An Interview With Jinwoo Chong

What inspired you to write I Leave It Up to You?

My debut novel was published in 2023, during a strange part of the pandemic in which the danger of infection was still high, but a general feeling of fatigue had settled on many who were now slowly reentering society, me being one of them. I primarily wrote I Leave It Up to You because I was feeling so profoundly unhappy at the time: disappointed in the world, my career thus far, and the future. I was falling out of love with writing, which is a difficult thing to come to terms with, as a writer. I wrote this novel to try and recapture some of that happiness, and as a result it’s by far the most joyous thing I’ve ever written.

Flux and I Leave It Up to You have different genre inspirations/writing styles. Did they feel different to write? In what ways are they more similar or different in ways you didn’t expect?

They do strike me as two sides of the same coin in some aspects: both deal with young queer men trapped in a sense of aimlessness who, over the course of the novel, try to start life over from scratch. Their character and themes are similar, but their genres couldn’t be more different. I enjoyed the stylistic considerations of pivoting to a new genre. My reading list while writing Flux was filled with crime thrillers, hard and light science fiction, true crime, and blockbuster nonfiction about Silicon Valley and the tech industry in general. My reading list while writing I Leave It Up to You, in addition to the few literary romantic comedy novels that make it out to the general public these days, also contained some of my favorite comfort movies and a lot of YouTube videos about sushi.

In many ways, I Leave It Up to You is a story about time and return. Why did you decide to focus on Jack Jr.’s hometown, and how did you approach writing the difference in Fort Lee from Jack’s perspective before and after his coma?

Fort Lee has a genuine, special place in my heart. My parents drove my brother and I there a few dozen times throughout the year to do things like get our hair cut, shop at the Asian grocery stores, and eat. Then came the high school and college years in which I barely ever saw it. Coming back, now that I live about twenty minutes away from it, is a jarring experience. Much of it hasn’t changed, and in experiencing it, I tend to experience memories of my childhood vividly. Jack Jr. and I have this in common.

It feels like I Leave It Up to You interrogates how difficult it can be to choose a “happy ending” that seems, on the outside, to be just within reach. Why did you decide to focus on something like happiness or contentment, and was it complicated/difficult to have that as a focal point of the novel?

I like the way this question is worded, since happiness and contentment are so similar but, to me, have some key differences. To me, happiness conveys motion, growth, becoming someone better, making good choices on the way to even further happiness. Contentment, I think, is the more realistic emotion, embodying stillness, peace, and acceptance, and one that Jack Jr. doesn’t think is a very good thing at the start of this novel. Over time, I liked seeing the way his perspective changes.

Many of the scenes in I Leave It Up to You are focused on specific places and times. What do you focus on or start with when writing scenes and dialogue to get that level of detail?

I seem to start always with dialogue. I may have trained myself to do this early on because a lot of my first pieces of writing were verbose, descriptive, and obsessed with telling a story exactly as I envisioned it. Giving up some of that control by letting characters express what they want to express has always seemed like a better way to get to heart of any plot. Regarding a specific sense of place and time: I struggle with anything not set in the present. I don’t think I’m good at straying very far from it. It makes sense that I’ve written a pandemic novel a few years after the actual pandemic. I’m inspired by the life I’m living right now more than I am by the past or the future.

You’ve written a lot of shorter fiction in addition to your two novels: how is writing shorter narratives and stories different from writing longer works?

This feels strange to say, but writing short stories takes longer! I’m a lot more obsessive about the details in a short narrative. Every decision seems to matter more, and I get bogged down by the responsibility. I have an easier time letting my imagination go where it wants to go when I know I have all the space in the world to indulge it within a novel.

If you could recommend one book (or literary work) to a writer hoping to grow their own voice, what would it be?

I was going to recommend an actual title but because of the way this question is worded, I have a more fun idea. Specifically for the purpose of growing one’s own voice, I’d invite any writer to reread their favorite book from a decade or so ago. If you’re 20 years old, reread your favorite book at age 10. If you’re 30, reread your favorite book at age 20. Re-interrogate that work. Try to inhabit the person you once were, try to understand what about it grabbed you, and see if you think any different now that you’ve had time to develop as a reader and as a writer. The results are shocking, interesting, illuminating, etc.

The publishing process can feel more daunting than writing a book. What was the process like for you and what advice would you give to aspiring authors who are about to start or in the midst of the publishing phase?

Publishing is not for the faint hearted. And I don’t mean to say there are people who aren’t cut out for it. Anybody can be cut out for anything if they are willing to adapt, to learn. In the case of the publishing process, what everyone must do, no matter how hardy they may be to begin with, is to grow thicker skin. The rejection is constant. The disappointments are myriad and ever compounding. And, in the midst of all that angst, you’re expected to activate the most uncynical parts of your imagination and create. It’s hard to do. But don’t let the business bleed into the art. They should—they must—remain separate.