The grassland is vast, and love is boundless
The long children's novel "Grassland Erji" is based on "Three Thousand Orphans Entering Inner Mongolia", which is forever engraved on the historical monument and flows with the republic of national love.
Everything in the book,
It almost became my own life experience
Text/Zhang Lin
After writing "Steppe Erji" for some days, my ears still echo the melodious, affectionate and low-back music of the horse's head and the melody of the long, soothing, open-minded Mongolian patriarchal tune, and I can smell the aroma of burnt yellow fried rice and snow white milk in the yurt... Everything in the book has almost become a tangible and important life experience of my own.
"Grassland Eji" is a key book curated by Jiangsu Phoenix Children's Publishing House, and I have the honor and opportunity to write this book. Just touching this topic, I was deeply moved by its thick theme and touching story. It shows and praises the most valuable spirit of selflessness, self-denial and dedication in the roots of Chinese culture, and praises the soft, deep love, beauty and virtue of the people of the grassland. After reading and understanding the relevant background, my heart surged with creative enthusiasm.
As a children's literature work with a main theme, it has its own thick theme and rich spiritual connotation, and the next key is how to focus on this theme, structure a tortuous, full and fascinating story, create a real, vivid and typical character image, let the vast and thick love contained in it flow, and show a quality aesthetic concept in the work. From the entire framework of the work, the twists and turns of the story, the ups and downs of the plot, as small as every sentence of each character, every look, even the hairstyle and the color of clothing, and the grassland style after another... It can be called a huge project.
The novel is set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, an era when I was not yet born, and I had never set foot in the inner Mongolian steppe where the story took place and grew. Therefore, in addition to the search, collection, and combing of a large number of materials, its writing especially requires a solid and abundant literary imagination.
This imagination is based on the real basis of historical background, national culture, region and human nature. Because love is the soul of this work, feelings become its most critical and important element, to understand and capture the inner activities and spiritual trajectories of different characters, to show and express the complexity and subtlety of emotions, as well as the natural changes and beauty. Its unfolding and flight rely on the understanding of human beings with this heart and this reason, and the extended insight into love, emotion, and human nature. I think that although the ages are different, human nature, human feelings and love are the same and are also connected. By nature, I feel that I have a strong ability to empathize, which makes me very confident in the creation of this work.
Fortunately, I am not alone. "Prairie Egi" is a collective creation. President Wang Yongbo of Su Shaoshe was involved in my writing. His encouragement and ad-hoc made me almost take a high-quality literary writing class, he said: "Long novels, win in structure." "We must have rich plot conflicts, show contradictions, and resolve contradictions with literature." "If the text feels good, it can be a masterpiece." "Words are water, moisturizing all things. Writers are born with water. "I seem to smell the inner Mongolian steppes."
President Wang Yongbo suggested that I first produce a character score, and then sort out the main line of the story. He said that by going deep into Eji's heart and portraying the characters well, the theme will be beautiful and moving, and he will use literature to pay tribute to the chivalrous tenderness of that era, and express the softness and human love in the roots of Chinese culture.
Writing character maps, this is a very interesting process, I immersed myself in it, and every character in the work interacted, interacted, interacted, and became more and more familiar with each other, more and more acquaintance. In the process of painting each character and showing his personality and psychological characteristics, the structure of the work gradually became clear and grown. From this, I have very clearly realized that the structure of the work and the image and personality of the characters are interrelated, and the shaping and change of the character image and personality will provide the basic background and internal logical connection for the structure of the work and the development of the story. In the process of building the character map, I became more and more eager to like each character in the work, and their feelings became stronger and stronger. Coming up with character maps is really an important and effective way to write novels. In many of the works I have written in the past, I naturally have to conceive of characters in advance, but they are all pondered in my head, and I have never taken the form of a pen. Now it is found that the effect of laying out the character spectrum through words and only passing it in the mind is not the same in the subsequent actual writing.
At the beginning of the writing, I was a little sluggish. When the characters in the concept appear and move in the pen, I will be cautious, and they seem to be looking left and right, and their words and deeds are restrained. Slowly, writing and writing, I and them more and more familiar, everyone who appears in the story has become my old friend, or I myself have gradually become one of them, the weather at this time is very different, the plot and characters can be roughly in their own control, the characters, emotions, scenes, stories have begun to cooperate with each other and flow, some scenes, I wrote out with tears. In the collision of inner pleasure and love, smelling the taste of the Inner Mongolian steppe, I completed this manuscript. Later, the editor-in-charge teacher told me that when she reviewed the manuscript, she was moved to tears several times by the story and the atmosphere created. Thousands of miles away, I want to hug her and thank her for her empathy and affirmation.
Writing this manuscript, I feel like I've been baptized. More than 60 years ago, that vast and heart-warming "national action" was concretely and subtly transformed into the every move and every word and deed of the grassland Erji represented by Toya on the vast grassland of Inner Mongolia. This vast and gentle love bathed me throughout the whole process, and I continued to feel the strength and beauty of the power of love, as well as the purification, forging and sublimation of the soul.
Also infiltrating me is Mongolian culture. As the regional cultural background of the unfolding storyline of the work, and as an important element in creating the aesthetic atmosphere and artistic conception of the work, I have spent some effort to learn and experience it. It brings a rich and unique sense of beauty, brings a steady stream of passion, and brings the nurturing of the soul. At the same time, because I was based on the inner Mongolian steppe in my imagination, I indirectly experienced and experienced that one side of the water and soil nourished one side of the people, I not only liked Inner Mongolia, liked the grassland Eji, but also liked the horse head qin, liked the Mongolian patriarch tune, the ancient Lele car, fried rice, and even liked the wolf on the grassland... Since I was a child, I have a special love for all people and things with rich characteristics, and all this in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia is a vat of fine wine that does not drink and get drunk!
I have always regarded the aesthetic and literary nature of children's literature as almost as important as its themes and subject matter. Children's weather and childhood spirit itself naturally have aesthetic qualities, and contain their own aesthetic secrets and profound meanings in a school of innocence. And when writing children's literature, I have a slight preference for adult aesthetics. Relying solely on children's interests, or simply using adult aesthetics, is biased and incomplete for a children's literature work. The way I have been tempted to try it out is that the meaning is childlike, and the aesthetic expression of the text is adult, which may be conducive to creating quality and avoiding simplification and childishness. In "Prairie Eji", I wrote about children's games such as "Southeast, South, Northwest and Shake Heads" and "Gala" of sheep bones, as well as many other scenes and plots that show children's innocence and childishness. By expressing all this with a mature aesthetic, they have a strong literary nature, rather than just staying in the photographic imitation of children's words and deeds and children's stories. Such works have more edification and empowerment for children, and the age span of readers will be greater.
After going through this writing, my heart was rich. This also made me realize more and more how important "love education" and edification are for children, and now I am full of tender love, waiting for young readers to get the bath and nourishment of love through reading this novel, so that their hearts and footsteps are joyful and calm.