THE FIRST FIVE PAGES
TRACEY LIEN
The former Los Angeles Times journalist walks us through how she mustered her reporting skills to get started on her debut literary thriller, All That’s Left Unsaid
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To read an extract from All That’s Left Unsaid
When I set out to write my novel, All That’s Left Unsaid, I felt paralysed by fear. I wasn’t scared that my novel might be poorly received, even though that was a real possibility. I wasn’t worried that it might not find a publisher or even lose sleep over the chances that the manuscript itself might come up short. No, those worries would come later. My greatest fear in those early days of writing my debut novel was that I wouldn’t have enough material or momentum to complete even a first chapter.
You see, I had a rough idea for All That’s Left Unsaid. I knew I wanted to tell a story about an Asian Australian woman who tracks down the witnesses to her brother’s grisly murder, determined to find out what happened and why they each claim to have seen nothing. I knew I wanted it to read like a murder mystery. And I knew I wanted to use the story to challenge the myth of the model minority—that oppressive idea that if racial minorities just behave well enough and don’t rock the boat, they’ll earn an equal place in society. But despite enrolling in graduate school for creative writing, no one ever taught me how to start writing a novel. No one had instructed me on collecting the pieces of my imagination to begin the longest thing I might ever write.