Stories within : Peering into O Thiam Chin’s Wonderlands

This is part of Between The Lines, an interview series with writers in Singapore about the craft and creative process of writing.

In the era of Instagram, we often seek refuge in the world of fantasy, finding comfort in its allure, imagining alternate realities, alternate lives in worlds very different from the one we have. There are those in our midst who possess the remarkable ability to transform this make-believe into tangible art, who have created worlds, familiar and strange, that we can escape to, to find hope and succour, love and consolation. One such individual who excels in such transformative art is O Thiam Chin. O is a Singaporean author who has crafted short stories that have been published in Granta, The Cincinnati Review, Washington Square Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, and elsewhere. He is also the winner of the Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2015 for his novel Now That It’s Over. 

O Thiam Chin

We recently had the privilege of interviewing him. In the interview, O unravelled the layers of creativity, explored inspirations that fuel his literary fire and revealed secrets behind the magic that brings his stories to life.

Can you walk us through your journey of creative writing?

O Thiam Chin: I always knew that I wanted to do something creative in my life. When I embarked on my creative writing journey, I tried my hand at writing poetry, which was fun but daunting, and made me realise that being a poet is itself a calling, just not mine. Along the way, I faced many rejections. I started writing short stories in 2004. My earliest stories were my testing ground and frankly quite crappy as I was still finding my feet then. Yet they were the stories that pushed me to do better. 

Over the years, I’ve written across genres. Every type of writing demands its own style and structure, and learning all these have helped me become a better writer overall. 

Recently I started writing screenplays, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Scriptwriting is an entirely different ballgame. So far it has been quite an interesting experience, and I’m learning so much as I slowly pick up the craft. 

Do you have any fun ways to go about worldbuilding?

The impact of your story endings is notable. They evoke a lasting feeling without necessarily relying on weighty words. Do you think you prioritise impactful endings, or do you believe that beginnings also require a similar level of impact?

O Thiam Chin: Every detail I put in a story is integral to the story, what the plot needs. Eventually everything has to come together. The endings don't always have to be written to create an impact; likewise for beginnings. I always like to try different approaches when I write. 

When you have an underdeveloped story idea where you don’t have the story laid down in front of you, what materials do you refer to? Is there a generic list?

O Thiam Chin: I immerse myself into the characters I write about. I don’t follow any step or process or even a list. Things come to me organically, on the spot, when I write. I pay a lot of attention to my surroundings. I become very sensitive to the people around me, what they do, how they act or talk or respond. I absorb everything, I hoard every single detail. When an idea pops up in my head, it is there because it is the fruit of what I’ve been thinking and nursing and musing for some time, feeding on other ideas and thoughts, extracting all the nutrients from them. 

I’ve observed the continuity of emotions in your stories, where a feeling is seamlessly sustained without losing its grip. How do you approach maintaining such a compelling and consistent emotional thread throughout the narrative?

O Thiam Chin: I think about my characters a lot. I like to delve into all aspects of their lives so they are, when rendered on the page, as full of blood and life as any living person. To me, the emotional thread that connects different parts of a story really depends a lot on character development. Emotions are never static or fixed throughout the story; they are always in a state of flux, changing and transforming as the story progresses. 

In what ways do you think Singapore’s culture and physical surroundings weave into your storytelling?

O Thiam Chin: These aspects of place and culture and landmarks are important to me, which, because I’m Singaporean, are harder to define as I’m always in the midst of them, seeing and experiencing them as they are, comparing them to what has been in the past. They come out in my stories not just as background, but as a living backdrop against which my protagonists live and walk and change and come to terms with the place they call home and negotiate what it is to be a resident, a citizen, a Singaporean. I always find a lot of inspiration just observing my immediate surroundings. I still believe many untold stories lie untapped, waiting to be discovered at kopitiams, HDB void decks, hawker centres. When I write my characters, I want to steep them in the very place they come from, to unearth their roots and question the sense of belonging they have to their origins.

Can you share the profound emotions or personal convictions that fuel your pieces on themes of homoromanticism, queer male relationships and sexual liberation?

O Thiam Chin: It’s very tough, perhaps entirely impossible, to separate who I am from the writing I do. What I see, how I feel, what colours my past and my present can be filtered, in a very significant way, through my experiences as a queer man. I draw a lot of inspiration from these experiences, mine and others, and I want to write about them as truthfully, as clearly, as I can. 

Poets, playwrights and other creatives contribute a lot to empower the LGBTQ+ community in Singapore. I am dedicated to doing my part in capturing the diverse narratives within the community.

There’s a recurring theme of sadness and grief in your stories. What draws you to explore emotions like heartache, melancholy and sorrow that builds within?

O Thiam Chin: I am a sad person (laughs). I experience all emotions with deep intensity. I feel bad, I feel angry, I feel shocked, I feel a great many things. And naturally I want my readers to feel these emotions through my writing. Part of the sadness or melancholy I feel come from this deep sense of loss, that we are always losing some part of ourselves across this short span of time we call our lives. We will lose what we have; it’s just a matter of time. Perhaps we will always feel our losses so much more than our gains. It’s a part of us, and that’s okay, really.