Henry Lien is a writer originally from Taiwan, now living in Hollywood, CA. He typically writes speculative fiction, which is a fancy way to say science fiction and fantasy, for which he has received several Nebula Award nominations. He also teaches classes on Eastern storytelling.
What’s the big idea?
In Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird, Henry Lien challenges Western storytelling norms, revealing how diverse structures, themes, and values shape narratives worldwide. He argues that true diversity isn’t just about representation—it’s about embracing new ways of telling stories, from the East Asian four-act structure to circular and nested narratives. Using examples from Parasite to The Thousand and One Nights, Lien explores how storytelling traditions beyond the West offer fresh, deeply satisfying approaches, expanding our understanding of what makes a great story.
Below, Henry shares five key insights from his new book, Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling. Listen to the audio version—read by Henry himself—in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Cultural lenses make a difference.
Let’s play a game. I’m going to use a very traditional Chinese and Taiwanese lens to describe a book that is popular. Guess the book: “Majestic gold dragon is murdered by a band of thieves and homeless men.”
The answer is The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Let’s autopsy that a bit. In Chinese and Taiwanese culture, the dragon is revered as divine, wise, benevolent, and powerful but peaceful. Any story in which a dragon is killed is automatically a tragedy. Further, in a traditional and conservative society, Bilbo and the dwarves would be considered thieves and homeless men. Such elements would be viewed as failed citizens and parasites in society. A story where such elements triumph is going to be received as dark and wrong.
The point of this game is to show how vastly different cultural values can be and how those values serve as lenses that alter what is viewed as a satisfying story in a given culture.
2. The joy of holding back.
Western storytelling is often based on the three-act structure, which demands that all the main elements in a story be introduced as early as possible. Thus, imagine if Darth Vader didn’t appear in the opening sequence of Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope. What if, instead, he comes striding into the movie for the first time as Luke and his friends are escaping the Death Star? People would say, “Who’s that guy? Where did he come from? This is sloppy storytelling.”
What many Western audiences don’t know is that East Asian storytelling is often built around an entirely different structure. It’s a four-act structure, commonly referred to in the West by its Japanese name kishōtenketsu. It’s a radically different structure because it deliberately withholds a main element until the third act, after the halfway point in the story. Here’s a compact example of that, a four-line poem by the Edo period poet Rai San’yō called “The Daughters of Itoya”:
“The daughters of Itoya, Honmachi, Osaka.
“One sister is sixteen, one sister is fourteen.
“Daimyo of various regions kill with bows and arrows.
“Itoya’s daughters kill with their eyes.”
We start with a quiet story about two daughters. We think we know the elements: older daughter, younger daughter, setting. The genre is domestic tale. Then, in the second half a completely new and seemingly random element is thrust into the story: warlords, killing, bows, and arrows. The poem veers out of the domestic story lane and seems to become a story about war. However, the final act shows that the original elements of the daughters have a relationship with the new element of war that invades their quiet story. The daughters can meet or defeat this new element. In the process, they make the story jump track yet again into another genre, possibly paranormal.
This might seem like a radical way to tell a story, but the South Korean film Parasite, Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s novels such as Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and many of Nintendo’s Mario video games are built on the four-act structure.
3. Not all stories are straight.
There is a quote in Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland that summarizes the values of a lot of Western storytelling: “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
However, there’s an entirely different tradition in Eastern storytelling that is aggressively non-linear. There are at least a thousand years of stories that are non-linear in form and that don’t proceed punctually from point A to point Z. These are circular or nested stories that blatantly and joyfully violate the idea that a straight line is the best path to take between two points.
“There are at least a thousand years of stories that are non-linear in form and that don’t proceed punctually from point A to point Z.”
The Thousand and One Nights is the most classic example. It’s composed of tales nested within tales that interlock to create a portrait of an entire world that is more universal than any one story about any one character could achieve.
The film Everything Everywhere All At Once is a more recent example. It follows a handful of characters as they warp through dozens of different multiverses, reimagining their fates and scrambling their relationships over and over. The diversity of the stories within the story makes it far richer. Imagine how much of the film’s spirit would be lost if this were solely a linear story about one Chinese-American family working through divorce and generational differences.
4. Values dictate structures.
There is something cozy about the simple idea that people are people the world over. That we all have essentially the same wants and hopes. However, even if there are basic elements that are universally nutritive to humankind, storytelling tastes are like dietary tastes. They differ from culture to culture. This explains how the East Asian four-act and circular or nested structures reflect cultural values.
While many Western cultures value individualism, many Asian cultures tend more toward collectivism. Buddhist and Taoist principles teach that an individual’s will clouds their ability to see the greater design of the universe. Surrendering individual will and expectations allows one to respond with more wisdom and grace to the unexpected events that life inevitably tosses in front of us. That is why the four-act structure always has a surprise third-act element. The characters’ response to the twist reveals their true nature.
“Circular and nested stories are a community of stories.”
Similarly, collectivism is highly concerned with relationships within a community. Circular and nested stories are a community of stories. The community of stories achieves things that no individual story can. It can transcend the experience of any one character to show more universal truths. Values dictate structures.
5. Show don’t tell.
My book is composed of case studies from books, films, and video games because I believe that showing is often more effective than telling, especially for an idea that might be new to its recipients. Any politician, religious leader, or teacher could drone on and on about abstract concepts until all the heads nod off to sleep. Then, all she has to do is say, “And now let me tell you a story.” All the heads will snap up and receive the information more deeply and permanently, even if it was the same information as in the abstract concept, simply because it was shown in narrative form.
Thus, I could tell you in the abstract about how the four-act structure injects a disruptive new element after the halfway point and that it reveals new complexities in the relationships of all the elements. Or I could walk you through the film Parasite step-by-step and show you how who we thought were the heroes in the story and who we thought were the villains is tossed into moral freefall after the halfway point, and how that reveals messier, deeper relationships among all the elements. That’s why I focus on demonstrations of concepts. I even wrote a theme song for my book that demonstrates the four-act and circular structures. You can listen to it on my website. We can tell, or we can show. One of those approaches is often more effective, as well as more fun.
To listen to the audio version read by author Henry Lien, download the Next Big Idea App today:
