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A diatribe about plot structure and the way it is formulated
If you have taken undergraduate classes in writing and story structure, then you’ve probably been told that all stories have conflict. This is an idea that is taught as foundational theory in almost every English language narrative writing classroom. In all likelihood, you’ll also have been taught about the Three Act Structure (Act 1: Exposition,…
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city of a million shards
Tooth swings his legs in the city lights. A pixellated ad flutters across the windows. Beneath him, the roads roar by: one city, two cities—every city in the world is here, mirrored in a hundred skyscrapers. From up here, one can see the strait that splits the downtown from the peninsula. This is Berlian—all of…
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“How do you handle theme in your writing?”
Someone once said that it’s important for writers to know their answer to that question, so I’m taking that as an opportunity to think over my own. Often, I’ll recognise that I have writing habits without actually knowing why I do things the way I do. I know that my work does handle theme—I just…
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River City, Storm City, Flood City: A prospective on Tropical Cyclone Alfred
Meanjin, Brisbane, BNE. The River City lives upon the floodplain of the Maiwar, which for many millennia was a prodigious wetland. The Turrbal name of the locale, Meanjin (“spike”), refers to the pointed riverbend in which the central business district is nestled. The ghost of the swampland is still felt to this day, in the…
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On dislocation
I see the river from above before I know who she is—a strand of yarn tangling the city and trees. 80.2.2, I locate myself in this new coordinate system. I wear it on my sleeve: I am not from here. There are so many white people in this room. Is this the right place? Am…
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Famous harbours, nameless streets
(Post 3 in my 2024 Travelogue) Oh, Hong Kong, how do I write about you? I’m brimming with gratitude that I had the chance to visit after wanting to for years. But can’t help a sort of grief too, at the signs I saw at every turn that the city was changing for good. I…
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Not all who wander are lost, but some who wander want to be
(Post 2 of my 2024 Travelogue) What they say really is true; your body remembers where it was born. I moved away from Singapore to Australia in 2018, but no matter how long I’ve been gone, my sleep schedule still keeps Singapore time. For several years until I completed my Master’s, I would fly back…
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The metropolis with a village heart: an ode to Singapore’s wild chickens
(Post 1 of my 2024 Travelogue) So, there are a lot of wild chickens in Singapore. More chickens than the last time I visited. Way more chickens than when I was a regular resident. That was my chief takeaway during my 5-day visit. Not how the city has gone 100% cashless, not the fact that…
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Compass
Originally published on FanFiction.net, and then here on my website. It has now been adapted into an interactive comic. As I fall through the fog between sleeping and waking, I begin to forget. Flashes of red. A shower of water and glass. Rainbows and dying lamp wicks. Where was I? Where am I now? Something’s…
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All at once, and only once: a migrant, media graduate & science enthusiast’s take on a movie like no other
(Major spoiler warning for the entire movie) “immigrant stories are ghost stories are multiverse stories and in multiverse stories all of your ghosts inhabit your body simultaneously…” — everythingeverywhereallatonce Migration is always a traumatic quantum branching. It’s something we’ve always known, though not necessarily in those words. We palpably feel ourselves torn from one universe…
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Life is a train station
So, you have this great, big train station. When you first arrive through its gates, you know you’re in for a lot of waiting. And very few people, I think, would spend the entire wait staring at the clock. If the conditions are right, or if you’re the sort to do so, you may strike…
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Societies of control and the failure of the taxonomic project. Or, how pride flags are related to pelicans.
The categorisation of things stems from but a single aim: to organise very large numbers of things, or collections of data, so as to harness and manipulate them. This is particularly useful–and profitable–as global systems of commerce and administration are handed to the purview of information technology, as big data looms increasingly large on our…
