From September '15 to June' 16, I finished writing the eighth episode of "The Son-In-Law" in three seasons. Last night, I finished typing seven thousand words in 719. This morning, I finished writing the preface to Taiwan's traditional Chinese publishing. Looking back at the past few months, my life has changed greatly. I'm still adapting … But first, let's get back to the book.
Whether it's writing a book or doing things, I have emphasized a concept called "idea" several times. The idea is the final goal, and it determines the final height of a book. The eighth episode of "The Son-In-Law" is about war. Some readers who are used to war novels often ask how to write a war novel, how to arrange troops, and how to write a war novel. They say you don't know how to write a war novel, and so on. Here is a unified answer.
Online literature is often categorized as genre novels because there are many genres. Genre novels are usually like this: A person works in a company, comes out to write about his experiences in the company, scheming against each other to solve problems, and the reader feels like he has experienced a life that he has never experienced before. This is the purpose of genre novels. Then, a good fantasy novel allows people to experience a fantasy world, a good war novel allows people to experience a war, learn knowledge that they did not know before, and know how to arrange troops and so on.
But, what's the use of knowing how to arrange troops and formations? For example, if you are a brick, and you know how a clerk works, it might be useful. But if you know how to arrange the crossbow, what's the use?
Of course, entertainment itself is a kind of use. It makes people feel like they know a lot of things they did not know before, and it is also a kind of use. But not all the books in the world have to serve this purpose.
Lu Yao's "The Ordinary World" shows people's brilliance when they overcome hardships, and we can't help but learn from such a protagonist. Lu Xun's "Ah Q" shows many people's shortcomings, and in this way, we can avoid and overcome these shortcomings in the future. Antoine's "The Little Prince" tells people about the value of those first perseverance. Jonathan's "Gulliver's Travels" is to criticize corruption and war.
Blah blah blah, you will feel like you are back in class, but in fact, this is just the introduction to literature.
What is the purpose of writing a book? At least, I am not writing it to let the reader learn how to arrange troops and formations in ancient times.
It's normal for people to focus on different things when they read a book. I'm just saying this to express that it's for this reason that I've chosen the way I write. Even though I had referred to some military formations before I wrote, and I had gone through them in my head, I still wouldn't deliberately explain them when I was writing, because it would be meaningless. Qidian also has a lot of war books, some of which I like, but from beginning to end, I have never felt any pleasure from the arrangement of troops in any of the books. If you come for the feeling of "I know a lot about war," then you have to put this book down, because I really don't write about it.
So much for the description of war.
The eighth episode was the one that connected the previous episode to the next. The entire plot was moving rather quickly, and the entire book would probably have about three more episodes. Hopefully, each episode would be at most nine months, and it wouldn't take too long.
I once said that up until now, all my books have been practice. The reason for this is that I can clearly see where the perfect high point is. I can clearly see my own shortcomings, where I should take the next step, and how to reach the final goal. Because of this, the practice of writing will continue.
At the beginning of 'The Son-In-Law', I used a relatively complicated style of writing and used relatively complicated, almost bloated words to write things in detail. There was a purpose for this. In the last two episodes of 'Alienation', I understood and grasped the effect of starting and ending on the expression of emotions, as well as the effects of many subtle emotions and hints. At the beginning of 'The Son-In-Law', I began to dig deeper into the expression of emotions. It's just like a kind of emotion, such as feeling good. At first, I can write eight points, but when I touch the depth of ten points, to achieve it, I may need to use more than twice the description, and I need to repeatedly use different methods to express it. Only through repeated digging, can I truly understand these things.
Thus, at the beginning of 'The Son-In-Law', some people might say that it's dull, but in reality, it's not. Every chapter has more foreshadowing, hints, and things that move people's hearts and make them unable to stop, than most people do in a dozen chapters.
This kind of training that doesn't care about the amount of words and stubbornly tries to achieve the depth of expression is basically over by the end of the seventh episode.
In the eighth episode, I faced a new round of training, and I did some experiments. Only after the completion of this episode did I truly confirm my goal. Next, I can already start trimming the minor details of my writing. In many of the previous expressions, in order to grasp the fleeting inspiration and pursue the most incisive effect, I have a habit of not following formal grammar and capturing words purely based on first impressions. Next, I will need to condense my writing. As for the emotions, after the seventh episode, it seems that I don't need to pursue 120% of them anymore. Some places can start to leave a lasting impression.
This round of writing practice might last until the end of the book.
Of course, this is an adjustment I made to my writing, and it might not have much to do with the readers. I'm just taking advantage of the summary to sort out the plot systematically. Rest assured, the plot won't go out of control because of writing practice, and it's very likely that the readers won't feel too much of a difference.
Many people don't understand why I write so slowly. Recently, I occasionally see questions like 'Why does this chapter take so long?'. Most old readers don't ask, and for new readers, I can tell them something new.
A traditional novel is at most a few hundred thousand words, a million words at most. A bunch of clues from the beginning to the end will only be a few hundred thousand words. When a web novel reaches a few million words, it might seem like a shortcut at the beginning, but if one still pursues a smooth transition from beginning to end, and the natural nature of the clues, up to now, the workload is already several times to more than ten times that of a traditional novel.
At the beginning of this novel, I can casually put down a line and write a plot. As long as I leave a random impression in my mind, one day in the future, I can conveniently put it away. However, after a few million words, every line that I put down, I have to clearly see how it ends and how it intersects with other clues. Every time I write a plot, the ending of the story has to go through my mind once.
At the beginning, web novels seem to have an advantage, but if one really uses the standard of a "good" novel, in the end, no one can use shortcuts. Writing a good ending for a web novel is dozens of times more difficult than writing a good beginning.
I'll treat this as the final advancement of a web novel. If I can really reach a sublimation at the end and place every line properly, then I'll only need to edit the details three times before it can even be considered a complete novel in the traditional sense. But the work of correcting typos doesn't matter, so I'll be able to explain it at this point.
Writing a plot, going through the ending several times in my mind, the idea must go through, and I can't leave it to chance. There are no shortcuts here. There are still three episodes left in this book, and it might still be normal to get stuck, but, if I don't write it well, what else can I do? I have already put in it for five years.
Even if the updates are not stable, I will still ask for monthly votes when I am bored. Of course, the current Qidian is different from the past. Authors can send red packets to receive monthly votes, so I will not participate in this matter. Monthly votes are just a game, of course, I also hope that I have more, so that I will have more face. But if it is a reader who does not have much money, I might as well give them monthly votes, and use Qidian coins to subscribe to my book, it will be enough to show my hospitality.
Tidying up the eighth episode, that's all.
Welcome to the ninth episode of the son-in-law: "The Vast Land"
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