On the afternoon of January 24, 2022, the 2022 Annual Literary Forum and Awards Ceremony of Contemporary, sponsored by the People's Literature Publishing House and Contemporary Magazine, was successfully held, and the overall champion of the 2021 Novel Five and the Contemporary Literary Rally was announced and awarded. At the forum site, Liu Zhenyun and Luo Weizhang, the winners of the five best long stories, exchanged views with the previous award-winning writers Ge Fei and Li Er, around the sweetness and bitterness of long-form creation, and this summit dialogue was titled "Uneven Long-distance Running" and hosted by Shi Yifeng, deputy editor-in-chief of Contemporary and writer.
Shi Yifeng: The previous critics are talking, borrowing Qian Zhongshu's saying, if writers and works are the relationship between chickens and eggs, what topics are the critics talking about? Critics often point out to us whether this egg is a white-skinned egg or a red-skinned egg, fried or boiled, whether the Chinese chicken is big or the American chicken is big. I think it's a diner's point of view, it's the egg eater's point of view. But in this link, we mainly listen to the opinions of the chickens and let the chickens talk about the bitterness of their laying eggs, so I hope that several teachers will share the process of creating a long novel.
Another idea is our topic, "Uneven Long-Distance Running." When we write novels, we often use the analogy of running, short stories are sprints, short runs, novellas may be running two laps to finish, long novels are usually regarded as long runs. If the long run of a novel is uniform, how happy it is for a writer, you know every day that you can do part of the work, you know every day where tomorrow is headed. But unfortunately, those of us who have written novels know that this run must be uneven. Some people have to run for a year or two, some people may have to run for seven years and eight years, some people run all their lives, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, sometimes they know where to run, sometimes they don't know where to run, sometimes they fall on their horses, some roll all over the ground, but we try to rush to the end. I also asked a few teachers to talk about their experience in this uneven long-distance running, talk about their writing habits, and even what they experienced in a certain writing process.
Teacher Liu Zhenyun, I just watched your "One Day, Three Autumns", I think it is very interesting to run. In addition to "One Sentence Top 10,000 Sentences", you seem to have been each novel in recent years with more than 100,000 words, not a large volume. "One Day, Three Autumns" is also, and it looks very smooth, "Why bother", "Just do it". But people who know a little bit about the line know that this smooth process is condensed with the author's repeated considerations, and it may be that the consideration of each word written is more than that of the average person who writes ten words and eight words. Please ask Teacher Liu to talk about your feelings when writing.
Liu Zhenyun: In fact, this is a particularly classic literary topic, that is, "what is a long novel". Of course, relative to the novella and the short story, you can say that it is a long run; of course, it can be said that it is uneven, and it can also be said that it is a combination of uniform speed and uneven speed. Sometimes when I finish writing a long story, the reporter will ask a particularly classic topic, that is, how long it took you to write this long story. Is this topic correct? It's definitely right. But there are only 0.1% of the world's debates between right and wrong, 99.9% of which are right and right, whether it is big or small, whether it is right from one kilometer or ten kilometers. In fact, for the author, the real writing is often when not writing, I think the biggest uneven speed, is not that you sit at the desk for half a year or a year, and then write this work, but how long it took you to think about how to write this long story before you wrote, I think it may be more important for the author, at least for me.
There is also a classic topic, that is, why did you write this long story, what story triggered you, what character triggered you, which wisp of cooking smoke or chicken chirping made you write a long story? Maybe it's right, it may not be right, and for me, it may not be the beginning and the original intention of writing a long story. I think the biggest intention was epiphany.
I once had a view: a good writer must be academic, and the background behind good literature must be philosophy. There are many other things behind philosophy, and if your physics and mathematics are good, they are also very good, because I am particularly good at mathematics - Ge Fei teacher, sorry, I should go to Tsinghua, my philosophy is also good.
Sometimes it can be a sudden epiphany of thought and understanding, which is at least very, very important for me to write. With this basis of knowledge and thought, then the most important thing is the pattern, the structure of the story and the structure of the characters. The structure of the story and the structure of the characters bring the rhythm of the novel, including its linguistic characteristics. I think sometimes the front is more important than the back, because I am a professional writer, I look at other people's works, including Chinese and foreign works, there is often a phenomenon, the former one is written OK, and then the last one collapses. There is also the life of this author, the first two works are OK, and the later works are written worse and worse. Why? It is definitely not because he is not familiar with life, definitely not because there is no character or story in life that has touched him, but because his thoughts and understanding are degenerating, and the endings of his nerves can no longer grow new branches. It has something to do with life and others, but the main relationship lies in his constant thinking about life.
In the lounge, I talked to Mr. Ge Fei, and he said that he gave lectures to the students, and in five years he must copy the original lesson plan again. Why? Because the words are not clear, of course this is not the main reason, the main reason is that five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, your understanding of the same work, your vows and opinions expressed in affirmative language, five years later you suddenly found out that it was completely wrong. So I think Ge Fei teacher you are very hopeful, you are constantly denying yourself. Denying yourself I think is the main reason for a person's progress.
In addition, in fact, I quite like the form of long novels, which is relatively calm. The short story and the novella are a bit like rushing rivers, it is about the rhythm, including the meaning, including the characters, it requires the rhythm to be relative, sometimes a little faster. For example, the river rushes down, and suddenly the drop gap becomes a waterfall. This landscape has an effect on the novel, but it has a very, very small effect. I think the long story is a bit like the ocean, the waves on the surface are not important, what matters is the vortex and undercurrent under the sea, including its relationship with the sun, with the moon, with the tides. The novel examines a writer's mind and his understanding. Sometimes I know what level this writer is at when I look at the first sentence, like the fixed tone of a band. I thought the band's finalist was the first fiddler, no, what was that? It's bass.
Just now I said thank you to the judges for their affirmation of "One Day and Three Autumns", including some of my previous works, and this kind of professional affirmation is sometimes very, very important to the author. First, he felt a warmth, and he suddenly felt that he was more free to create, perhaps expanding a little wider in the next work.
Shi Yifeng: Thank you Teacher Liu. Teacher Liu had a video two days ago that I also saw, saying that the background of literature is philosophy, and I also agree with this view. Sometimes we ask a question in a novel, and the question will never be answered, and this value is more important than clarifying a question. Let's ask Teacher Ge Fei to continue. I see that you have published novels at a very uniform rate over the years, one in two years, which should start from the "Jiangnan Trilogy" and come down at a very even speed. How did you feel when you wrote a long story?
Ge Fei: Actually, Yi Feng you should talk about it yourself, your new long story is almost finished, we are all looking forward to it, and there is a chance that you can also talk about your writing habits.
As for me, I think it's very simple, I was a little distracted when Zhenyun said it just now. Why mind wandering? I am thinking about my years, just now Shi Yifeng also said, write a long story why write a long story in two or three years? In fact, I think my own writing is also uneven, so I agree with this topic. The reason for the uneven speed is not that I don't want to be uniform, I am actually willing to work like Balzac every day, that is, to get up in the morning and sit at the writing desk, or to work like Ye Zhaoyan, I think it is particularly beautiful. But I had classes at school, and the amount of classes was huge, for half a year, focused on the fall semester, so I started to get nervous in August and September. So the writing is basically in the spring festival to September in the months. At this time, I feel that time is precious, and I also increase a lot of anxiety.
Write a long story, you can't write it in two or three months, three or four months, so halfway through writing or a few chapters, you're there. After a year, when you pick it up again, you will encounter a problem, the feeling of the original writing, the atmosphere, and most importantly, the rhythm, can not be found, so there will be some problems. For example, in the second part of the "Jiangnan Trilogy", "Mountains and Rivers into Dreams", when writing the third chapter, it took a long time, and the rhythm suddenly became very fast. There are many friends, including Mo Yan also said, how did you get to the third chapter and suddenly the speed increased? This speed is because the original uniform speed feeling can not be found. So I'm still thinking about this question, if I can have enough time to create, every day to continue my thinking, to write a long story continuously, what is it like? For me, it's been almost twenty years. Because a novel takes at least two years to write, sometimes half a year, sometimes a third a year. This is also a big problem for me.
This is certainly not to say that this arrangement is not beneficial. I have a lot of experience in what Zhenyun said just now, but it is good to stop for a while, because after stopping, you will suddenly find that your original idea is not necessarily correct, not necessarily valuable. At this time, you will thank the class and artificially stop your thinking, otherwise, you will easily write in a kind of inertia. So, being interrupted artificially, I think sometimes has benefits. I can only comfort myself like this. Thank you!
Shi Yifeng: In the past, when Teacher Jia Pingwa said to write something, he ran to the mountain and locked himself up. Sometimes it is broken, like Teacher Ge Fei said, to look at it from another angle, but it feels good, suddenly cheerful. But I think this is good or continuous, and probably the most feared thing is to lose the computer. Teacher Li Er, I have heard the story of losing my computer, so let's talk about it.
Li Er: I was asked yesterday about the loss of the computer, I just came to the humanities club to eat at the event, and I lost the computer on the way home. "Ying Wu Brother" was not copied to the USB stick, so after the computer was thrown away, I immediately panicked. Later, the police found the computer on the third day, but within three days my hair was gray.
The two teachers just now talked very well, and my habits were slightly different from theirs. Because I'm a person who works, I'm almost a person who clocks in to work, so I haven't had the whole time to write, I've always written as long as I have time, I haven't said to myself that I'm going to write this month and not write, or what time in the morning to start writing, no. I can write when I'm at work, I can write on the train, and I can write whenever I'm alone.
But my problem, I believe is also the biggest problem that both of them may encounter, the biggest problem in writing a long story is that the writing time is very long, your view of the characters often changes, the view of people and things will change, unlike a year or two ago, you need to constantly revise. I think that's a big problem. Another problem is that your own worldview is also changing, and you don't have a very stable value, worldview. Novels must be written about views of a certain civilization, views on the state of a certain civilization, relationships between characters, understanding of people. But as time goes by and your own relatively stable values change, it's hard to finish the novel. The work you have to do is mainly to modify, and constantly revise to conform to your current values. I think this process is a torture for writers, so I often say that the world should not change too fast, if the world changes slowly, the author's values and world view are relatively stable, which will be conducive to writing long stories. I don't think this era is very suitable for writing long stories, but after all, there are still many people writing, and I am writing. So I think writing a long story is a game with your own values and your own ideas.
Later, I found a compromise, that is, to put the process of the evolution of your values, the process of your change of views on the characters, into the novel. For example, in the specific character shaping, let the concept of the character itself change, in this way it seems to be able to make up for it and alleviate your writing anxiety.
Shi Yifeng: In fact, the way novels such as "Ying Wu Brother" are written may seem like a spectacle under our modern publishing system. For example, spending his life writing "Dream of the Red Chamber" is conceivable in the ancient environment, but in the modern environment, as Li Er said just now, the changes of the times, including personal changes, are very fast, and the rhythm of the entire publishing process is sometimes difficult to allow writers to write in this way. Let's think about 2019, and now I think the five of us didn't wear masks, just like five of us didn't wear underwear, which can't be imagined in 2019, but in 2022 it's a reality. If a novel is written for more than ten years, many people will change wives, many people will change leaders, many people will change jobs, and your personal life will change. This kind of constant adjustment in the midst of constant change is indeed particularly difficult.
Li Er: To add two sentences, I remember very clearly, it was 2004, I came to receive the first long-form award of "Contemporary", when I was still doing a lot of preparations, and I took some notes on the way back from the event site to bring in the feelings of the scene. At that time, I thought that I would be able to write it soon, and I felt that I would be able to write it in two years. I really didn't expect to write for thirteen years, and there will definitely be many, many difficulties in writing, there are worldview problems, there are values problems, this is the most fundamental problem. And, of course, there are changes in personal life and work, such as back-and-forth transfers. But the writer should overcome these things, and if he does not overcome them, he cannot pick them up as soon as he puts them down. This is simply terrible. For example, I have been trying to write for two years, but I just have to put it down, and it is too difficult to pick it up.
Shi Yifeng: Yes, there is a passage in Teacher Li Er's novel that is "where to start", I don't know where to start. The last time I met With Teacher Luo Weizhang was in Chengdu for a drink. I would like to ask you to talk about this specific scene, the writer drinks late at night, which seems to be a problem for everyone, how can you write the next day after drinking and staying up late on the first day? I would like to ask you for advice.
Luo Weizhang: Actually, I don't have a lot of alcohol, and I don't have any feelings for wine. But I do drink it often, and after drinking it, I can't write. For example, if I get drunk once, I am sure that I can't write for three or four days, and what I write is also wasted, which is such a situation. Anyway, I write mainly during the day, which has something to do with the fact that Sichuan people are more lazy, and there is a movie screenwriter who says that you are too lazy. I think he's right because they can overcome a lot of difficulties, such as staying up late and still being productive, but I can't. If I don't sleep for twenty minutes, I can't do it, and I must find a way to make up for this sleep before I can work, at least I can work satisfactorily. So I don't stay up late. If I stay up late one time, it's because I'm so happy with the novel and think I'm writing it too well, and I can't stop in that place. But there are really not many times like this.
One of the very difficult things about writing for me is that on the one hand this character is moving towards himself, but on the other hand I need him to come out of himself. If he didn't step out of himself, he couldn't really go to himself. So in such a tug-of-war, how do I deal with it, how to let him really go out of himself, establish his position in such a vast social structure and vast life, and then he walks back to himself to become his true self, which is the most difficult. And this is also where I think this novel needs to be written, whether it is worth writing, especially a long novel, so long, spend so much time and energy, why should I write? I often start by asking, why did you write this thing? If you can't ask the answer, maybe this is wasted. So I've got a lot of half-cut novels in my computer. There is a novel that wrote more than 200,000 words, which was written ten years ago, and now that I have not gone down, I feel that I have not found a path, and where I hit the south wall, I have not found this thing.
Shi Yifeng: When it comes to drinking, every time you go out and others persuade us to drink, you are writers who should drink a little more, Li Baidou wine poems a thousand, I said that the one you are talking about is a poet, you don't know how to write novels at all. As far as I know, it seems that drinking too much alcohol does not help at all in writing novels, and may help in writing poetry. This is one.
Second, we have a big sister in the writer's circle, I remember she has a golden jade saying, the first day must sleep well, if the first day does not sleep well, the harm to your back work is very large, so she would rather take sleeping pills on the first day to endure the side effects of addiction and sleep enough. In fact, when we writers write, they are all in this change of thinking, the change of characters, the change of our writing habits, the change of the writing environment, and the changes in all kinds of changes pitifully maintain a little constant writing time. From this point of view, we novelists are indeed a profession worthy of heartache. Of course, it is still the sentence of Qian Zhongshu, eggs are delicious or not, I think chickens have a say, but diners have more say. Sometimes I actually think that the egg itself has the most say, an egg is a small universe, and the information contained in an egg may be a life, a time and space, a world that comes up in our heads, and then we dedicate this world to the reader, from this point of view we are quite selfless. So thank you, today's dialogue is here, please pay tribute to the people who write novels!
(Based on live speeches)