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# The Chinese Drama Twist: 7 Techniques to Captivate Readers With Long Form Fiction
- URL: https://keithhayden.net/chinese-drama-techniques/
- Published: 2024-06-14T05:21:56.000Z
- Updated: 2024-06-14T05:25:14.000Z
- Description: Unlock the Secrets of Eastern Storytelling to Elevate Your Fiction Writing
- Author: Keith Hayden
- Tags: writing

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/18/bf/18bf29db-1cec-4857-a9dc-e2e94a86d2bf/content/images/2024/06/7-Lessons-From-Chinese-dramas--2--3.png)

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.)

[Access Checklist](https://keithhayden.net/chinese-drama-fiction-checklist/)

## Video Transcript:

(00:00:01):  
All right,

(00:00:01):  
hey there,

(00:00:02):  
it's Keith Hayden and I'm back with another quick video to help you improve your

(00:00:08):  
fiction writing by talking about Chinese dramas.

(00:00:12):  
Now maybe this is a genre of storytelling that you haven't really heard much about or maybe you've

(00:00:18):  
seen something online about it but it's not something that I've seen a lot of

(00:00:23):  
authors talk about because frankly they don't have enough experience to talk about

(00:00:27):  
it but I myself have watched over four dozen Chinese dramas full Chinese dramas

(00:00:35):  
like all the way through I watch them a lot

(00:00:38):  
And in that time,

(00:00:39):  
I've learned a ton about storytelling,

(00:00:41):  
and I've picked up a ton of tips that I've boiled down to really the top seven that

(00:00:47):  
I see that they do really well.

(00:00:50):  
They tend to do well in Chinese dramas that in Western fiction,

(00:00:54):  
I don't see a lot,

(00:00:55):  
and it kind of conflicts with...

(00:00:57):  
what I grew up reading and watching and then what I used to write.

(00:01:01):  
Now I've gotten better at implementing some of the things I've learned into my own

(00:01:05):  
stories but I want you to be able to do that and that's why I'm going to go through

(00:01:09):  
this checklist today.

(00:01:11):  
Speaking of checklist, I've created a little resource to go along with this video.

(00:01:16):  
It's a 29 item checklist that breaks down each of these seven lessons into sub items.

(00:01:21):  
So when you're writing your novel or your long story,

(00:01:26):  
this is really meant for longer fiction,

(00:01:27):  
but you can use it,

(00:01:28):  
of course,

(00:01:28):  
if you're writing short stories or if you're writing micro fiction,

(00:01:30):  
but it's really meant for novels.

(00:01:33):  
But when you're writing that story,

(00:01:34):  
you can go through and make sure that you've done these things when you're in the

(00:01:38):  
editing process to make your story even stronger and more memorable.

(00:01:41):  
Also,

(00:01:42):  
don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you like more stuff about writing,

(00:01:47):  
fiction,

(00:01:47):  
publishing,

(00:01:48):  
just creativity in general,

(00:01:49):  
just kind of a creative guy.

(00:01:51):  
So subscribe if you want to.

(00:01:53):  
With that, let's get into this list.

(00:01:56):  
So the first thing that I say is mix up your motivations.

(00:02:01):  
And what do I mean by this?

(00:02:02):  
When I wrote this, I was thinking of when it comes to character motivations.

(00:02:07):  
In a lot of Western media, the dominant motivation tends to be the characters fight for freedom.

(00:02:14):  
And I'm a Texas boy myself, so I understand that notion and I understand that motivation.

(00:02:20):  
And I feel like down from freedom is mobility, social mobility.

(00:02:26):  
There's also status sometimes.

(00:02:29):  
And there tends to be the bad guy just has a lot of power and he's taking away

(00:02:33):  
power from other people and that needs to be balanced.

(00:02:35):  
That's a lot of Western media.

(00:02:37):  
Not all, of course, but I'm generalizing here.

(00:02:40):  
In Chinese dramas, they tend to be a little bit more diverse when it comes to character motivations.

(00:02:47):  
So maybe the character is motivated by status,

(00:02:51):  
or maybe they're motivated by money,

(00:02:53):  
or maybe they're motivated by just,

(00:02:56):  
they just like adventure,

(00:02:58):  
or they like the thrill of the fight.

(00:03:00):  
These motivations,

(00:03:02):  
of course,

(00:03:02):  
change throughout the story,

(00:03:04):  
but this is just something to keep in mind,

(00:03:07):  
that it's important to mix things up,

(00:03:10):  
and it makes it a lot more interesting when even the characters that are on the

(00:03:14):  
same side have different motivations,

(00:03:17):  
and then seeing how those motivations conflict,

(00:03:20):  
maybe he cares about love,

(00:03:22):  
and all she cares about is getting a better job,

(00:03:25):  
but they're married.

(00:03:27):  
That might be something interesting to explore.

(00:03:29):  
And then find ways to play with those motivations.

(00:03:32):  
How do they come in conflict with each other?

(00:03:34):  
How do they change as the story moves on?

(00:03:36):  
This is something to definitely keep track of that you can steal from Chinese

(00:03:40):  
dramas into your own stories.

(00:03:42):  
Next thing is always make it personal.

(00:03:45):  
You've got to always,

(00:03:47):  
always,

(00:03:48):  
whatever your antagonist is or whatever conflict that your character is coming up with,

(00:03:54):  
up against,

(00:03:54):  
you have to make it personal.

(00:03:56):  
I don't care if it's a rainy day.

(00:03:59):  
It might be God just raining down on them and making them have a bad day, something like that.

(00:04:05):  
But I see this in Chinese dramas where a big part of the story is that it's the character's fate.

(00:04:10):  
It's a very common Chinese drama trope to where they're fighting against fate and...

(00:04:16):  
but it's not just this kind of nameless destiny the destiny will often take

(00:04:21):  
physical forms maybe it's a god that comes down from the the heavenly realm this is

(00:04:26):  
a very common chinese drama trope if you watch chinese dramas you know what i'm

(00:04:29):  
talking about when they come down in human form and then they test the hero and

(00:04:35):  
they put them through all these different trials and things like that and then the

(00:04:37):  
hero kind of has to do that and in that way they challenge fate in that way so

(00:04:42):  
Get creative with how you embody your obstacles and always make it personal.

(00:04:48):  
You've got to make them their brother, their mother.

(00:04:51):  
I mean, these are the relationships that we fight for in real life, in your real life.

(00:04:57):  
You probably have parents or guardians.

(00:04:59):  
Maybe you have a brother or sister or you have a best friend that you would lay down your life for.

(00:05:05):  
Without that,

(00:05:06):  
it's really difficult to get readers invested in your story because they're like,

(00:05:12):  
what are the stakes here?

(00:05:13):  
Like, what are we fighting for?

(00:05:15):  
But when it's personal, there's always a reason to fight.

(00:05:19):  
So keep that in mind.

(00:05:21):  
The next one is create interesting social graphs.

(00:05:24):  
And this is something that Chinese dramas are so strong at doing.

(00:05:28):  
And I'm always like, and you can definitely take this too far, right?

(00:05:32):  
To where it's his mother's stepbrother, but she was in love with his younger brother.

(00:05:42):  
And now, but they're both in different warring nations or different countries.

(00:05:47):  
rival schools or something like that it gets really dicey to where you just you're

(00:05:53):  
trying to put it in your head and it's really hard to figure out okay what what's

(00:05:56):  
the what's going on here point is you don't have to get that fancy with it but you

(00:06:00):  
should move beyond the standard okay mom dad the brother sister this is a common

(00:06:07):  
setup in a lot of western fiction and maybe there's a step parent or step brother

(00:06:11):  
or something but it

(00:06:12):  
typically doesn't go beyond that it's usually pretty linear like family tree and

(00:06:19):  
that's just not as interesting as when you see these different social lines cross

(00:06:24):  
or these different backgrounds or just these different types of relationships that

(00:06:30):  
really spice things up so

(00:06:33):  
Get creative with your social graphs throw some other people in the mix And if you

(00:06:37):  
need some help for ideas go on my website Keith Hayden net I'll put a link in the

(00:06:42):  
description of this video And I've got my story generator that can come up with

(00:06:47):  
different Jobs occupations just different people and characters just to spin up

(00:06:51):  
some ideas The next one is even friends fight and I put I put it this way because I

(00:06:59):  
I was recently reading something to where if they were family or if they were

(00:07:06):  
aligned ideologically,

(00:07:10):  
they never really had any conflict.

(00:07:11):  
And that's just not... One, it's not realistic.

(00:07:16):  
I mean, maybe... I'm sure you fought with your brother, your sister, your mom, your dad for something.

(00:07:22):  
Sometimes it's a little thing.

(00:07:24):  
It's completely insignificant.

(00:07:25):  
Sometimes it's a big deal.

(00:07:28):  
but we have to show that conflict in our stories you definitely should because one

(00:07:33):  
it's realistic two it's just always interesting at least it always gets my

(00:07:37):  
attention when in a story when two people who shouldn't be fighting start fighting

(00:07:44):  
it's just nobody likes that nobody likes to see a brother against a brother or a

(00:07:48):  
sister against a sister or two best friends

(00:07:51):  
going at it.

(00:07:52):  
Nobody really likes to see that in real life or in fiction.

(00:07:56):  
It's always going to get people's attention.

(00:07:59):  
Of course, just like all of these things, got to use them in moderation.

(00:08:01):  
A whole story can't just be all arguments,

(00:08:04):  
but there should be disagreements that make sense with the plot of your story.

(00:08:08):  
Chinese dramas are great at this.

(00:08:10):  
They do it all the time.

(00:08:12):  
In fact, they will just string these together to where

(00:08:16):  
the the family members will be on different sides and then the circumstances of the

(00:08:21):  
plot will shift them around to where okay this time he's got this point of view now

(00:08:26):  
she's got this point of view and what do we do but we don't agree on something so

(00:08:32):  
sometimes it's just an argument other times it's an actual fight keep that in mind

(00:08:38):  
The next thing is slow down,

(00:08:40):  
and this goes against a lot of...

(00:08:43):  
I've been reading a lot of writing craft books and storytelling craft books,

(00:08:47):  
and a lot of Western thinking when it comes to mainstream popular media is that

(00:08:55):  
backstory is bad.

(00:08:57):  
Spending too much time in the character's head or talking about the past,

(00:09:01):  
talking about things that don't move the plot forward is a generally bad thing

(00:09:05):  
because it takes the reader out of the story,

(00:09:08):  
it slows down,

(00:09:09):  
all that stuff.

(00:09:10):  
Part of me understands this because you can definitely go crazy with backstory to

(00:09:15):  
where it just feels jarring and it doesn't fit with the circumstances of the story.

(00:09:21):  
But at the same time, I really like backstory.

(00:09:25):  
Growing up,

(00:09:25):  
I played a lot of Japanese role-playing games,

(00:09:28):  
and I would always look forward to the points in the story where they stopped and explained,

(00:09:34):  
okay,

(00:09:35):  
who is this hero we're playing as,

(00:09:36):  
or who is this bad guy that we're fighting against,

(00:09:38):  
or anything like that,

(00:09:40):  
because it does add texture to the story,

(00:09:42):  
and it really catches you up as a player and as someone experiencing that story.

(00:09:48):  
point is in chinese dramas they dedicate a lot of time sometimes whole episodes to

(00:09:55):  
backstory and in a 45 minute show that's a lot of backstory but the way they do it

(00:10:02):  
is is is what makes it memorable and what makes it keep the story flowing without

(00:10:09):  
bringing it to a standstill how do we do this in fiction

(00:10:13):  
Well, my thinking is you can, I do it in a couple of different ways.

(00:10:17):  
One, you can just change the POV.

(00:10:19):  
So if your POV has been your main heroine for most of the book,

(00:10:24):  
change it to her brother or a secondary character or even the antagonist.

(00:10:30):  
And what's that relationship like?

(00:10:32):  
Why are they fighting against each other?

(00:10:34):  
That's always interesting to me,

(00:10:35):  
especially if it's done later in the book when we've already seen them clashing.

(00:10:40):  
Another way you can do it is just totally break the formula of your story.

(00:10:43):  
I did this one time in my first novel series in Lemnick.

(00:10:47):  
I had one chapter where it was just the POV was from a dog's perspective.

(00:10:52):  
And of course, there was no dogs that were the main heroes.

(00:10:57):  
And that was how I introduced another character.

(00:11:01):  
It was a shorter chapter, but it was a metaphor for this character that I was going to introduce.

(00:11:08):  
So that's another way.

(00:11:09):  
Just completely out of nowhere, just change it up.

(00:11:12):  
Just do something random to the reader, but of course have it relevant to the story.

(00:11:17):  
And the other way is just to go full flashback.

(00:11:20):  
Make the whole... There's several ways to do flashbacks.

(00:11:23):  
You can make it a dream.

(00:11:24):  
You can make it the character in an interesting situation,

(00:11:29):  
but where they have time to think,

(00:11:31):  
of course,

(00:11:32):  
where they would actually be flashing back.

(00:11:34):  
But...

(00:11:35):  
where they have time to actually slow down.

(00:11:37):  
Point is,

(00:11:38):  
you should put backstory in there,

(00:11:40):  
and it's one of those things that I...

(00:11:42):  
I conflict with myself as a writer because I understand,

(00:11:48):  
you know,

(00:11:48):  
growing up in the United States,

(00:11:51):  
I understand the need to keep the plot moving,

(00:11:53):  
and I definitely like a fast-moving story,

(00:11:55):  
but at the same time,

(00:11:57):  
backstory is so important,

(00:11:59):  
and I like writing backstory,

(00:12:00):  
and I like...

(00:12:03):  
taking chances and risks with the backstory so keep that in mind.

(00:12:07):  
Next one is blend genres and this is something that I didn't come to appreciate

(00:12:13):  
about Chinese dramas until a couple years after I had been watching them but

(00:12:18):  
It's very common for a Chinese drama to be labeled as a comedy or as an action or as an adventure show.

(00:12:26):  
And then five episodes in, it's a romance or it turns into a serious maneuvering political drama.

(00:12:36):  
Now,

(00:12:37):  
of course,

(00:12:38):  
there's things about expectations and audience,

(00:12:40):  
and this is the Western mentality of,

(00:12:42):  
well,

(00:12:42):  
you've got to honor your audience,

(00:12:44):  
and you've got to make sure that if they're looking for a women's romance,

(00:12:48):  
then it should be women's romance 80% of the way through.

(00:12:53):  
Don't throw a gunfight in there or something like that.

(00:12:56):  
I understand that, and that definitely helps tell a tight story, but

(00:13:03):  
exploring different genres and throwing other elements in there and not just,

(00:13:08):  
you know,

(00:13:09):  
one off or something like you throw a gun in there and now it's a crime or

(00:13:14):  
something like that.

(00:13:14):  
I'm not talking about that.

(00:13:15):  
I'm talking about like you dedicate a significant amount of time to adding other genres in there.

(00:13:22):  
I think that can be a good thing if it's well done.

(00:13:24):  
It's easy to overdo it.

(00:13:25):  
It's easy to screw this up.

(00:13:27):  
It takes a little bit more experience.

(00:13:28):  
But the point is, this is something that is common in Chinese drama as to where it will shift.

(00:13:34):  
But the point, the goal is less on staying in the genre lane and more in staying in the story lane.

(00:13:43):  
So if the story calls for action, then there's going to be action.

(00:13:47):  
But if it calls for romance, now it's got the romance in there.

(00:13:53):  
Point is, don't be afraid to dedicate significant parts of your story to different genres.

(00:14:00):  
Experiment.

(00:14:01):  
Have fun.

(00:14:03):  
Last thing is to exaggerate,

(00:14:06):  
and this is something that I really enjoy about Chinese dramas because they will

(00:14:11):  
take the most mundane scene and they will make it into a big deal with certain

(00:14:17):  
camera angles and sound effects and whooshes and whoosh,

(00:14:21):  
you know,

(00:14:21):  
they'll just zoom in on somebody's face or something like that.

(00:14:24):  
Of course,

(00:14:24):  
you can't do this in fiction because you don't have the visual,

(00:14:28):  
but you can what I call control the camera by describing certain camera angles.

(00:14:36):  
The way I think of it is setting a stage in my mind.

(00:14:41):  
I used to do theater when I was in high school,

(00:14:43):  
so that's where I learned about blocking and stagecraft and presence and all these

(00:14:49):  
different things.

(00:14:50):  
And I bring that to my fiction because I definitely think of,

(00:14:55):  
okay,

(00:14:55):  
where am I placing these people in space?

(00:14:57):  
I'm not just randomly putting people, he was over here, she was there.

(00:15:02):  
No, I'm placing them in a room.

(00:15:04):  
He's sitting down, she's standing up.

(00:15:07):  
He's in bed, she's at the table.

(00:15:10):  
That type of thing.

(00:15:12):  
Think about that as you're going,

(00:15:13):  
because when you set that stage in your mind,

(00:15:15):  
it allows you to have a sort of camera with your words and control where the

(00:15:20):  
reader's eye is directed.

(00:15:23):  
And I think you can do that with exaggerations.

(00:15:25):  
You can also do that with metaphors and similes as well.

(00:15:29):  
You can definitely ramp things up by using certain metaphors where it still fits

(00:15:35):  
with the scenario,

(00:15:36):  
but it's taking things to a level that you're like,

(00:15:40):  
OK,

(00:15:40):  
this is a little bit.

(00:15:42):  
crazy and beyond and i know i tend to exaggerate things in real life and that

(00:15:46):  
definitely helps me with fiction because i i can exaggerate things on the page as

(00:15:50):  
well

(00:15:52):  
So that's the end of the list.

(00:15:54):  
As I mentioned at the beginning of this video, there's a 29-item checklist that you can check out.

(00:15:58):  
The link is in the description,

(00:16:00):  
and hopefully that helps you stay on track with your story and add some of these

(00:16:04):  
things in.

(00:16:05):  
As I mentioned before, use all of these in moderation.

(00:16:09):  
You should definitely not go through and exaggerate your whole story or have your

(00:16:12):  
whole story be flashback.

(00:16:13):  
You know that, but...

(00:16:15):  
These are tools that you can use that I don't think are very well known in the

(00:16:21):  
Western world because I don't think a lot of Westerners watch as many Chinese

(00:16:26):  
dramas as I do,

(00:16:26):  
or maybe they're not as familiar with the genre.

(00:16:29):  
And speaking of that, I...

(00:16:32):  
encourage you to check out a chinese drama most of the ones that i watch i watch

(00:16:37):  
either through youtube or amazon prime they're not very difficult to access they

(00:16:42):  
have subtitles and they're just a lot of fun they're just a really fun genre so

(00:16:48):  
thanks for watching this video hope you enjoyed it hope it was helpful and make

(00:16:52):  
sure to subscribe and like the video if you thought it was helpful i'll see in the

(00:16:57):  
next one bye