China-Singapore Book Review: Romance novels should not fall into homogenization routines! What about this one?

BEIJING, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- From character settings to storylines, writer Xin Yiwu's new book "Needle Tip Honey" has recently sparked a lot of discussion. As of now, the Douban score is 6.8 points.

Readers who like youth literature and romance novels will be more familiar with Xin Yiwu's style. Her work is known for its "warm and youthful" style, which may be more "sadistic", but it still gives people hope.

"Needle Tip Honey" book cover. Courtesy of the publisher

In her books, there are often descriptions of the current living conditions of urban young people, as well as reflections on the growth process of women. "Needle Tip Honey" also has this characteristic, with the city as the background, writing about the theme of romance.

As far as the writing is concerned, the storytelling ability of "Needle Tip Honey" is still online, and the sense of suspense at the beginning is extremely strong: due to family changes, Chen Xi and his stepson ran to Wei Jia's place to live, in a small house, Wei Jia, Chen Xi, Wei Jia's stepmother You Qingfen constantly contradicted each other, Chen Xi's directness, Wei Jia's calmness... The personality of the characters is at a glance.

Along with Chen Xi's memories, the above-mentioned relationship map of the actors slowly unfolds, and at the same time unlocks new characters, explains the lives, acquaintances and past experiences of Chen Xi, Wei Jia, Sun Jianchuan and others, and paves the way for the "HE ending" (that is, Happy End, happy ending) later.

Realistic background settings tend to make readers have a strong sense of substitution and reading interest, which is especially evident in romance novels.

"Needle Tip Honey" is also trying to "realize" the fictional story, Chen Xi and Sun Michuan are all people in the entertainment industry, Sun Michuan's fans are named "Sichuan Cuisine", and some "Sichuan Cuisine" will quarrel with Chen Xi, who has just met, for this unfamiliar idol.

However, this method of character setting and storytelling does not seem to have been unanimously approved by readers. The narrative rhythm is one of the points of contention: the early story moves forward relatively slowly, and the memory part is somewhat long; near the end, the plot suddenly progresses rapidly.

In addition, the main characters are not beautiful or handsome, Chen Xi and Wei Jia are born in a huge family, the two meet, break up, reunite... Still carrying the shadow of "sweet sadism", the character is mainly based on large sections of dialogue.

In fact, "Needle Honey" is trying to break some of the routines that exist in romance novels. There are no characters with perfect personalities in the book, and each character stands on their own side and does what they think is right at the time.

When he was young, Wei Jia liked Chen Xi, but once chose to give up: because he did not know what he liked a person could do; in the face of his mentally unsound sister, he finally chose to take on the responsibility of taking care of her.

Chen Xi at different ages has also changed a lot: she lived quite freely as a teenager, made a lot of negative news after entering the entertainment industry, and finally really grew up, knew how to cherish, and dared to pay love.

The personalities of these two people seem to be somewhat "strange". Xin Yiwu once explained that he wrote this story to show that two imperfect people can have good love, and it is this love that makes them better people.

Indeed, until now, romance novels have changed mostly only in the way of narrative and shell, and the performance of the core issue of "feelings" is the same as always.

However, in this era, influenced by network culture and other influences, romance novels with urban backgrounds, contractual emotional relationships, sweet pets, sadomasochism, etc. are common elements, and writing is more likely to fall into homogenization routines.

Some people believe that readers of genre literature often prefer to read fixed plot settings and are easy to accept content that conforms to their previous reading and aesthetic habits, which to a certain extent makes the tendency of some romance novels to tell stories "modeled" more obviously.

So, how can online romance novels write novels? Perhaps, we still have to start with the three elements of the novel.

Characters who behave in line with personality and are recognizable are the core of the novel, the storyline with a smooth narrative and logical self-consistency is the structure of the novel, and the reasonable background is the environment in which the story exists.

A good novel should be thematically clear and compelling, and as a writer, you should also pay attention to breaking the "routine".

So, have you read the book? (End)