I’ve finished the crap draft rough draft of my historical fiction set in feudal Korea (the Joseon Dynasty, 1800). I haven’t felt so enchanted and so lost in a world for quite some time, as I’ve spent years working on Night Flower, which has come to feel more like an essay I really enjoy revising.
Also, because it’s been a while since I fell ‘head over heels’ in love with a story since Night Flower, at first I was worried this story wouldn’t work out like the two other novels I attempted to write (the first one I finished drafting but didn’t like. The second one I couldn’t get past the outlining stage). But with this WIP, my gut is telling me that I’ve found The Story. The positive signs:
- I finished the draft and still feel good about it.
- I am in love with the history. And this is so crucial for me. Research is what inspires much of my plot and character development.
- I wake up in the middle of the night with new plot ideas.
- I have an ending for this story that I like.
- I have a
thesistheme for this story that I want to further explore. - I can’t stop talking about this story.
Now that I have the bare, bare bones of the story set in place, it’s time to return to the first chapter and actually make this story readable. The challenges I’ve faced so far while writing this (and will continue to face) is the lack of resources. I mean, there’s tons of great books on Joseon Korea at my university libraries. But it’s not much compared to the massive resource available if I were to write another novel set in England. Also, certain materials I need for my novel (i.e. primary sources) have yet to be translated into English, so a good deal of my time is spent translating the Korean into English. It’s laborious, but it’s paying off.
I’m just having so much fun with this story.
Anyway, I wanted to share an excerpt from chapter one. But before I do, here’s a brief summary of the story (which, if you follow me on facebook, you’ve already read):
Seol, a seventeen-year-old slave girl in 19th century Korea, must assist Inspector Han when a Catholic woman is found dead with a strange symbol carved into her face. Together, they traverse from mud-covered alleys to exquisite mansions in search of a brutal killer.
Chapter One
The dirt road outside the Eastern Palace usually clamored with life: women crowding the fish stalls, farmers carrying their produce, scholars with their silk robes, monks and traveling merchants. And there would always be a mob of children, faces burnt and glistening in the sticky heat, chasing after their rivals. But for the past few days the capital lay still under the heavy pall of silence, the entire kingdom mourning the king’s death.
“Feels like a ghost village…” My voice resounded, then silence returned, intensified by the rain pitter-pattering against black tiled roofs. I lowered the satgat over my face, a straw hat pointed at the top and wide at the brims, allowing the rain to dribble off. “What a strange and eerie day.”
“And the days will become stranger yet,” Officer Sunwou said. “They say that when King Chŏngjo died, an astonishing phenomena occurred.”
“What happened?”
“The rays of sunlight collided and burst into sparks, like fireworks. Then there came a terrible noise of weeping from Mount Samgak. It was a bad omen.” He eyed our grey surrounding as he adjusted his sash belt, worn around his black robe. “The old order has passed, and the new will come with a river of blood. From what I hear,” his voice lowered into a whisper, “the king was assassinated.”
I quickened my step to walk alongside him. “Assassinated?”
“By fatal poisoning.”
“Not from an illness?”
“Perhaps from an illness. But others say Sim Hwanji poisoned the king.”
“Who’s that?”
A sharp laugh escaped him. “You don’t know? How can you not!” He peered down at me, arching a thick and youthful brow. “Everyone knows. He’s the prime minister, the leader of the Old Doctrine’s Principle Faction.”
Old Doctrine, Principle. There were four major factional groupings, usually referred to as the four colors, but after the murder of the Crown Prince Sado in 1762, the established party lines had further split into sub-factions. Biting my lower lip, I frowned then offered a guess. “They’re the King’s rival faction, aren’t they?”
He snorted but remained silent, so I assumed that I was right. “Why would they poison the king. If the rumor is true, that is. What does the prime minister want?”
“Such a child you are. What’s the one thing everyone in the palace wants? To stabilize their shaky power.” He clucked his tongue and waved me away. “What use is it for a slave to know such things? And I’ve told you many times, a woman shouldn’t talk so much.”
Obediently, I retreated and followed in his shadow. He was right, of course. Among the seven sins a woman could commit, one was talking excessively. A man could even divorce his wife because of her chattiness.
I blamed my brother for this sin of mine, this longing to understand the world, to collect as much information as I could from the learned. For here in the capital, the scholars were not generous like Older Brother; no, they were self-willed, their knowledge like stubborn fishes, which when you seek to catch, will strike back at you.
“You there.”
I looked ahead. Investigator Han stood in the near distance, watching me from beneath the wide brim of his hat, the string of beads that strapped his chin trembling in the gust of rain. Behind him were two officers, the coroner’s assistant, and the clerks. The police artist was busily sketching something. As I hurried towards the Inspector, two officers spoke somewhere behind me:
“Found by a watchman.”
“When?”
“He was patrolling the West Gate, and at the end of his watch, there she was.”
I gathered my hands before me and bowed to Inspector Han, deeper than was necessary. He was to me the great spotted leopard from my village: the speedy and well-muscled hunter who excelled at climbing and jumping, and in slipping silently through the grass with scarcely a ripple.
“You called for me, nauri,” I said, addressing him by his honorific.
“Have a look at her.”
He was gesturing at a lump a few paces away. I walked towards the shadow of the weather-beaten fortress wall that enclosed Hanyang, the capital of Joseon, then clenched my teeth as my stomach turned to water. It was a woman. She lay sprawled, her face on the ground. A noblewoman by her dress and jacket, made of a closely-woven ramie cloth, beautifully patterned.
“Flip her around,” the Inspector ordered. “We have yet to see her wound.”
I stepped over the corpse, crouched, and grabbed her shoulder. This was why the Capital Police Bureau kept female slaves like me: I was an extension of police-officers, my hands used by them to arrest female criminals and to examine female victims. An inconvenience, but gentlemen were forbidden from touching women who were not directly related to them. It was the law, Confucius’ law.
[To be continued…]
June Hur 