By Kristen Mai Giang
Did you read that right? Passion project? But we’re here to
talk about nonfiction. Hours upon hours of research. Facts, not fiction. Is
there really room for passion?
There is. There must be. Because you will spend hours
upon hours researching your topic. Reading every book you can find, watching
every video, scouring the Internet for creditable sources and annotating them
all so you can cite them months and possibly years down the line when you can
barely remember your own name, let alone the obscure source of the obscure
photo you once obscurely found.
Then, once your book sells, you may go through rounds and
rounds of revisions, cross-checking to make sure your facts haven’t morphed
into fiction. And once the art is complete, you may – you guessed it! – go
through rounds and rounds of reviews to ensure that the art and text still tell
a true story
PLEASE DON’T STOP READING. If you find yourself slinking away
from the idea of writing nonfiction, passion is the thing that will make that
sly nonfiction idea rear its head and compel you to return to it. Over and over
again. Picking a passion project will save you during the dark hours, when
you’ve stayed up too late, and your eyes just don’t seem to see anymore.
Because you will care so much that you must tell this story, and you must tell
it right.
So how do you pick a passion project? Passion is a daunting
word. Do we feel passion about many things in our lives? I like many things,
but do I have passions? (Cue shrug emoji.) As it turns out, passion lurks in
unexpected places. It pops up and surprises you when you aren’t really looking
for it.
My first nonfiction picture book is a biography of Jackie
Chan. I like Jackie Chan very much. I find him hilariously cheeky and charming.
His stunts are perfectly timed blurs of speed and grace, power and precision. I
grew up watching his movies and laughing at all his silly humor and punishing
pranks. But was I PASSIONATE about him?
I wasn’t.
Until I happened to learn that before Jackie Chan became a
global action superstar, he had been classically trained to perform Peking
Opera. In painted face and colorful costume, he sang and performed epic Chinese
legends. This seemed such a disconnect from the Jackie Chan I thought I knew –
that icon of kung fu comedy – that I couldn’t help learning more. And before I
knew it, I had read every book I could find, watched every video, and scoured
the Internet.
What I learned, what became my passion, was the
multidimensional truth of who Jackie Chan is. So often people of color, even
those as famous as Jackie Chan, are only seen in one dimension. A stereotype.
The kung fu fighting part that doesn’t represent the three-dimensional whole.
The whole in whom we might see a universal truth, in whom we might see
ourselves, no matter what our race or background. I wanted to tell that story.
The whole story of Jackie Chan. I was passionate about it.
Along the way, I unexpectedly fulfilled another passion – for
representation. When I was growing up, there weren’t many Asian actors in
leading or even supporting roles on TV or in the movies. Only recently did I
realize that I gained that representation – I saw those heroes – in Hong Kong
movies. My mom would take us kids to the Chinese theater in San Gabriel,
California, that played Hong Kong double features. Sharing sticky sweet
fruit-flavored beef jerky, we laughed at Jackie’s antics and cheered a star,
many stars, who looked like us.
Perhaps Jackie Chan was fueling a passion I didn’t even know
I had those many years ago. And perhaps there is a passion in you just waiting
to be sparked.
GIVE IT A TRY
So how do you locate that lurking passion? How do you coax
it out? Start with what you like. What interests you? What are you curious
about? What do you enjoy? From there, research and learn more about a topic or
a person related to that. If you love food or cooking, perhaps a chef or a
pivotal moment in history related to food. As you research, take notes and
free-write ideas that come to you. What themes arise? Why does this matter to
you? The object of your passion may not be the topic itself, but an idea or
theme or memory it represents. Something that makes you want to dig deeper. When
an idea captures you, that’s when you know you have a book you want to write.
Even better, you’ve done the work of figuring out the real story you want to
tell – and that readers will want to read.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Kristen Mai Giang is a Chinese American author who emigrated
from Vietnam when she was 18 months old. Her debut picture book biography, The
Rise (and Falls) of Jackie Chan, releases March 29, 2022, from Crown Books
for Young Readers.
She is also the author of Ginger & Chrysanthemum (Fall
2020) and the upcoming Last Flight (Spring 2023), both from Levine
Querido.
When not writing, Kristen has spent the past two decades
creating Emmy Award-winning interactive media for Disney, PBS Kids Sprout, and
Mattel, among others. She is currently developing a K-5 interactive learning
platform funded by the NSF.
