know. Because of that, coming up with new ideas felt more difficult.
With Our Wayward Fate and Rent a Boyfriend, I finally found the balance of drawing from my own experiences while also having more freedom of story. Once that happened, the ideas started coming easier. I have a notebook I write all my story ideas in that was gifted to me by my husband on our third wedding anniversary (leather anniversary!) soon after I first switched careers from dentist to writer. He wrote inside the front cover that he believed my books would sell and that I would need the notebook for all the books that were to come. I remember not believing him at the time, and the notebook is a wonderful reminder of how far I’ve come from there.
How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?
I talk to my agent about strategizing with my overall career, but at the end of the day, I usually go with the idea I’m most passionate about. I never write for the market, but I do think about which ideas are better follow-ups to my previous books. In general, most of my work fits under the umbrella of Asian American protagonists struggling with their identity, trying to find love, and working through complicated family dynamics. And with humor!
I have 5 cats and one Dalmatian puppy (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?
I don’t have a writing buddy, but I have some knick-knacks I like to keep on my desk! This little plastic panda was a gift from my brother, and he sits on top of my computer screen. The enamel pins of a panda drinking boba and a soup dumpling are from my PitchWars mentee, Susan Lee. The miniature curling rock is because my husband and I are avid curlers! The Author button is from my first NCTE conference.