Prologue: Writing with your body, not your head

Part 1 What sentence do you have?

Work that resonates with others
What the expression doesn't say
From concrete to abstract
'Bad' writing remains
What can be writing
The less clear the topic, the better.
Appendix: To better express the subject matter

Part 2: How to structure a good essay

The aesthetics of addition and subtraction
Engraving someone else's perspective on my body
Style, a style shaped by life
Translating experience into something unfamiliar
A single sentence that resonates with the world
Some scenes keep grabbing me
Finding the 'right' word
How to anchor my writing
Writing that starts with 'I don't want to write'
The text also needs some editing.
Appendix: For 'Human' Writing

Part 3: Let's write what wasn't said

Thickness of time
The power to imagine a scene
I saw it, but the reader didn't see it.
Into a new world of words
The freedom of being imperfect
Language that starts from me
Emotions are outside the skin
Appendix: To better convey my story to the readers

Part 4: Live as if you were writing, read as if you were living

Sensitivity engraved in the body
The joy of becoming someone else, the longing to give of myself
When the book passes through me
The discovery of repetition
Establishing the axis of life
In an equal and free space
Writing that invites heterogeneity
With the sense of 'another body'

Epilogue: If you want to write 'well'

“Only those who have engraved the perspective of others on their own bodies
“I can create a single sentence that will move your heart.”

On the method of 'writing with the body', not the head

This book is divided into four parts, which sequentially help you broaden your perspective on writing and develop a 'writing body.'
First, Part 1, 'What kind of sentences do you have?' contains basic preparations for becoming a writer.
For example, first of all, it talks about the importance of relaxing.
Just as you have to relax when doing Aikido to be able to receive the opponent's movements and show your own, the same goes for writing.
Writing that is full of force, with blood in your throat, and shouting is clichéd and noisy and does not reach the reader.
This opens with a discussion of what constitutes "good" writing, and explores various ways of thinking that can help you draw out topics and writing materials from your own life and create good sentences.

Part 2, 'How is a good piece of writing structured?', delves into the structure of writing and the expression of sentences.
It provides points to consider for each element of writing, such as point of view, style, description, expression of emotion, and sentence length, along with its own new definition.
For example, the author distinguishes between empathy and sympathy, defining empathy as becoming one with another because it “invites the other person’s perspective into my body” (p. 92), whereas empathy is maintaining a state of discord because it agrees with the other person’s feelings while maintaining my own position.
It is said that in order to write new sentences and articles that will move the reader's heart, one must overcome the natural instinct to protect oneself and willingly shed oneself and experience becoming someone else.

"Through whose eyes do you see this world? Are you only seeing it through your own eyes? You have to sit in someone else's shoes to know your own place.
Only such a person can create sentences from the perspective of an object.
“Just one sentence that will move your heart.” _Page 92

Part 3, "Let's Write What Hasn't Been Said," teaches us how to effectively understand and utilize techniques such as metaphor, metonymy, and personification, while delving deeper into the nature of language, including its irrationality and human-centered nature.
According to him, language cannot objectively and accurately reflect the world, and is therefore inevitably irrational.
For example, the metonymic expression 'to bake bread' is actually incorrect.
In fact, we only bake the dough, and only then do we get the bread.
The author argues that we should move beyond the illusion that language is objective, and emphasizes that anyone can reinterpret and recreate the world by relying on the free irrationality of language.
The final fourth part continues with a story of connecting with others and the world through letters, from the perspective that writing is always an act that transcends 'me'.
The joy of reading and writing is connected to “meeting the world through the bodies and perspectives of others” (p. 252), and writing is like increasing the number of pillars that support life, ultimately broadening and expanding me.

“A human person is a ‘beginning person.’
Of course, the writer is also a beginner.
A person who lives a life of action, not a life of observation.
(Omitted) It is a miracle that cannot be predicted, not a causal relationship or logic.
Because that is human ability.
Start something new without any purpose.
I wish someone like that would write.” _Page 245

“I talk about writing, but maybe I'm really talking about democracy.”

In an era where differences are not accepted,
Writing for a Flexible Attitude to Life

In November 2024, approximately 4,000 professors from 60 universities across the country issued a statement on the current situation.
Among them, the 'Kyunghee University Declaration on Current Affairs' written by Professor Kim Jin-hae caused the greatest stir.
Rather than following the grammar of a typical declaration (poster) that strongly questions social structures or external circumstances, this declaration began with a calm, reflective tone that confessed the vulnerability of 'myself'.
The first-person sentences extended to 'with you' and finally 'we'.
This declaration, which reflects the author's writing philosophy, caught the attention of many fellow citizens both on and off campus, and raised the question of what makes a good adult and a better community.
It was just a few days before former President Yoon Seok-yeol declared martial law.


“The world we live in is a collaborative creation of heterogeneous species meeting, entangling, and colliding, so why is it that writing is told to contain ‘a single, well-organized thought’?
“Wouldn’t that be okay?” _Page 294

The world we live in today is full of uncertainty.
In these unpredictable times, it's increasingly easy to want to protect what's ours and stick together, but perhaps what we need more than anything else is an attitude of "willingly inviting heterogeneity."
Just as a natural ecosystem is not maintained by a single species, but rather by various individuals forming relationships and coexisting while 'contaminating' each other.

For the author, this vast mechanism of symbiosis applies equally to natural ecosystems, human societies, and writing.
The author says that “good writing is writing in which disparate stories cooperate and coexist” (p. 298), and that the joy of writing lies in “realizing after writing that there is something left unwritten, accepting that even after finding and rewriting the ‘unwritten things,’ there are still things left unwritten, and that the phrase ‘I wrote everything’ does not make sense at all” (p. 274).
Ultimately, the author's thoughts on writing are centered around the soft possibility and diversity of "all can be correct, even though they are different," rather than the near-fictional unity and accuracy of "only one is correct."
This book promotes writing as a true adult communication method, and in an age obsessed with telling one's story, it provides a clue to an attitude of acceptance and coexistence that willingly humbles oneself and makes eye contact with others.


“Language (spoken and written) is not a mirror that reflects the world as it is.
Language does not objectively reflect the world.
That has never happened before.
Language provides a framework for understanding the world from a certain perspective.
(Omitted) Because I have the power to shape the world, I need to be conscious of how the world is being reconstructed through my writing.
“As language changes, so does our understanding of reality.” _Page 205