The Chinese Drama Twist: 7 Techniques to Captivate Readers With Long Form Fiction

In 2018, I sat down to watch my first Chinese drama.

“Rise of the Phoenixes” blew me away with epic action, scheming political dealings, and a remarkable romantic arc with an unforgettable ending. It changed the way I thought about writing fiction forever.

Since then, I’ve seen dozens more.

From the silly, to the fantastical; sappy modern day romances, to fantasy battles among the heavens, elements of the genre are now common in my stories.

In this video, I share the most impactful ones with you.

I’ve also created a supplement to go with it.

The “29-Hidden Techniques of Chinese Drama Checklist” includes 29 items to help you successfully integrate these 7 techniques into your next story.

(Members have instant access to the checklist. Hit the button below.)

Video Transcript:

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All right,

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hey there,

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it's Keith Hayden and I'm back with another quick video to help you improve your

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fiction writing by talking about Chinese dramas.

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Now maybe this is a genre of storytelling that you haven't really heard much about or maybe you've

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seen something online about it but it's not something that I've seen a lot of

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authors talk about because frankly they don't have enough experience to talk about

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it but I myself have watched over four dozen Chinese dramas full Chinese dramas

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like all the way through I watch them a lot

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And in that time,

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I've learned a ton about storytelling,

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and I've picked up a ton of tips that I've boiled down to really the top seven that

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I see that they do really well.

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They tend to do well in Chinese dramas that in Western fiction,

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I don't see a lot,

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and it kind of conflicts with...

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what I grew up reading and watching and then what I used to write.

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Now I've gotten better at implementing some of the things I've learned into my own

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stories but I want you to be able to do that and that's why I'm going to go through

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this checklist today.

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Speaking of checklist, I've created a little resource to go along with this video.

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It's a 29 item checklist that breaks down each of these seven lessons into sub items.

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So when you're writing your novel or your long story,

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this is really meant for longer fiction,

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but you can use it,

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of course,

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if you're writing short stories or if you're writing micro fiction,

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but it's really meant for novels.

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But when you're writing that story,

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you can go through and make sure that you've done these things when you're in the

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editing process to make your story even stronger and more memorable.

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Also,

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don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you like more stuff about writing,

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fiction,

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publishing,

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just creativity in general,

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just kind of a creative guy.

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So subscribe if you want to.

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With that, let's get into this list.

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So the first thing that I say is mix up your motivations.

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And what do I mean by this?

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When I wrote this, I was thinking of when it comes to character motivations.

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In a lot of Western media, the dominant motivation tends to be the characters fight for freedom.

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And I'm a Texas boy myself, so I understand that notion and I understand that motivation.

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And I feel like down from freedom is mobility, social mobility.

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There's also status sometimes.

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And there tends to be the bad guy just has a lot of power and he's taking away

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power from other people and that needs to be balanced.

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That's a lot of Western media.

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Not all, of course, but I'm generalizing here.

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In Chinese dramas, they tend to be a little bit more diverse when it comes to character motivations.

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So maybe the character is motivated by status,

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or maybe they're motivated by money,

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or maybe they're motivated by just,

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they just like adventure,

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or they like the thrill of the fight.

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These motivations,

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of course,

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change throughout the story,

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but this is just something to keep in mind,

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that it's important to mix things up,

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and it makes it a lot more interesting when even the characters that are on the

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same side have different motivations,

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and then seeing how those motivations conflict,

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maybe he cares about love,

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and all she cares about is getting a better job,

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but they're married.

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That might be something interesting to explore.

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And then find ways to play with those motivations.

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How do they come in conflict with each other?

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How do they change as the story moves on?

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This is something to definitely keep track of that you can steal from Chinese

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dramas into your own stories.

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Next thing is always make it personal.

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You've got to always,

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always,

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whatever your antagonist is or whatever conflict that your character is coming up with,

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up against,

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you have to make it personal.

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I don't care if it's a rainy day.

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It might be God just raining down on them and making them have a bad day, something like that.

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But I see this in Chinese dramas where a big part of the story is that it's the character's fate.

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It's a very common Chinese drama trope to where they're fighting against fate and...

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but it's not just this kind of nameless destiny the destiny will often take

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physical forms maybe it's a god that comes down from the the heavenly realm this is

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a very common chinese drama trope if you watch chinese dramas you know what i'm

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talking about when they come down in human form and then they test the hero and

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they put them through all these different trials and things like that and then the

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hero kind of has to do that and in that way they challenge fate in that way so

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Get creative with how you embody your obstacles and always make it personal.

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You've got to make them their brother, their mother.

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I mean, these are the relationships that we fight for in real life, in your real life.

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You probably have parents or guardians.

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Maybe you have a brother or sister or you have a best friend that you would lay down your life for.

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Without that,

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it's really difficult to get readers invested in your story because they're like,

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what are the stakes here?

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Like, what are we fighting for?

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But when it's personal, there's always a reason to fight.

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So keep that in mind.

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The next one is create interesting social graphs.

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And this is something that Chinese dramas are so strong at doing.

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And I'm always like, and you can definitely take this too far, right?

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To where it's his mother's stepbrother, but she was in love with his younger brother.

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And now, but they're both in different warring nations or different countries.

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rival schools or something like that it gets really dicey to where you just you're

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trying to put it in your head and it's really hard to figure out okay what what's

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the what's going on here point is you don't have to get that fancy with it but you

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should move beyond the standard okay mom dad the brother sister this is a common

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setup in a lot of western fiction and maybe there's a step parent or step brother

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or something but it

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typically doesn't go beyond that it's usually pretty linear like family tree and

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that's just not as interesting as when you see these different social lines cross

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or these different backgrounds or just these different types of relationships that

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really spice things up so

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Get creative with your social graphs throw some other people in the mix And if you

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need some help for ideas go on my website Keith Hayden net I'll put a link in the

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description of this video And I've got my story generator that can come up with

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different Jobs occupations just different people and characters just to spin up

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some ideas The next one is even friends fight and I put I put it this way because I

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I was recently reading something to where if they were family or if they were

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aligned ideologically,

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they never really had any conflict.

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And that's just not... One, it's not realistic.

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I mean, maybe... I'm sure you fought with your brother, your sister, your mom, your dad for something.

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Sometimes it's a little thing.

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It's completely insignificant.

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Sometimes it's a big deal.

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but we have to show that conflict in our stories you definitely should because one

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it's realistic two it's just always interesting at least it always gets my

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attention when in a story when two people who shouldn't be fighting start fighting

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it's just nobody likes that nobody likes to see a brother against a brother or a

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sister against a sister or two best friends

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going at it.

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Nobody really likes to see that in real life or in fiction.

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It's always going to get people's attention.

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Of course, just like all of these things, got to use them in moderation.

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A whole story can't just be all arguments,

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but there should be disagreements that make sense with the plot of your story.

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Chinese dramas are great at this.

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They do it all the time.

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In fact, they will just string these together to where

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the the family members will be on different sides and then the circumstances of the

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plot will shift them around to where okay this time he's got this point of view now

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she's got this point of view and what do we do but we don't agree on something so

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sometimes it's just an argument other times it's an actual fight keep that in mind

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The next thing is slow down,

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and this goes against a lot of...

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I've been reading a lot of writing craft books and storytelling craft books,

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and a lot of Western thinking when it comes to mainstream popular media is that

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backstory is bad.

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Spending too much time in the character's head or talking about the past,

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talking about things that don't move the plot forward is a generally bad thing

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because it takes the reader out of the story,

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it slows down,

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all that stuff.

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Part of me understands this because you can definitely go crazy with backstory to

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where it just feels jarring and it doesn't fit with the circumstances of the story.

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But at the same time, I really like backstory.

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Growing up,

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I played a lot of Japanese role-playing games,

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and I would always look forward to the points in the story where they stopped and explained,

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okay,

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who is this hero we're playing as,

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or who is this bad guy that we're fighting against,

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or anything like that,

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because it does add texture to the story,

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and it really catches you up as a player and as someone experiencing that story.

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point is in chinese dramas they dedicate a lot of time sometimes whole episodes to

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backstory and in a 45 minute show that's a lot of backstory but the way they do it

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is is is what makes it memorable and what makes it keep the story flowing without

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bringing it to a standstill how do we do this in fiction

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Well, my thinking is you can, I do it in a couple of different ways.

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One, you can just change the POV.

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So if your POV has been your main heroine for most of the book,

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change it to her brother or a secondary character or even the antagonist.

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And what's that relationship like?

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Why are they fighting against each other?

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That's always interesting to me,

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especially if it's done later in the book when we've already seen them clashing.

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Another way you can do it is just totally break the formula of your story.

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I did this one time in my first novel series in Lemnick.

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I had one chapter where it was just the POV was from a dog's perspective.

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And of course, there was no dogs that were the main heroes.

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And that was how I introduced another character.

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It was a shorter chapter, but it was a metaphor for this character that I was going to introduce.

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So that's another way.

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Just completely out of nowhere, just change it up.

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Just do something random to the reader, but of course have it relevant to the story.

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And the other way is just to go full flashback.

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Make the whole... There's several ways to do flashbacks.

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You can make it a dream.

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You can make it the character in an interesting situation,

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but where they have time to think,

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of course,

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where they would actually be flashing back.

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But...

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where they have time to actually slow down.

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Point is,

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you should put backstory in there,

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and it's one of those things that I...

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I conflict with myself as a writer because I understand,

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you know,

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growing up in the United States,

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I understand the need to keep the plot moving,

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and I definitely like a fast-moving story,

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but at the same time,

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backstory is so important,

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and I like writing backstory,

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and I like...

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taking chances and risks with the backstory so keep that in mind.

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Next one is blend genres and this is something that I didn't come to appreciate

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about Chinese dramas until a couple years after I had been watching them but

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It's very common for a Chinese drama to be labeled as a comedy or as an action or as an adventure show.

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And then five episodes in, it's a romance or it turns into a serious maneuvering political drama.

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Now,

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of course,

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there's things about expectations and audience,

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and this is the Western mentality of,

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well,

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you've got to honor your audience,

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and you've got to make sure that if they're looking for a women's romance,

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then it should be women's romance 80% of the way through.

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Don't throw a gunfight in there or something like that.

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I understand that, and that definitely helps tell a tight story, but

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exploring different genres and throwing other elements in there and not just,

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you know,

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one off or something like you throw a gun in there and now it's a crime or

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something like that.

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I'm not talking about that.

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I'm talking about like you dedicate a significant amount of time to adding other genres in there.

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I think that can be a good thing if it's well done.

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It's easy to overdo it.

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It's easy to screw this up.

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It takes a little bit more experience.

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But the point is, this is something that is common in Chinese drama as to where it will shift.

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But the point, the goal is less on staying in the genre lane and more in staying in the story lane.

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So if the story calls for action, then there's going to be action.

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But if it calls for romance, now it's got the romance in there.

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Point is, don't be afraid to dedicate significant parts of your story to different genres.

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Experiment.

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Have fun.

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Last thing is to exaggerate,

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and this is something that I really enjoy about Chinese dramas because they will

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take the most mundane scene and they will make it into a big deal with certain

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camera angles and sound effects and whooshes and whoosh,

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you know,

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they'll just zoom in on somebody's face or something like that.

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Of course,

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you can't do this in fiction because you don't have the visual,

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but you can what I call control the camera by describing certain camera angles.

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The way I think of it is setting a stage in my mind.

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I used to do theater when I was in high school,

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so that's where I learned about blocking and stagecraft and presence and all these

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different things.

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And I bring that to my fiction because I definitely think of,

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okay,

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where am I placing these people in space?

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I'm not just randomly putting people, he was over here, she was there.

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No, I'm placing them in a room.

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He's sitting down, she's standing up.

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He's in bed, she's at the table.

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That type of thing.

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Think about that as you're going,

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because when you set that stage in your mind,

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it allows you to have a sort of camera with your words and control where the

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reader's eye is directed.

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And I think you can do that with exaggerations.

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You can also do that with metaphors and similes as well.

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You can definitely ramp things up by using certain metaphors where it still fits

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with the scenario,

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but it's taking things to a level that you're like,

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OK,

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this is a little bit.

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crazy and beyond and i know i tend to exaggerate things in real life and that

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definitely helps me with fiction because i i can exaggerate things on the page as

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well

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So that's the end of the list.

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As I mentioned at the beginning of this video, there's a 29-item checklist that you can check out.

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The link is in the description,

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and hopefully that helps you stay on track with your story and add some of these

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things in.

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As I mentioned before, use all of these in moderation.

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You should definitely not go through and exaggerate your whole story or have your

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whole story be flashback.

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You know that, but...

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These are tools that you can use that I don't think are very well known in the

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Western world because I don't think a lot of Westerners watch as many Chinese

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dramas as I do,

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or maybe they're not as familiar with the genre.

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And speaking of that, I...

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encourage you to check out a chinese drama most of the ones that i watch i watch

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either through youtube or amazon prime they're not very difficult to access they

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have subtitles and they're just a lot of fun they're just a really fun genre so

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thanks for watching this video hope you enjoyed it hope it was helpful and make

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sure to subscribe and like the video if you thought it was helpful i'll see in the

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next one bye