For Duy Tung, writing and creating has always been an endless source of inspiration flowing through his every breath. Since high school, Duy Tung has been exposed to fantasy stories. He loves the magical world of director Guillermo del Toro and has learned the storytelling style from Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series. Travellive had the opportunity to interview Tran Nguyen Duy Tung about his dream of becoming an architect for his own story in the work "Dragon and Fairy Bloodline".
Journey to pursue passion for writing
Hello Tran Nguyen Duy Tung, can you introduce yourself to Travellive readers?
Hello Travellive, my name is Tran Nguyen Duy Tung, 24 years old. I was born and raised in Vung Tau, studied at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and graduated at the end of last year. I am a person who is always ready to burn myself out for my passion for art, ready to sacrifice everything to be able to tell a story of a lifetime.
When did Duy Tung start his writing career? Before writing this book, had you embarked on any other writing career?
I started writing in 11th grade, after participating in a contest to write a magazine for the school on November 20th. Instead of choosing to write in the argumentative style as taught in school, I decided to write a story, in which I got lost in a dream and saw my school there. Then I went through three journeys representing happy memories, sad memories, and predictions about my future at school. My essay was praised by my Literature teacher as very impressive and was given the highest score in the class. It was the call of fate, saying that this is what I need to pursue. So I started my storytelling journey from there.
Before that, all my works were short stories, all written for fun and never published anywhere. This Dragon Fairy Bloodline is the first long story I wrote, and also the first published story.
The passion for telling his own story was ignited when Tung was in 11th grade.
When did Tran Nguyen Duy Tung start writing The Blood of Dragon and Fairy? Why did you choose this topic?
I started writing this story three years ago. At that time, I was planning to write a long fantasy story. For fans of fantasy stories, the highest criteria of this genre is related to world building. Unfortunately, there are too many fantasy stories with too many different types of worlds, so it is almost impossible to create a world of your own without being similar or being criticized as "too mainstream." Because of that, my plan remained just an idea in my head, unable to be written down.
Until one day, I went into the bookstore, like I always did for twenty years of my life. That day, I stopped by the textbooks section because I wanted to review some old essays. I stopped at the sixth grade book section and picked up the first volume of Literature to read. The essay in it was the story of the Dragon and Fairy's Children. I read through the story that every Vietnamese person knows. Suddenly, a question popped into my head. At the end of the story, Lac Long Quan and Au Co parted ways to go up the mountains and down to the sea. I wonder if they will ever meet again?
The world from the story in the textbook
So, Duy Tung's idea for his own fantasy story originated from a story in a textbook? How can he exploit his own elements without duplicating the original?
That’s right, an idea popped into my head. If the two of them met again, what would be the reason for doing so? Maybe Lac Long Quan, after being under the sea for a while, missed Au Co so much that he returned to the mainland to visit his wife. But I quickly dismissed that idea, because it sounded too much like a love story, not to mention it was too simple to make a good story. So I stood there trying to imagine, but couldn’t come up with any reasonable scenario. Suddenly, I came across an interesting detail in the original story.
Before parting, Lac Long Quan said: "...when something happens, help each other, don't forget the promise."
“Helping each other”, for that to happen, there needs to be a difficult situation. A lightning bolt of an idea flashed through my mind, because this is the most reasonable scenario. One of the two parties will be caught in a difficult situation, the other will seek help, thus leading to the two meeting. But what is this difficult situation?
I continued to reread the story and learned that when Lac Long Quan first set foot on Vietnamese land, he defeated three monsters: Ho Tinh, Ngu Tinh, and Moc Tinh. The idea continued to burn in my mind: difficult circumstances will cause monsters to rise up and rampage. So this will be a story of evil fighting against good.
All the pieces were in place, and with them, the idea for the story began to take shape. A story that explored themes related to my own past, national history, bloodline inheritance, environmental pollution, capitalism, royal lineage, the division between the gods, and what it means to be a hero. I realized that this was the fantasy story I needed to write. The world I was going to build had been around me all along without me even noticing it. Now it was time for me to show others how interesting it was the way I saw it. The story of Dragon and Fairy Bloodline was officially born from there.
Duy Tung's pure Vietnamese fantasy world is inspired by Percy Jackson.
How many books does Duy Tung plan to release? What role does the first book "Dragon and Fairy Bloodline" play?
My plan for this story is to have five volumes. The first volume, The Children of the Land and the Sea, serves to introduce readers to a world that seems very familiar, but it contains extremely interesting secrets, which is the world of Vietnamese mythology. After reading volume one, everyone will have a very different view of the familiar story of the Dragon and Fairy's Children that everyone in Vietnam knows, or thinks they know.
What role did world-building play in writing this novel? What were Tung's expectations of the world he created?
This is the interesting thing about this story, because the world of the story is already available. My story will be set in modern times, plus taking material from Vietnamese myths and legends, so I will not have to spend time building the world foundation. What I will create here is related to the history of the characters, more specifically, the history that is not recorded.
For example, 50 children followed Au Co. In the original legend, it is said that these people stayed in the mortal world and became the ancestors of the Viet people. I will create another detail, claiming that in fact only 25 children stayed in the mortal world. The remaining 25 people actually followed Au Co to Tan Vien mountain to live, becoming the ancestors of the Tien people. This Tien people possess magical powers, which help them to destroy monsters and protect the people, and they have done so since ancient times until now.
My expectation when developing the world in this direction is that it will help to reach young readers more easily, because the story's setting is in modern times, the time in which they are living. The historical details in my story will not simply be things that happened in the past, but they will have a strong influence on today's current situation. The reality is that young people today are not interested in history because they think that history is something that is left in the past. Therefore, if we can show them that history can still influence the present, it will certainly make them interested, and from there they will go to learn about the origins.
The Dragon and Fairy Bloodline is the first book in a 5-volume novel series.
In "Dragon Bloodline", what details does the pure Vietnamese element come from?
Everything, from the characters, the setting, the history, is 100% Vietnamese. So it is certainly not an exaggeration to call this one of the most purely Vietnamese stories you will ever read.
What does Duy Tung expect his first book in particular, and the series in general, to bring to readers?
I want to show everyone that documents related to Vietnamese culture are not as simple as people think, because they can be exploited to create many interesting stories. With the mythology of Western countries such as Greece, or Chinese mythology being extremely popular with many readers in Vietnam, there needs to be authors writing about the culture of our own country so that they are not overshadowed. Therefore, I hope that there will be a widespread wave related to the research of documents about Vietnamese history, mythology, legends, and fairy tales inspired by my stories.
