Starting from June 20th, today's headlines national new writing competition will launch a column of "Competition Quality Author Interview", which intends to select a high-quality author from the popular articles of the weekly competition for text interview. The selection criteria for high-quality authors revolve around three dimensions: article content, work score, and creative potential.
This week, we invited the contestant @Kwaidan strange talk to share his story with the writing.
Popular article: CC Standard Collection Movie Poster Award: The carefully designed poster is also a love letter to the movie
Judges' score: 6.5
Judging Comments:
Kwaidan, an Internet company practitioner, now lives in Shanghai.
In the public impression, the life of "996" practitioners of Internet companies seems to have nothing to do with writing. But Kwaidan, who has a background in operations, has always been able to strike a tense balance between work and life. On the bus on the way to and from work, Kwaidan typed out most of his articles with his mobile phone and started a 2.5-year jogging on the road to writing at a two-and-a-half-weekly pace.
He loves movies, he loves games, and he loves writing. His articles always provide an interesting cut to the humanities and history behind games and movies. From the small details of the popular game "Red Dead Redemption 2" to the history of Chinese immigration in the United States, from the game side quest analysis of the first vampire movie movie of the silent film era. He always has strict requirements for the knowledge density and observation perspective of the article, and if the topic is not interesting enough, he would rather not write it.
Such a casual and more authentic author, with a popular competition article reviewing the CC standard collection of movie posters, attracted our attention and came to our interview.
Q: Does the word "weird talk" sum up your writing style all along?
There are actually changes in the middle. "Kwaidan" comes from a Japanese horror film that I particularly like, Masaki Kobayashi's Strange Talk, which is in a style and tone that is closer to some of the particularly vertical and niche content I originally wanted to write: for example, Japanese heterochromatic manga artists represented by Maruo Suehiro and Shotaro Yuki. Later, due to the limitation of language and other reasons, the article dragged out and did not write out, and this idea was broken. Later, the content of writing gradually became broader, no longer limited to niche, vertical cult content, and would write a popular, life-oriented article.
Nowadays, writing may be more life records, games, movies will be written more, and occasionally there will be travelogues. Professional self-media generally emphasize verticality and depth, but I still tend to write headlines as blogs from ten years ago, writing what I want, and I don't want to be bound by the concept of "vertical".
Q: What kind of opportunity was 2017 for you to start writing on new media platforms?
The idea of writing stemmed from a boring family gathering on the second or third day of the Chinese New Year in 2017. I was suddenly tired of the two-point and one-line routine, and I wondered if I could leave something behind. So I thought of using words to record what I saw and heard, and to find an anchor for my life, so I began to write in new media and published an article similar to a demo program - "Hello, world".
I think another important reason I started writing was that day I really became aware of the fault lines of communication between different age groups. The generational differences with our parents' generations often make us unable to find common topics and alienate us from each other. I thought that by writing, I could actually bridge this difference. If I have children in the future, they can see through my article what their father was thinking and thinking.
Q: In your writing process, if you cite one of the most memorable events, which one do you think will be?
The first article became a hit. On that day, the editors of The Core Network (a well-known ACG content community) took the initiative to put the article I wrote on their homepage, and I suddenly received a lot of comments and likes, which had a deep impact on me when I first started writing. Because the things you sent before have not been read by anyone, suddenly one day you find that many people approve of what they have written, which gives people a completely different experience.
In fact, for many authors, writing things is more or less still want to be seen.
So when the new media era arrived, I shifted from blogging. New media platforms provide more traffic portals than in the past blogging era, and also give more grassroots authors the opportunity to present themselves. Personal websites and blogs, while full of pressure, are missing the key motivating element: sharing and interaction. Without a sense of accomplishment, the motivation to write will disappear.
Q: The article you submitted is about the poster design of the CC Standard Collection. Why did you use this submission?
I love to watch movies, and I pay special attention to the poster design of movies. In daily life, movie posters are very common, and can be seen on the subway or on the street, but people generally rarely think about the expression behind the poster. The difference between movie posters is actually a topic that can be dug deeper. As I wrote in the article: Good movies have their own advantages, but bad posters are mostly rotten and similar. Creative plagiarism, primary and secondary, and aesthetic lack are the most common groove points. The first two problems may be remedied in the short term, but aesthetic iteration is destined to be a long process. So I introduced what I thought was a good poster design standard— standard CC movie poster design.
Click to view: CC Standard Collection Movie Poster Award: The carefully designed poster is also a love letter to the movie
Q: Would you put a label on yourself: Do I write only for people who like my content?
Suffice it to say, I'm very spontaneous. I started writing like a monument to my life, and over time, writing became my inner choice. I occasionally write a travelogue and it may drop fans, but it doesn't matter, people who really like my content will always see my articles. Writing is just something I want to do, nothing more.
Q: The rich density of knowledge in your articles is very impressive, and your articles generally cut through a strange observational perspective, is your way of writing related to your reading and watching movies?
It does matter that when I was in elementary school, I developed the habit of going to the video store with my father to look for discs, and unconsciously, I developed a relatively niche, or cult movie preference. In my free time in college, I watch more than 300 movies a year, and my current job is related to movies and games. But in fact, it is not professional, because I am a small language, regular game reviews, movie reviews, I certainly can't write professional media, so I will start from some unique and interesting perspectives to do some articles.
For example, in the game "Red Dead Redemption 2", I drew the perspective of Chinese railway workers from it and wrote this history. Of course, I will consult more English materials and start some translation work. First find the Pacific Railway and Chinese immigrants related research articles, after examination, finally sorted out an article out.
I really like the articles of the machine core network that analyze the human history behind the game, and often find new content on it. There are a lot of gods on it, and they may analyze the democracy of ancient Greece from Assassin's Creed Odyssey; and from "Like a Dragon" to analyze the Japanese pole road in the bubble economy era .[ Note: Japanese gangsters]. Articles of this kind will extend from the particularly vertical field of games, alongside the humanities and history behind the game. This is more in-depth and fun than a simple game guide.
If I find a good topic or angle in my forum or work, I can't help but start writing.
Q: This new writing contest launched the "unconditional writing" initiative, how do you evaluate this concept?
In fact, I have always believed that writing is not, and should not become, something with a threshold. Many of my articles are actually on the way to and from work, sitting on the bus and using my mobile phone to finish, I can actually write anywhere if I want to. The popularity of mobile devices such as mobile phones and mobile Internet has really lowered the threshold for writing, so that more people can start writing.
Q: So, would you agree that this is the best time to write?
Not necessarily, there may be better times in the future. There may be writing platforms that are more user-friendly or more convenient writing tools. We are better now than we were in the past, but there will be better solutions in the future.
Today's Headlines National New Writing Contest Cultural Article Evaluation Criteria:
Calligraphy Network: His calligraphy is enough to compete with Wang Xizhi, because of him, he has a real history of calligraphy!
Talking about art: Tang poems idle reading: "Jun buried the mud under the spring to pin bones, I sent the world full of snow"
Brain Hole Historical View: Minimalist Spring and Autumn History, Simplified to Collapse!
Anti-pants position: I don't dare to escape from the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou, small places are much more difficult to mix than big cities!
Literary Novelty: Why is "The Three-Body Problem" so well received in the West? Do Western readers see the same works as we do?
Liu Shen Lei Lei: Huang Rong's inferiority
Elephant Guild: The Great "Infighting Province"
Artsy: Ancient Egyptian statues frequently missed their noses, not just because of the washing of time
Written by Zhu Ziqing and his father: If it were not for "Back Shadow", we would not have forgiven each other until we died
Dr. X: The Awkward American Life of the So Ming-Ches
Characters: The girl who was sexually assaulted and the "black box" that covered up the truth
Today's Headline National New Writing Contest is continuing to call for papers, you can enter the official website of the contest (xxz.toutiao.com) or the backstage of the headline number to publish entries.
Click to learn more to view the rules of entry