Asana Analyzes Jiwoo Kim's Yeouya for Self-Revelation

The well-written and thought-out story Yeouya by Jiwoom Kim illustrates many techniques to make a simple yet deep and fascinating story. The story is about a successful author, Jinyoung, who struggles to write a new book. And it seems something is holding him back. And with the pressure of the public and critics, he struggles even more. 

There are two main characters introduced, Jinyoung and Yuna. They had met in college and both had a Creative Writing major. But besides that they had completely opposite personalities. Jinyoung is very quiet, mysterious, and very serious. Yuna is more positive, bubbly, and more social. Jinyoung and Yuna were completely different people with opposite personalities, but they eventually started dating. But in the end, they break up because of small fights caused by their differences. The story illustrates the struggle of Jinyoung's journey of moving on from his past. 

The story uses the main concept of self-revelation, one of the 7 key steps discussed in Chapter 3 of John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story. These steps, which include weakness and need, desire, and self-revelation, are crucial in creating a compelling narrative. Self-revelation, in this context, is when a character is able to reflect on themselves after a battle or an event. It's an important step for character development, and the revelation may be negative or positive. In this story, it was a positive self-revelation. Jinyoung was able to self-revelate after going through a battle of moving on from his past with Yuna. For Jinyoung, being able to self-revelate is the main goal of the story. 

But for a character to be able to become a better changed person, they must first have a weakness and need. The author chooses a clear character weakness and need so that later on in the story, there is clear self-improvement. Jinyoung's weakness in the story was his being stuck in the past. Even though he tried not to think about Yuna, he was still not over the past and couldn't move forward in the present. And so, although he didn't realize it until later on in the story, his need was for him to meet Yuna again. When meeting Yuna, he can finally realize and confirm that she is happy, and that's what JInyoung needed to know for him to move on. 

The story also establishes a 'story world ', a term used to describe the setting and environment in which the story takes place. Throughout the whole story, the weather is consistently rainy, but the different types of rain represent the feelings and emotions of the characters. For example, when Jinyoung was at his lowest and decided to go to the cafe, it was raining. But later on, when Jinyoung asks Yuna if she is happy, the author indicates that the rain is now gone. That change in the weather represented Jinyoung moving on, and finally, the dark rain that had been there for so long disappeared. 

Now that you’ve read the way award-winning Jiwoo crafted her story, isn’t it time to read Yeouya? For access to all of our HIS Writes Finalists, visit our page online.