87. SHANNON LEE & FONDA LEE: Mixing Bruce Lee's legacy and characters with fantasy elements

This week's episode of LiteraryHype Podcast is a treat. Most people recognize the name Bruce Lee for his epic (and tragically too short) career in martial arts and film. His daughter, Shannon Lee, is the keeper of his legacy and decided to write a novel based on her father's characters and teachings. She turned to beloved author Fonda Lee to write this novel with her. Now, "Breath of the Dragon" is available in stores and book two is on the way. We're diving into all things fantasy, Bruce, grief, and more in this episode.

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Transcript

00;00;02;23 - 00;00;22;12
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stefani, your literary hype woman. And today's author conversation is just a little bit of a big deal at least to me and some of my coworkers who were like, oh, my God, you're talking to this person. It's actually two people I talked to because Breath of the Dragon is written by Shannon Lee and fondly, they wrote it together.

00;00;22;22 - 00;00;41;17
Speaker 1
They are not related, but Shannon Lee is related to a pretty cool person, and that is Bruce Lee. And this book is based on the characters that he created loosely. There's some there's some inspiration from Bruce Lee. So without any further ado, let's dove into this conversation with Shannon Lee. And finally.

00;00;47;02 - 00;00;56;06
Speaker 2
Welcome to Literary Hype. It's so exciting to have both of you on such a brand new book, Wrath of the Dragon. So for anybody who hasn't seen this online or in a bookstore yet, what's this book about?

00;00;56;13 - 00;01;35;08
Speaker 3
Is A Dragon is a young adult action adventure fantasy novel. It is inspired by Shannon's father and his life, his philosophies, his creative works. And really, it is about a young martial artist named John who goes on to a personal journey that involves a very large tournament to become the guardian of the scroll. So in the kingdom that he is part of, the Guardian is the most revered figure because he protects the scroll, which is a magical item that imparts the wisdom of Dragon, who is the deity of this realm.

00;01;35;21 - 00;01;58;08
Speaker 3
Along the way, he learned a lot about himself. He gets caught up in a very dangerous political situation. He finds out that the tournament has a lot more in store for him than he bargained for. And then a lot of things happen. And then Book two is the first book in ideology. Book two is on the way.

00;01;58;26 - 00;02;03;11
Speaker 4
After that, you did job. You're so much better at summarizing than I am. So it's like, yeah.

00;02;04;20 - 00;02;13;17
Speaker 2
Which is interesting since it is based on your father's characters and like you had the initial idea for it. So how did you guys why was follow the one that you wanted to write this with?

00;02;13;26 - 00;02;43;28
Speaker 4
Well, I mean, if you've read any of his works, that's why. But you know, yes, originally I took a bunch of my father's creative works and I thought, you know, thematically there's a lot of similarities, even though they're very different, they're very different settings. And I thought, you know, the genre of fantasy can really weave together a storyline that would be in the realm of my father's legacy with all of his teachings and philosophies and ideas, but in a whole new world.

00;02;43;28 - 00;03;07;27
Speaker 4
So originally I did create the, you know, initial concept for the world and the stories. But I had never written fiction. I've written nonfiction. And even though I aspire to write fiction and I am working on a novel of my own, which, you know, hopefully in ten years will come out I, I knew that I needed somebody and wanted to collaborate with somebody.

00;03;08;04 - 00;03;29;08
Speaker 4
And I work in film and TV a lot. So I love to collaborate with writers and creators. And so I have a literary agent we start talking about who might be a potential collaborator and a mention for this movie. And the minute that we met and, and started talking, it just really seemed like a perfect fit.

00;03;29;17 - 00;03;31;18
Speaker 2
What made you want to be on this book?

00;03;32;12 - 00;04;03;20
Speaker 3
Yeah, so I had never done a co-writing project before. I had written several novels, and once I got this call from my agent that Shannon wanted to talk, I had this feeling that like if there was any project that I would say yes to a collaboration, it would be this one. Because I have been so inspired by Shannon's father as an Asian-American and as a creator, as a martial artist.

00;04;03;25 - 00;04;46;18
Speaker 3
Martial arts is a huge part of the fiction that I've written before. And so it was and I had also written young adult novels before, but I had moved away from that and had written adult fiction for eight years. And so this was a great project for me to move back in to young adult fiction, to take a project that was checked all the boxes in terms of the themes, the content, the tone that I already really loved and worked in, and then to be part of the legacy and to kind of take all of right what was already a passion of mine and connect it to Schindler family.

00;04;46;18 - 00;04;54;18
Speaker 3
So, yeah, it just was it was kind of one of those projects that felt like it had, you know, my name written on it literally.

00;04;55;20 - 00;04;56;15
Speaker 4
And now just.

00;04;58;11 - 00;05;10;28
Speaker 2
So the elements of this book throughout the whole thing is these martial arts sequences. So how did your dad's movies and getting to watch those and like the training help you write these epic fight scenes?

00;05;12;00 - 00;05;30;23
Speaker 4
Well, I will say this. I mean, Fonda is excellent writing action and has written a lot of action and is a martial artist herself. And I've trained in martial arts as well. And we just knew that the action sequences in this film had to be within the Bruce Lee canon, even though fantasy is not really within the Bruce Lee canon.

00;05;31;07 - 00;05;55;15
Speaker 4
But this is a very sort of like magic realm. And so we still wanted the fights to feel really grounded, feel really real, just like my father's fights would be. And we also wanted to make sure that the fights weren't just there to sort of create action, but just deep in the characters and their story and what they were fighting for and all of that.

00;05;55;15 - 00;06;20;03
Speaker 4
And so that's something my father was always doing in his films, as well as making sure that the action was telling a story. It wasn't just there to, you know, excite and, you know, be a moment to do some cool moves. And so, you know, Fonda really took the first pass at writing, and she did an excellent excellent job because she's excellent at it.

00;06;21;23 - 00;06;22;16
Speaker 4
Well, I.

00;06;22;18 - 00;07;00;20
Speaker 3
Have always loved fantasy, but as a martial artist, I'm always aware of how so much of the reality of being a martial artist isn't really reflected in a lot of fantasy fight scenes. Rachel, I don't typically write fantasy action scenes where people are invulnerable and they fly through the air and they're casting spells everywhere. I very much want the fight scenes on the page to feel real and to feel visceral and to have the emotional and physical gravitas to them.

00;07;01;09 - 00;07;21;23
Speaker 3
That is, that that resonates with people who have ever practiced it or, you know, who are close to martial arts at all. So I think that sense of groundedness that I saw in like Bruce Lee's films where, you know, he's not flying around on wires, he doesn't have body doubles, right? It's him and he's the one throwing the punch.

00;07;21;23 - 00;07;35;11
Speaker 3
And it's because of his physique and his training that they're effective. That idea comes through in the book and just the way that I prefer to depict those types of scenes in fiction.

00;07;35;20 - 00;07;40;11
Speaker 2
Well, and you're also a black belt yourself, so how does that help you as a writer?

00;07;41;04 - 00;08;11;06
Speaker 3
Well, it certainly makes it easier to block out scenes because I can picture them in my mind more easily. And just having some experience being able to get to to describe things is helpful. So oftentimes writing a fight scene is like candy to me. I can get through a heavy dialog scene or a heavy emotional scene description, worldbuilding scenes.

00;08;11;06 - 00;08;25;10
Speaker 3
I know there's a fighting coming, so I honestly really do think of it almost as like a thing that unfolds in my mind. And I'm transcribing it. But that said, there is a double edged sword to having some experience.

00;08;25;10 - 00;08;26;11
Speaker 2
In martial arts, which is.

00;08;27;01 - 00;08;46;20
Speaker 3
I know there's there are those who have enough training that it is tempting to try and put everything on the page, and that is actually not what you want to do. You want to evoke the fight in a way, the action in a way that the reader is able to still it in their mind, fill it out in their mind themselves.

00;08;46;20 - 00;09;06;07
Speaker 3
You really don't need technical jargon you don't need. And I've also read plenty of scenes where I've no experience knife fights. I'm not an expert knife fighter, but, you know, very little experience. You know, fighting with any sort of magical enhancement. That's just the wish fulfillment on my part. But I think the principles certainly help me.

00;09;06;07 - 00;09;25;07
Speaker 2
So one thing I really loved about this book is incised relationship, which you only see them together for such a small part of the book. But their relationship, the relationship still impacts how he acts throughout the rest of the story. So talk a little bit about crafting a relationship that's not actually visible and still having impact.

00;09;26;02 - 00;09;50;06
Speaker 4
Well, I have to say the creation of the twin brothers was actually something that came very late in the process. And it was Fonda's idea to bring in that John had a twin. And I think it was a brilliant move, especially given that it's a duo ology and so much of the stories are east and west and this duality and separation.

00;09;50;06 - 00;10;15;27
Speaker 4
Right. And so it was the perfect conduit for telling that story. I think as we progressed through writing the book, it just continued to be a question of how do we keep that connection alive? Because, I mean, it's anyone who's separated from their loved ones. It's it's a huge, terrible burden to bear. And with identical twins that's right.

00;10;15;27 - 00;10;36;07
Speaker 4
It's potentially even more because you hear about that twin relationship where they really feel each other even from a distance. And so it was like wanting to bring that in almost like the voice in his in his head, you know, and keep that relationship alive, even though it's not a physical relationship.

00;10;37;02 - 00;11;25;27
Speaker 3
I think one of the roles that Sy plays in the book is to be that like a sense of expectation pressure, guilt, trauma, longing that drives, you know, John, through so much of the narrative and one of the beautiful things that occurred as a result of having that these or the inciting incident really in the whole story was the separation that creates impetus, you know, that has that like emotional weight beyond more than just like the simple, oh, we're fighting a tournament and whoever wins gets to be rich and famous.

00;11;26;15 - 00;11;48;14
Speaker 3
So, you know, there's I've written other tournament arcs. I love, you know, tournament based stories. But, you know, for it to be an effective tournament arc, there has to be more at stake right? You have to connect kind of the external reward to some sort of internal motivation. And I think when we had that relationship manifest on the page, that's when we kind of like found the heart of the story.

00;11;48;17 - 00;12;05;16
Speaker 2
The other really key relationship in the story is John and his dad and Miles Weathers. But when he loses his dad like that is such a big toll on him. And for you lost your dad as well. How did your own grief play into John's on the page?

00;12;05;23 - 00;12;50;00
Speaker 4
Well, I mean, it's something I carry with me in in me and in my body and in my life from I mean, I lost my dad when I was four, so it's a very different sort of experience. I think any time that we're talking about loss and especially loss of seminal relationship in your life, it's very affecting and it's really pulls at that heartstrings of the reader to to go through that journey and understand that like there was this relationship between the two of them from the moment that they were twins were born where he was in a way their role model.

00;12;50;05 - 00;13;19;02
Speaker 4
And, you know, so I resonate very much with that. Like a loss of a light in your life. Essentially. And so I think that in in processing that, you know, it's always just to make sure that we're really feeling it in the, you know, in and that it feels true and that it is the type of seminal emotional moment that it truly is.

00;13;19;02 - 00;13;30;03
Speaker 4
And I think that I found it an amazing job and and that we did an amazing job of crafting you know, this moment in the book and making sure that it felt true.

00;13;30;12 - 00;13;45;12
Speaker 2
So with this book being geared for teens, this is kind of introducing your best characters to a whole new generation. So what does it mean to you as the keeper of his legacy to see people finding him through something that he didn't actually cut himself.

00;13;46;22 - 00;14;29;11
Speaker 4
It's super meaningful. I think that's why I really wanted to do this project. I wanted to introduce him through literature because he's not really a literary character. And I also wanted to make it in the young adult space to try to reach a younger generation most people sort of understand how busy it is or, you know, obviously as once they're a little bit older, but to be able to introduce some of his teachings, some of the energetics of his legacy, his philosophies to a younger generation, and to do it through an entirely different medium is so exciting.

00;14;29;21 - 00;14;42;11
Speaker 4
And it's like it's like opening up an entirely new tributary, you know, from from the main river that's flowing. So it was it was a wonderful opportunity. And I'm so glad that we were able to do it.

00;14;43;03 - 00;14;47;08
Speaker 2
What do you hope people will take away from this book the most especially the dinner audience?

00;14;47;24 - 00;15;17;04
Speaker 3
Oh, there's there's two answers to this, right? I think on one level, I want the readers of this book to have a great time, right? I want them to be entertained. I want them to keep flipping the pages and to point to just be like, this is the key to our story. Right? Regardless of whether they have any familiarity with Bruce Lee or whether they've read any of my previous books or not, whether they, you know, picked up because the cover is cool, I just want them to have a great experience.

00;15;17;25 - 00;15;49;05
Speaker 3
And then along with that, for them to get these like nuggets of the message that Bruce Lee's house in his life and some of the philosophies, some of the ideas around self-actualization around you know, finding and being true to yourself and your destiny, how being flexible and adapting and and moving away from rigidity you know, all of those themes are woven through the book.

00;15;49;17 - 00;15;58;16
Speaker 3
And so hopefully some of the readers will be interested enough to be like, Oh, that was pretty good book. Like maybe I'll go.

00;15;58;16 - 00;15;59;25
Speaker 2
Watch a grizzly bear.

00;16;00;26 - 00;16;14;28
Speaker 3
And dove a little bit deeper or and I'll read the next book know. But, but really exhilarating. Yeah. So really like having a good time, but then like coming away with something that stays with them a little bit longer.

00;16;15;07 - 00;16;33;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was definitely swayed back to the book, and I think that I still needed to finish reading it. So they download the audio book at the airport and I was like listening to it and they stress playing solitaire on the back of my no, no, no, no.

00;16;35;20 - 00;16;44;02
Speaker 2
You just sat there like I two I need it now, OK?

00;16;46;10 - 00;16;50;27
Speaker 2
So when is when can we expect to and what we're going to take is.

00;16;51;26 - 00;17;01;25
Speaker 4
Well, well, well, you can expect to next year. And we're writing it now and we have it all that, that we're really excited about it.

00;17;04;08 - 00;17;10;09
Speaker 4
Feeling, you know, like it's going to be an exciting ride and culmination.

00;17;11;22 - 00;17;19;24
Speaker 2
To the story is there anything that you've changed in your writing process together for book two that you learned about each other from book one?

00;17;20;17 - 00;17;48;27
Speaker 3
I think that book one, we were feeling out the story more, right? Like Shannon says, some of the key elements didn't come until later in the process, like the relationship between John and I was like so pivotal. But it took a while for us to get there, and we were doing worldbuilding. So there were more of like these these foundation building conversations that we had with book two.

00;17;50;03 - 00;18;13;22
Speaker 3
It's about bringing all these threads together and making an exciting climax, right? All these ideas that we have and like, how do we build it into like a crescendo? So I feel like the process was was in some ways easier with book two because we were already on the same page in terms of how the world works and what the key relationships were.

00;18;14;03 - 00;18;32;11
Speaker 3
But we're much more deliberate in like outlining the beats of the story and getting on the same page for it to like understand how it ends and, and much more structured, I guess in the planning of book too. Yeah.

00;18;32;19 - 00;18;33;23
Speaker 4
If I'm in your book.

00;18;33;28 - 00;18;41;02
Speaker 2
And you both have other books in the works, but can you tell us about these other things that you're working on.

00;18;41;10 - 00;18;41;21
Speaker 4
Please?

00;18;42;17 - 00;18;55;27
Speaker 3
So I have an adult science fiction novel that is also the works. It's called The Last Contract, so it is take me a long time to write. So I'm very excited for that one to come out as well.

00;18;58;13 - 00;19;11;26
Speaker 4
I'm working on another nonfiction. I wrote a nonfiction book, Water My Friend, and I'm working on a second nonfiction, and I'm also working on my own fiction novel. But it's it's going to be a minute before.

00;19;12;14 - 00;19;13;20
Speaker 2
That comes together.

00;19;14;08 - 00;19;29;27
Speaker 4
So I'm always sort of figuring out ways to create because I also do a lot of creation and media as well. So film TV, we have a video game we're working on an animated show or so, all sorts of fun things.

00;19;30;07 - 00;19;32;16
Speaker 2
It's your hands and a lot of eyes and a lot of pies.

00;19;32;16 - 00;19;33;23
Speaker 4
I like pies, so that's good.

00;19;36;14 - 00;19;38;26
Speaker 2
Is there anything else you guys wanted to talk about specifically?

00;19;39;12 - 00;19;59;09
Speaker 4
I just really want to invite everybody to pay to this book and go on this ride. You do not as fun as that have to be obviously found to enjoy this book if you are busy and you're going to be on a lot of fun. Easter eggs planted all throughout this book. You don't need to know what any of those are in order to enjoy this story.

00;19;59;20 - 00;20;07;14
Speaker 4
And I think it's a really meaningful unique offering in the space.

00;20;08;00 - 00;20;14;21
Speaker 2
Who doesn't always ask because this is literary hype. What do you hate about so?

00;20;14;21 - 00;20;45;03
Speaker 3
I have the privilege of teaching a lot of writing workshops, and so it is often very fun for me to see my students go through the publication process and have their books cut. And so there is a book coming out this the summer called The Phenix Pencil Company by Alison King. The students land in Aspen, and I read that initial short story, but that turned into this novel and it's fantastic.

00;20;45;14 - 00;21;12;11
Speaker 4
Find out has her finger more on the literary pulse that I do. So I'll do a look back on a book, which is a book that found it just turned me on to reading. And I just finished book one in the series, which is Children of Time. It's a sci fi book, nice chunky one. And what a unique and interesting and an imaginative and creative world that this is.

00;21;12;19 - 00;21;22;11
Speaker 4
I was totally blown away. Like, it starts out like a sci fi novel for anyone who has read it. And then I don't even know. It's like it's a couple chapters ending. You're just like, Wait, what.

00;21;25;19 - 00;21;26;28
Speaker 3
I'm turning sharing a sci.

00;21;26;28 - 00;21;36;21
Speaker 2
Fi do is well. Thanks so much for taking time to talk to literary hype about your brand new look of the Dragon from John Lewis.

00;21;37;04 - 00;21;37;14
Speaker 4
Thank you.

00;21;37;15 - 00;21;38;26
Speaker 3
Thank you. Thank you.

00;21;41;15 - 00;21;58;26
Speaker 1
Thanks to Shannon and Vonda for hanging out with me, y'all west and talking all about Birth of the Dragon and hinting at what's to come in book two. I cannot wait to get my hands on the second book in this do ology, so definitely check it out. The links for you to get your hands on it are down below and the description.

00;21;58;26 - 00;22;10;24
Speaker 1
So make sure you check those out and follow them on social media. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to Literary Podcast. Give us some stories and share it with the friends. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.