Famous artists talk about writing | Zhang Xianliang: how to write novels

Editor's Note

How to read, write, and judge the merits and weaknesses of an essay are different and different. In view of this, the China Writers Network has launched a series of articles on "Famous Artists Talk about Writing", so that famous artists from ancient and modern China and abroad can "face to face" with you to teach their writing experience, and perhaps a sentence can make you suddenly realize and open up in the vast sea of books. Stay tuned.

Zhang Xianliang

How to write a novel

Zhang Binhai gave me a question. What is this topic? It's called "How to Write a Novel." As far as I know, from the past to the present, no one in Ancient and Modern China and abroad has been able to speak on such a topic. As for how to write a novel, I think I will disappoint the more than two hundred students who are here today. This topic is a very big and very difficult topic, and none of the great writers in the world have written a single article on how to write novels or novels on the law. The day before yesterday, Zhang Binhai went to my place, narrowed the topic a little, asked three questions, and drew three boxes, which is easier to talk about. The first question, in the process of compiling the manuscript, found out what problems exist in the manuscripts of young authors; the other problem, how to deepen the theme; and the other problem, how to put the material into the novel, how to layout and structure.

My personal history of writing novels is not long, only two years. Before 1957, I wrote a little poetry, but it was interrupted for historical reasons. For the next twenty-two years, I was not exposed to literary creation. I live in a small village more than forty miles from here. The books I could see were Sunny Days and several copies of People's Liberation Army Literature and Art. So in the past twenty-two years, I have been cut off from the literary and artistic world, and I still hope that someone will talk about "How to Write a Novel" somewhere, and I am also willing to listen to it. How did I start writing novels? It was also a fortuitous opportunity. After writing one, I became more and more out of control to write, and I wrote something. I will talk to my classmates based on some of my personal experiences in writing novels. I believe that the students here have a higher level of literary theory than me, so I will not talk about theoretical things.

Talk about my personal experience, so that talking may be of greater help to the students. Cao Yu once said that those who can write plays write their own plays; those who can't write plays teach others how to write plays ("People who can write plays, he writes plays himself" This sentence should be said by the drama master Cao Yu. Li Ruru, Cao Yu's stepdaughter, recalled that in the early 1980s, Cao Yu went to the Shanghai Theater Academy to give a lecture and said a sentence: "People who can write plays write plays, but they can't teach people to write plays; people who don't write plays teach people to write plays." I am a person who can't write novels, teach others how to write novels.

I'm going to be very frank now, especially in the first part. Some of the problems we found in reading the manuscript may have been some of the places that hit the students here. However, I hope that the students understand, because I think that only sincerity and frankness can help the students. After I was transferred to the editorial department of Ningxia Literature and Art (the predecessor of Shuofang - Surveyor's Note), I was in charge of the novel, and one of the biggest impressions I had was that many writers were very diligent. As far as I know, some young people like those living in the ravines of Haiyuan and Guyuan have written 300,000 or 400,000 words so far, but they have never published them. Some of the manuscripts they sent were written on white thick paper, they didn't even have electric lights, and there was a smell of kerosene on the manuscript paper. They are so diligent, but they cannot write satisfactory works. Our editorial department has few people and cannot help them very specifically. I'm giving a relatively individual example here. Well, there are also some diligent authors who have also written for a long time, but have not written satisfactory works. Therefore, I would like to say to you very unceremoniously and in my first speech: When students are exposed to literary and artistic creation, they must have a good understanding of themselves, which is very important - to know whether they have the quality of literary and artistic creation. I am afraid that writers from other places will not say this frankly to their classmates. I have long wanted to raise this question for some young creators, and the quality I am talking about is not simply talent, but talent can be cultivated the day after tomorrow. For example, if you want to be a ballet dancer, a short and fat man goes to the visual test and gets it tested; if you want to be an Air Force pilot, myopia is not okay first, they all have a physical condition to limit there. When you choose your lifelong career and development, you must first make an estimate of your abilities. If you find that this path is not suitable for you, don't waste your time. I read a lot of articles about the experience of writing novels, and none of them talked about it. Because when it comes to this, it is easy to cause two bad effects: one bad effect is that the author is diligent in writing, but he does not have the appropriate people to cultivate him, and the author is easy to be discouraged. Maybe this author is of good quality, maybe a good writer is so invalid. Another bad effect is that this guy is bragging, he has become a writer, he thinks he has quality, he thinks others are not quality (classmates laugh). Therefore, people generally do not want to talk about this issue. I can ask this question, because I think there are some young people who don't have to spend time on this, and I just put forward the so-called qualities and talents, because some people are suitable for development in this aspect, and some people are suitable for development in another aspect, which is not to say that you do not have qualities and talents, useless people, maybe you have a great mathematical talent. I know that the Russian Belinsky was a great genius (meaning, according to the following: Belinsky was a critic who was able to discover genius writers, the Surveyor's Note), and for now, Belinsky is a great critic in the history of literature. He used to write poetry, he wrote a lot of poetry, and later it turned out that he was not a person with the qualities of a poet, he was a person who discovered poets. So he turned to this aspect, specializing in literary criticism. At that time, there were many such people. The novels of people such as Chernyshevsky, for example, make the subject matter clearer through their literary criticism. Perhaps, you think that Zhang Xianliang is bragging about how good his qualities are, or that I am pouring cold water on others. No. Because from the psychological characteristics, some people are suitable for this, and some people are suitable for that. Therefore, before creating literature, I think students must first have a good understanding of their own development direction. Which direction is right, you don't have to waste so much time. In fact, hobbies do not equal quality. Saying that you love literature and art, you have the quality of literary and artistic creation, not necessarily. Einstein loved music, he didn't necessarily become a composer, and as a result he developed amazingly in physics. Therefore, having a certain aspect of the hobby is not the same as having a certain aspect of the quality. So, what do I mean by qualities? How can you discover your qualities? The qualities I am talking about here are: rich imagination - associative ability, imagination ability, for all kinds of things, for all kinds of phenomena, including social phenomena, life phenomena, have a very keen sense. And in terms of language, that is, in terms of language and writing, it is a little faster to master than others. This is not a mysterious thing, it is imagination. The most important thing in literary creation is to see if you have a rich imagination. Albert Einstein said that imagination is very important. Einstein was a scientist. For science, people who have no imagination or have a poor imagination will achieve nothing. The same goes for writing novels. Lack of imagination, you can only write according to your own experience, and you can write an autobiography. There is no keen sense of life phenomena, social phenomena, and natural phenomena, and there is no literary style in his literary works, and although the language is very fluent, it is still dry. There are also people who master the written language faster than others, just like some people master numbers and master calculations faster than others. You say that your literary knowledge, including literary history, is relatively shallow, and the language and writing are not smooth and fluent, it doesn't matter, you go to study, this is something that can be made up for the day after tomorrow, and it can be achieved through learning. I think this question is the primary issue in literary creation.

I'll talk about the following questions. What problems did we find from the large number of submissions? This question is related to the quality of the manuscript. Now, I have received a lot of submissions from my classmates at Ningxia University. Of course, the works of these students, because they come from the highest institutions of learning in Ningxia, are indeed much clearer, smoother, and more understandable than the works of young people in factories, rural areas, mines, and institutions, but there are still many problems. We say that literature is the art of language, and if language is not passed, there is nothing else. You just have a rich imagination, the story you conceive is clever and twisted, your feelings are full or delicate, you have no language expression ability, and everything is useless. It's as if we have a proverb that says: Dumplings are boiled in a teapot, and the goods cannot be poured out. Indeed it is. Students, most of you are now in your twenties, and it is time to study. You have spent these four years in your studies. Although the candidates of the class of 1977, 1978 and 1979 have all come to the school, it should be seen from the root (combined with the following, the root of the university students mentioned here refers to the foundation before entering the university - the surveyor's note), although you are superior to the literary youth in society, but the innate foundation is still poor. Talent is acquired, I hope that students do not ignore, including young authors with university education, do not blindly think that they have passed in this regard. The authors I have received are not only from Ningxia University but also from Peking University, who have either just returned from graduation or are still in school. Talking more about ideas, their works are conceived ok, but the language and writing are very poor. Of course, when I say poor, I mainly mean that it is worse than the level of publication, although it is still better than the average literary youth in society. How could this be? There is such an author, he has read a lot of books, Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Ba Jin read, foreign countries like Gorky, Chekhov, Maupassant read. I wondered how he had read a lot of books, and he himself was studying at Peking University, so how could he not have accurately and with literary expression what he was thinking about in terms of language and writing. It is that in the process of reading, he did not consciously capture language. As far as I know, people who study in college always think that their language and writing have passed by high school. When it comes to the university study stage, when it comes to literary works, most of them talk about themes, ideas, structures, and language and writing. And the students said that reading works and analyzing works are also the theme ideas of the analysis works, the background of the times, the author's intention, and the structure, all of which are this. Of course, this is still possible in foreign universities, because their students have already turned off the language and writing in high school, and when they get to college, they have to learn other things and understand regular things. However, after we passed through such a special era (here, "a special era" mainly refers to the "Cultural Revolution" decade - surveyor's note), in that special era, the students' knowledge was blank, and the study of language and writing was probably even more blank, because at that time, this knowledge was not taught, not even in junior high school and high school. So, I feel like I have to make up lessons. If students find that they have the quality of literary creation, they must supplement their knowledge of language and writing. If you want to do dance, some of the basic movements of dance will not be available; if you want to do vocal music, your voice is not well adjusted, which is not OK. Therefore, if you want to create a novel, you must consciously overcome the level of language and writing. Don't think you're in college, that's over. Language is bottomless. The group of writers we are now arising also has problems with language and writing to varying degrees. The writers who rose up after our overthrow of the Gang of Four are now a little famous throughout the country, and their works are often seen in publications, but there are also language and writing problems to varying degrees. I won't lift them. I will cite foreign writers, who have written works in foreign Chinese, and some of them have been translated by us more than once, translated into English into French, translated into Chinese, or translated into English into English, and then translated into Chinese; of course, some works are translated at one time. I also found that after students basically grasped the essentials in language and writing, they would think that some foreign writers were very strange and could write a book a week. Of course, there are his convenient conditions, he uses a typewriter, and what he thinks in his head is typed down at any time with a printer, which naturally becomes an article. However, sometimes it is difficult to find an exact word, especially our Chinese synonyms are classified. Just say this "go" - there is walking, there is pacing, there is trampling, there are steps, an action can have many synonyms; choosing an appropriate word from these synonyms requires a lot of brains. You have to express your meaning accurately, where you should use pacing, where you should use walking, where you should use traversal, after solving these basic problems, your brain is probably like an electronic computer, in a millionth or a millionth of a second, naturally drawn up the pen (students laugh). Therefore, I think that if students want to create literature now, you must pass the barrier of language and writing. Of course, this is also a cliché. Since it is a cliché, it should be talked about often (students laugh), that is, to learn from books and learn from the spoken language of ordinary people.

I also told my classmates frankly that if the first few sentences of the manuscript did not go smoothly, they would be beaten back by the editor. Don't say something like, "Oh, I learned today that editors aren't responsible at all. (Students laugh) There is no way, the speed of my work can only be like this: you have to tell me to read the manuscript well, I can only read two articles a day for more than 8,000 words, and four articles a day for less than 8,000 words; in addition to two days of political study and one day of business study, there are only three days of reading time, three or four twelve, twelve articles a week, and more than forty articles a month. However, we only have three editors in the editorial department, how can we read more than a thousand manuscripts? Maybe we did this and buried a lot of literary talent. Maybe some students think, we are like this, is this the case in foreign countries? No, this is even more true in foreign countries than in China, because we still have the conscience of editors, and we are still comrades. For example, I see a manuscript stained with kerosene, although the author wrote 70,000 or 80,000 words, of course, not a manuscript of 70,000 or 80,000 words, it was sent to you by seven or eight manuscripts, I really read it. Because this author came out of a ravine, life was hard. If you think about it, I still have a very good conscience. In foreign countries, such manuscript editors don't read at all, especially novel manuscripts that you don't use manuscript paper to transcribe. Originally, poetry works were published the most in any journal, but now it is reversed, there are many novel works, and they are all very long, so I say that the competition is quite fierce. The language and writing at the beginning did not catch the editor, and you don't want to make a work like this in the journal, that's it. I have to say this frankly to my classmates. You must also realize that we, the editors, are still a comradely working attitude, and that we are much more responsible than the industrial and commercial newspaper editors of the capitalist countries. How to exercise and improve your language and writing skills, this should also be a course for you in college, I will not talk more.

From the submissions of young authors, I also found such a problem, which can be said to be a problem with a universal nature. That is to say, this author has the quality of literary creation, and also aspires to create novels or poems, and has also published one or two works. He has a certain creative talent, a certain writing experience, the problem is that the taste of art is too simple, writing novels to read novels, just take Chekhov, Maupassant, Tolstoy novels to read. This is a big drawback. If you want to create any kind of literature or art, the interests of art must be broad—music, fine art, sculpture, drama, film, and so on. You have to have a very broad and solid artistic background. Novels, poems, essays, reviews, all literary creation, the author's artistic interest must be extensive, you can't say that you are creating poetry, just read poetry, this is wrong. Only with a wide range of artistic interests can we have a solid artistic accomplishment and do a good job in the literary creation of the category that we love. When I write novels, such as the section in "Spirit and Flesh" in which Xu Lingjun herds horses, the music related to it echoes in my head, and the scenery of nature will naturally become a sound effect, from my brain to my ears. In this way, I will not only have narratives and descriptions when I write, but also have an immersive feeling and emotion. Some of our authors write novel scenes, generally limited to the place where the characters appear and move, which is very monotonous and boring, and does not attract the interest of readers, because the author lacks artistic cultivation. When writing the plot of the activities of a fictional character, the colors, pictures, and sounds of his range of activities, the sounds of the wind, rain, and birds, must appear in your mind. In this way, as long as you are proficient in language and writing, the atmosphere that the work should have will naturally come out. This will be able to grab the reader and, of course, the editor.

As editors, when we receive a good manuscript, it is no less than writing a good work ourselves. We looked right in. You have to trust the editor, the editor still has a certain vision. There is a classmate named Li Yuefei in the Department of Chinese of Ningxia University (Li Yuefei, a student of the Chinese Department of Ningxia University, published novels and poems in "Ningxia Literature and Art" together with Chen Youjing, daughter of Mr. Chen Qixia, a famous literary and art theorist in the mainland, and was quite influential on campus - Surveyor's Note), which we found from a large number of manuscripts. The first few words of his work bring the editor in and make the editor look at it. There is also a work "Accounting Director", written by Wu Guoqing (a student of the Chinese Department of Ningxia University, who entered Xinhua News Agency after graduation to work as a journalist, and has made great achievements - Notes of the Surveyor), right? He is also from Ningxia University. At the beginning of this work, he does not have any outstanding scene description, but a few sentences bring the editor in. So, how can a work bring the reader in? It is necessary to mobilize all the faculties of the senses to grasp it, not only the things of words, but also the things of sound; not only things of sound, but also things of image, so that the reader can be brought in. Conversely, this is also a shortcoming in the creation of young authors I have come into contact with. Of course, it may be said that some people among the students are very interesting. However, such shortcomings will hinder their own development in literary creation, and they must consciously cultivate their own broad artistic interests.

We often see some of the more moving places where novels are written, and this is the time to bring editors and readers in. Write like a movie so you can bring editors and readers in. It is three-dimensional and multi-faceted, not flat and one-sided, so that the eyes, ears, mouth, tongue and nose can all be felt. So Balzac once said that when the old man of Gonio died, according to Fu Lei' translation, he cried himself—and the writer had to have such an obsession. Where does this obsession come from? It's all the sense of art, all the emotions are in. When your classmates write something, you don't go in yourself, and you still want to bring others in? That's not okay, even I'm a bystander. We listen to Liu Lanfang every day, and I think the greatest literary artist in China is Liu Lanfang. She said that the audience was too many, of course, there is a difference between national literature and political literature. I found that she was really talented, and she was able to tell all the circumstances and atmospheres in which the story was going. Of course, I wasn't her listener, and I listened to it occasionally to see how she did it. She spoke out all the different expressions and different voices of the ancient horses. Students, this is worth learning from us - to cultivate our own multi-faceted artistic interest. And when you write novels, you have to act in the movie in your own mind, so that all the scenes you describe, like movie pictures, change in front of your eyes one by one in a montage. It should be said that after basically mastering the language and writing, when you are writing, you are also acting in the movie in your head, then your plot clues will not be single. The traditional way of writing novels is this one - plot line plus atmosphere. This is the traditional way of writing novels. Don't you want me to talk about how to write a novel? I'll tell you the secret (laughs).

The novel is the plot line plus the atmosphere, the plot line is the story, the story is either tortuous or not tortuous. Just look at the plot line, just like the doll took off her pants, gave your brother to take off your sister's pants, and some took off the boss and then took off the second brother or something. This is not a novel, the novel also needs to add atmosphere - the atmosphere and aura of the plot line in the process of development. So it's not enough to just use a bare plot, you have to think about how to get the reader in, so the atmosphere rendering is also important. How can I render the atmosphere well? There must be a wide range of artistic interests. You can't always emphasize the language and words, those music, color and so on must also be grasped, can grasp these points, writing a novel is almost the same. However, it is a very difficult process. Another is that writing novels is actually connected with all categories of art. Novels are the art of language, and there are many similarities with music, and a good novel will have an intrinsic sense of rhythm. I found that many authors did not grasp this thing, and some manuscripts made people feel very messy after reading, which is a structural problem. Where are the roots? Nezuko has no intrinsic sense of rhythm in such works of fiction. When we look at foreign novels, Chekhov's novels of even a few thousand words and two thousand words, or Lu Xun's "Kong Yiji" -- this novel is very short, about two thousand words, such a short novel, the narrative and development are still tortuous, when should they rise, when they should be ambushed; where they should be briefly explained in the past, where they should be described very subtly; in some places, lu Xun only wrote "ten years have passed"; but some two seconds of things, Lu Xun wrote very carefully. How can this be determined? What should be written roughly, what should be written in detail, of course, this is mainly related to the content of the narrative. However, if you exert your own artistic talents, grasp the process of the development of things, and grasp the inner ups and downs, you can make the reader read a novel as if listening to a song. Whether it is the development of the plot, the development of the story, or the development of time, in fact, it can only be understood and ineffable. The second question is whether your own artistic accomplishment has formed such an inner sense of rhythm. That's why I say, students, you should listen to more music, especially symphony, this role is subtle, and it will bring a lot of benefits to you in writing novels and poetry in the future.

There is also the question of talking about the inner rhythm of the plot development. We say that novels are written, not simply narrated. However, a large number of manuscripts, including those of classmates, are more narrative than descriptions, as if writing personal materials, and the things and materials written out are the same - Zhang San, who is Chinese New Year's Eve three years old, a native of Jiangxi or Ningxia, has a father, is not yet married, and has graduated from high school. This is completely narrative, explaining a person, and there is no place to describe. Students, this is not called a novel, at most it is called a big story. At the time of the creation of the novel, it is necessary to pay attention to the narrative, but the most important thing is to describe. You have to describe the atmosphere, and the plot development also depends on description, not narrative. For example, the actions of the characters, how he walked to the school gate, how he got there, what he had in mind along the way, this is called a novel. He went to the school gate and saw who was who, and the two of them came in shaking hands, which is called narration. The difference between description and narrative can be seen by students when they look at the novel. When students write novels, they must pay attention to description. We want to see Pu Songling's "Liaozhai". I read classical works, novels written in ancient languages, and I feel that its narrative part is excellent. Beginning: Wang Sheng, Shandong Zibo people, young alone... Next, let's talk about which temple he went to borrow the fast. However, many of the manuscripts we editors receive are like narrative material, which is also a common problem of ordinary authors, and I found this to be the case in the manuscripts of my classmates - of course, I said it very frankly. Sometimes, I am afraid to deal with young literary lovers, just as Lu Xun said that literary youth are very sensitive. In the process of talking to them, I don't know when I offended them (classmates laugh), but I still don't understand.

Some young authors asked how to write novels, which was a big topic. I thought about it for a moment, and I summarized three forms of the novel, one closed, one open-ended, and one character-like. I thought about it later, and the reason why I summarized it this way was that I had been exposed to some novel works in the past two years. After I was rehabilitated and came out to work, the conditions were better, and the novel works I could read were not just "Sunny Days" or something. I think that all the novels do not have the above three forms, and the most popular one now seems to be the closed type. What is closed? First the question is asked, that is, the end of the novel, then flashbacks how the problem arises, and finally it comes down to the beginning, which is a circle. The advantage of this kind of novel is that it can arouse the reader's interest. At the beginning, the end of it was explained. My "Dirt Prison Love Story" is closed. At the beginning, Shi Zai and the woman met and separated by chance at the train station, and then led to a large section of Shi's memories, what kind of encounters he had in prison, and finally it came down to the beginning. I would like to state here that some of the examples given, although they are my own novels, do not mean to show off, because I am familiar with my own novels, and I know how I write them. I don't lift Wang Meng's, I don't lift Liu Xinwu's, because I can't speak on behalf of others. I cite my own novel, and some people may think that this guy is playing with his own novel (classmates laugh). "Spirit and Flesh" is also closed, how father and son meet at the beginning, and then flashbacks back, paragraph by paragraph, and finally at the end, of course, this mouth is not too close. The advantage of this form is that it grabs the reader at the beginning and then leads back.

Another way to write is open-ended. What is open-ended? Tell the story, so-and-so in a place, there is a person named so-and-so, one day up the mountain to collect firewood, met something, until the end, finished. It goes down in parallel, without going around in circles. "The Story of Old Man Xing and the Dog" is open-ended, at the beginning of how this old man worked in the countryside, and then met a woman who wanted food, he raised a dog himself, and then the dog died, how he died, this is open-

Character novels are more difficult to write, and I dare not use words without a big hand, and I have not dared to use this method to write. I know it's very difficult. "A Q Zheng Biography" is a character type, it does not have a theme of the plot line down. So "Wounded Death" can make movies, "Blessings" can make movies, "A Q Zheng Biography" - a famous literary work in the world, and no screenwriter and director has yet been able to accept this task. When writing about this character, write about the essence of this person in different aspects and from different angles. So far, the novels published in general literary journals that I have come into contact with have rarely been written in this way. Why? This way of writing is very difficult, you have to have a deep understanding of the character, but you also have to be generous in writing. This can also be seen that the current writers writing novels are still quite naïve, and have not yet reached the level of the 20s and 30s of the last century. In the 1920s and 1930s, there were some novels, like Ding Ling's "The Diary of Ms. Sha fei", she used the diary method to write about the character of Sha Fei, which is the character style. There are not many plot threads, and the main plot threads are not tortuous, but she writes such a character from all aspects of the character. Therefore, the students can use these three ways to conceive and write novels, of course, which way is good, in the final analysis, depends on the content of the novel, which of course I can't cross the line. You use the character style, I use the open type, he uses the closed type, and this is up to you to decide.

In general, novels are written in these three ways. What are their characteristics? As I said at the beginning, closed style can attract people and capture readers at the beginning. To grasp the reader at the outset, it is necessary to ask a question that the reader can pay attention to, care about, and be interested in. At first "I was shocked. Although I knew she wasn't dead, I was still shocked" (The beginning of Mr. Zhang Xianliang's novella "Love Story of the Earth"— Surveyor's Note). I think that such a beginning throws out suspense and shows the reader how this guy didn't die? Just have a look. Closed is characterized by this. There is also a clause, the second half of the novel you conceived, or a part of the reader does not feel very interested, you use a closed style, grab him at the beginning, drag the reader in, listen to you, drag in and can't go out; and then use some language and words that interest the reader, so that the reader can't bear to go over and read the following content, and can also grab the reader. For example, why does "Earth Prison Love Story" use a closed type? For there is a paragraph in the middle, in the section where the heavy rain is about to be flooded under the earthen prison, there are two chapters, more than ten thousand words, which escape from the reader's interest; but this ten thousand words, if I do not write it, the atmosphere behind it will not be rendered; I must explain that I cannot only start from the paragraph where the prison rains heavily, so that if I continue to write, the reader will not enter the core of the story. So, I wrote the first chapter, the plot of the heavy rain in the earthen prison; the second and third chapters, when the characters appeared, and then to the fourth chapter. The reader looks at it, and the first chapter tells what's going on, but there is still a paragraph of the story, so let's go on, and then it rains heavily in the earthen prison - so the reader has been out of the story, has been caught by the plot, and has to continue to look down.

Of course, there are some stories that are coherent in themselves, and from beginning to end, if you can grasp every change in the plot, you can adopt the open-ended. First explain what environment the characters are in, under what conditions they have taken, what they have encountered, what setbacks they have encountered later, and how they ended up. In the middle of every episode you think the reader can follow you, you can use the open-ended, do not hesitate. Why does "The Story of Old Man Xing and the Dog" adopt open-ended? I think that this man's life naturally constitutes a story line, and every link in this story line is closely linked: he used to work in the production team, he was a poor peasant before liberation, and after liberation he was given land and lived better; but the so-called Great Leap Forward in 1958 shattered his life; with the passage of time, he resumed his life of being able to feed himself; finally met a woman who asked for food, and then left; after that, a dog accompanied him- Every link in the story can be buckled, so that the reader is very interested to know what is going on next, to know the final result.

Character fiction is more difficult to write, but it is very attractive to write well, and the character you create can often stand up in literary history - he has become a typical character. This is also determined by the content of your novel. I haven't written this kind of novel yet, and I don't dare try it, so I just read some of it. I think the character-style writing style can really move people. Students are just learning to write, and it is more difficult to write this kind of character novel. Then there is another, that is, the typical problem, Lu Xun said that he wrote characters, the nose is in Shanxi, the clothes are in Zhejiang, the face is in Beijing, this typical character is put together by many, many specific people. I think this method should be called the typical method of sets. Different specific people, but they are indeed the same type of person, and their characteristics are concentrated in one person. This is one way to do it. I find it difficult for young writers today, or middle-aged writers of my generation, to do this. I don't have the well-informed conditions that Lu Xun had in the 20s and 30s. You think, Mao Dun came into contact with many capitalists before he wrote "Midnight", and he himself stayed in the capitalist group for a long time, so Wu Sunfu, who he wrote, is not a simple person, he is a typical example of many patriotic and national capitalists gathered together. Before I was rehabilitated, I was in much worse condition than you were, and I didn't have access to many people at all. I was in the ravine, and for three hundred and sixty-five days I saw acquaintances, and strangers were the ones who had come to me for an external survey. So what to do? You can use model people to deepen, you don't have that condition, you don't see much, you don't know much, you don't have many people to contact, you can grab a person you're interested in and dig him. Like Hegel said, everyone is typical, "this one." Everyone has his own thing in himself. So, this is also a method, and this method is still more suitable for us. For example, if we want to write about a person who is angry and strong, or a person who has nothing to do, you can't contact so many people who are angry and strong, and you can't contact so many people who are full of food and have nothing to do. There is only about one person around you who is angry and strong, and there is only one person who hangs on to Lang Dang, and you grasp that one, and you can continue to dig and write novels.

The old man Xing I wrote about is indeed a man, but he is not dead yet. How did he die in the novel? According to the development of the plot, it is he who is going to die. Later, "Ningxia Daily" criticized me for not having a bright tail in this novel, and I said that there was no way, and in the end he had to die. Because at the end of my writing, the tragedy caused by the far-left line is, in the final analysis, this is it. That man is a true thing, we can often meet, how he walks, that shape -- taken from his appearance; of course, he is not surnamed Xing. I write about capitalists in novels, and I can't come into contact with so many capitalists; I write about secretaries in factories, and I can't meet so many secretaries, and I only see one secretary every day, so I catch him, dig deeper, and dig deeper. Some of the structural forms of the novel are probably these. Regarding what method to take to create typical characters, I think it is better for students to use the method of model deepening. Just start to learn to write, this is also a better way, because you want to focus on the characteristics of many people, but you do not have a good ability to control the text, do not have a good ability to organize materials, at this time, it is often easy to get complicated. You grasp a person to deepen him, the focus is more concentrated, the pen is better.

I'll talk about imagination. In fact, the process of deepening is also a process of imagination. Literature is not called literature without fiction. You don't keep clinging to such a dry person, you reproduce him truthfully, and you don't attract the reader. You have to unleash your imagination, how he might do it, and you add those imaginary possibilities to him. That old man Xing is a real thing, a story I heard, and some people criticized it as unrealistic. I said it was true: there was such a thing in Helan County in 1975, this person's surname is Sun, I can point out which brigade he is in; there is a woman in northern Shaanxi who wants food, this woman I do not know, it is true that I have lived with him for ten months, and when I left, I did take something, and indeed left him a new pair of shoes; but this old man is indeed a herding horse; of course, this old man is not dead, crazy! Peasants have feelings, and we must not think that peasants have no feelings, because the peasants' sons and daughters are very affectionate. This old peasant man in his fifties, there is such a woman who wants food to be considerate of him, cares about him in life, and finally quits, taking only a little rice, he is very unhappy not to go; however, he has no right to clip a briefcase to do external transfer (classmates laugh), to get this woman back, he had to get mentally ill; he did not die, I think he is worse than death, I think she wants to be sick, want to go crazy (the whole scene is quiet, long silence). The old man Xing I portrayed was not this person, it was I who moved this story to him — that's the role of imagination and association. Students, really engaged in literary creation, is a very interesting thing, and there are classrooms everywhere, even if you go to the canteen to eat is a classroom, unlike physical chemistry, you can't leave the laboratory. We do literary creation, and there are classrooms and laboratories everywhere. Just now I am in the middle of a rambling conversation - Zhang Xianliang how this person speaks, how to move, what characteristics, are your material, you can grasp; and a flash in your mind, anything can be written. Su Dongpo said that the world is clear and the article. Anything in this world can be your article, can be your knowledge, can enter your work. So, have a rich imagination and add a variety of possibilities to the model. Of course, you have to have a lot of material, usually you have to accumulate bit by bit; some things seem useless at first, but when it comes to grasping the key in the work, it is very useful. For example, the part where Xiuzhi counts money in "Spirit and Flesh". The People's Daily Article of Nanming ("Nanming" is the author of the article, perhaps not these two words, can be found, due to the limitations of the conditions can not be ascertained for a while, left to check later - the surveyor's note) to me wrote "the number of votes is uncountable" the floating effect (the problem is that the word "floating effect", it is really incomprehensible, it must be the recorder's clerical error, but can not listen to the original recording to give proofreading, so left - the surveyor's note). This is what I saw with my own eyes a woman who had never seen so many tickets, five hundred yuan, and she couldn't count how she sat on the kang (classmates laughed). Such details may be very unobtrusive in life, but in the novel, it is a good plot and very interesting. Our novels often lack interest, lack vividness, lack compelling material—details you don't discover through unique observations. So, I said you have to deepen the model, the process of deepening is a process of imagination, a process of adding a lot of possibilities, that is to say, you must have a lot of life accumulation, materials, details in it. These things are useful when it comes to writing. Students, you don't lack such things. Don't think that you are in the classroom every day, going out is the dormitory, the canteen, and then the classroom: a triangle. No, there are many things, many details, and even a lot of things in your life. The brains of the students are good. I don't take notes, I have all my stuff in my head, because at that time I couldn't take notes, and the notes I took were taken away, which was evidence of guilt, so I never took notes; now I'm too lazy to take notes, there are no notes on this and that. Students should remember some things when they have time, especially unique things to grasp. I write about a woman crying, she wiped a handful of snot, not anywhere else, where did she wipe it? She smeared it on the edge of the kang; now if you want to write about our female classmates, it is useless to write, because the female classmates take out a handkerchief to wipe their noses (classmates laugh). Therefore, one action shows a person's identity. If there is no such plot, you only say that this woman is crying, and you only know that she is crying; and the description of her smearing her nose on the edge of the kang makes the characters vivid and alive at once. Perhaps, I have not written it well, not vivid enough, not alive enough. Relying on what you usually accumulate, coupled with the process of deepening on the model, is the process of imagination. It's not that I want to write Zhang San, I usually have to look at him all the time, even if he walks alone at night, I have to follow behind his ass and watch (classmates laugh), not that' what it means. That is to say, you have to grasp the most prominent characteristics of him, how exactly this character is, and you have to mobilize your usual life accumulation. The problems I am talking about are all things that happen after the author's language and writing are basically mastered, and if the author's language and writing are not well mastered, these problems will not be discussed.

Another is the "movie" time, which is the overall idea when you write. When you start writing, how to build the shelf of this work, what kind of people to write, what kind of things to write, you already have it in your mind. When you write, didn't you say movies before — through movies, visual image and language expression are two different things. For example, when we go to a movie, the picture on the screen is like this: in the middle is a table with utensils on the table; there is a person next to it, there is a painting on the back of the person, and there are various other things; there is a bookshelf, and there are many books on the shelf - as viewers, we can probably see them all in a millionth of a second. The visual image is not limited by time, and it can be seen clearly at a glance. Saying that a tenth of a second is an exaggeration, and I sometimes use exaggerated language, which is also an occupational disease (classmates laugh). That is to say, the content of the movie screen is swept away in one second, but if you want to express it in words, you have to use hundreds of words, will your hundreds of words make the reader feel tired and tasteless? This is something that the author must be wary of. Therefore, when writing, when "going through the movie" in the mind, we must pay attention to the rendering of the atmosphere, and we must firmly grasp what the novel is - the storyline plus the atmosphere, which is the indispensable thing around it. Only the story line is called a big story, and only the atmosphere becomes a ghost (students laugh). This atmosphere must be carried out in the story line, the story line must be carried out in the atmosphere; the story line is there, and when the atmosphere is written, it begins to "go through the movie" - it must grasp the things that can best render the atmosphere, which helps to write the story tightly. I see the manuscripts of some young authors, some of which are more narrative than descriptions, and some of which use a lot of flowery rhetoric to render the atmosphere, unnecessarily! Pink willow green, warbler song and swallow dance, red flag display, and so on. When I say rendering the atmosphere, I don't mean to embellish it with flowery rhetoric, to obey the story line and point out the environment, sometimes, one or two things can point out its environment. For example, the Soviet Union's Ryatov's "Punishment" is closed, and at the beginning it is said that the son beat Lao Tzu to death, and the reader must look down. How does he render the atmosphere? At night, the dark and heavy night sky, the tall street lampposts support the dark curtain of the night; a woman in a shawl, running down from the upper floor, she came down to see her son beat Lao Tzu to death - the atmosphere was immediately rendered, not many words, just one page! There is no need to go to great lengths, you should pay attention when you are "going through the movie" in your head, don't move everything in, there are a few characteristic things that render the atmosphere. Some places do not need to be rendered, and a few wonderful descriptions of the plot itself can grab the reader. All of this, students must pay attention to when writing.

And what to pay attention to in the process of writing is that the story line is connected to the whole atmosphere to make up the novel, what it is like - there must be ups and downs. There are ups and downs in order to catch people, that is to say, there must be an inner sense of rhythm. What should be skimmed, what should be written in detail, and written delicately, of course, this is determined by the content of the work. In some manuscripts, the process is explained too much, and some authors estimate the reader too childishly, not giving the reader a little room for imagination. How to say it? He explained the process very clearly, too clearly. For example, a teacher entered the office, shook hands with Teacher Li, then sat down, drank tea, and then lit a cigarette himself. This has become a common problem. I often ask young amateur authors: Do your narratives help develop your story? He felt as if he had nothing more to say than to narrate it. In this way, the rhythm of the novel is not strong, just like the music when dancing, three steps or four steps, why is there "bang, bang, bang", because there is a pause in the middle, if it is always "bang -", always go on like this, can this dance still be danced? (Laughs) That's not okay.

Rhythm is in pause, and with pause, there is rhythm. The inner rhythm is what it means. Some young authors write their works without rhythm. There is no pause, the story goes on without rhythm, almost all of it is flat and straight, there are no ups and downs. To be able to attract people, the work must have an internal sense of rhythm, the novel must be jumping, this kind of jump is called a paragraph, so the novel is divided into chapters, or sections, or paragraphs, each paragraph has pauses, can not be run through in one breath, otherwise there is no inner sense of rhythm. You can't just say who walked to the door and shook hands and then got on the bike and left. People with big hands just write out the main things, and the unnecessary things in them have to be thrown away. I'm also new to writing novels now, but I can master the rhythm of them. For example, "Spirit and Flesh", a span of thirty years, less than 20,000 words; if I had not selectively written this thirty-year process, I am afraid that a long novel would have been completed. I don't want to write a long novel now, cut off unnecessary plots, don't want unnecessary processes, just highlight the key things in the protagonist's life, and that's it: as for how he rode to his horse, how he rode home, and how he got down, all these things are not wanted. Today I will only pick the big ones. I think it's not early today, if the students have any questions, hand over the note, I will answer specific questions.

interlocution

Q: What is the relationship between a person's life experience and his creation?

A: This is an issue that is too important. We say that the process of life is just education, experience, and experience. Academic qualifications do not necessarily allow a person to be a writer, a doctor of literature may not be able to write novels; experience cannot be determined, although he has a good foundation. What matters is the experience, that is, his experience in life, including his unique observations, his unique feelings. We know that the blind stream in society now is probably much more than what we have experienced (classmates laugh), but he may not necessarily write novels, even if he has a good writing foundation. However, a person has a tortuous experience, even if there is no tortuous experience, such as from primary school, middle school, college graduation to work, like Liu Xinwu, although he does not have any tortuous experience, but he has seen many people and things, his observation and feelings are relatively deep. This observation and feeling, but because of the same thing, maybe others do not feel it, it does not matter, but he feels it, and it is more profound. I often say that being a writer is hard work. That's why I said that if students have other qualities and can do other work, it is best not to do the writing thing. Now I don't want to talk about labor protection, I think writers need to give professional protection the most. Things that some people think do not matter at all are different in the writer's mind, and they are deeply stimulating things, because he has artistic sensitivity, even very strongly. Therefore, writers often have such artistic sensitivity.

Q: What did you learn when you used language in your novels? What should I pay attention to when using language?

A: First, the language of your novel must be accurate. How can it be accurate? You must master a large number of vocabulary, do not think that you can write a novel by writing a letter, and if a writer does not have thousands of words in his vocabulary for his own application, it is difficult to express it exactly, especially if there are many synonyms in Chinese. Master a lot of vocabulary, and use that word when writing, in order to jump out naturally. To master the most basic things in language and writing. In this regard, the students are hopeful. Second, the language you master must be subordinate to your description of the atmosphere and environment. The Soviet Union's Riatov wrote a dark and heavy night sky, a few tall street lampposts, supporting the dark curtain of the night, as if the dark curtain of the night without these street lampposts, it was going to collapse, first of all, it caused a sense of depression, and the story below was so amazing, so it was a literary language. What is literary language? Literary language is to show the atmosphere of the time more vividly, and this aspect also depends on the author's usual accumulation. Of course, students have learned rhetoric, and there are twelve rules for anthropomorphism and metaphor. As for how to use it, it is a matter of your literary accomplishment. Third, the language should be concise. The language is not concise, just like the phonograph does not take the thread, always a tone, always "wow, wow, wow-", always not jumping, you say that people are annoyed to hear? Your language is always "wow, wow," and it's wordy, so that the editor can't read it, and the reader can't read it. Therefore, if the language of the novel can be accurate and concise, then it is enough.

Recording, finishing: Yu Weidong Survey: White grass

Originally published in Shuofang, No. 8, 2016, the editor has abridged

Editor: Liu Ya

Second instance: Wang Yang

Third instance: Chen Tao