Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Sun Lei
On March 24, the seminar on long-form reportage "Struggle and Glory - Narrative of Guangdong Xiaokang" was held in Guangzhou, which was listed by the Guangdong Writers Association as the number one project of literary creation in recent years, and was the first large-scale documentary literature in China to comprehensively tell the brilliant achievements of Guangdong Xiaokang' construction.
The experts attending the seminar generally believed that the book refracted the changes of the times through the stories of "ordinary people", revealed the dialectical relationship of historical significance between China's rise and the development of the world, and actively explored the construction of a literary discourse and narrative system with Lingnan characteristics in the new era.
Writers Chen Qiwen and Wang October were involved in the writing of this work, both of them have a background in pure literary creation, and Chen Qiwen is regarded by the reportage industry as a representative writer in the transition from fictional writing to non-fiction writing.
What is the current state of non-fiction writing? What are the challenges of going from pure literary creation to reportage writing? Yangcheng Evening News reporter interviewed Chen Qiwen and Wang October for this purpose——
Chen Qiwen
King October
Guangdong is a rich mine of reportage
Yangcheng Evening News: What is the current situation of Guangdong's reportage creation in recent years?
Chen Qiwen: Guangdong has always been a major province of reportage. As far as the creative team is concerned, there are more than a dozen well-known Guangdong reportage writers in the country, and the backbone team has at least thirty people. It can be said that Guangdong has a team of reportage writers with strong combat effectiveness, strength and passion.
Guangdong is also a rich mine of reportage, with rich creative themes. From the themes of revolutionary history, reform and opening up, and urbanization development to the themes of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the themes of poverty alleviation and well-off, Guangdong has a natural theme advantage.
In the face of such rich mines, I always feel that I don't have enough time and limited energy, because there are too many things to write, and there are too many things to write about just rural revitalization.
Wang October: Guangdong has always been a major province of reportage, and it has always been very strong from the 1980s to the present. The richer the typicality that a place offers, the easier it is to produce reportage. Guangdong is a living model of reform and opening up, many things Guangdong is the first, reportage writing is the first to make sense, which is also our subject matter advantage.
Yangcheng Evening News: In what aspects of reportage literature needs to be further improved?
Chen Qiwen: At present, our reportage literature does still have the phenomenon of avoiding reality, especially the lack of the spirit of questioning, and the literary and ideological nature also need to be further improved.
Literature should start with uncertainty. Some people think that reportage is to write the true facts, so the authenticity is understood as certainty, which makes a lot of jokes, such as writing a pilot's story, writing that the pilot wanted to become a pilot when he saw the plane in the sky when he was very young, which is typical from certainty, which excludes the complexity of life and destiny and other possibilities, only the fixed number has no variables, and it is made up and distorted at a glance.
When I wrote "Yuan Longping's World", I did not define Yuan Longping as the "father of hybrid rice" at the beginning, but presented a real Yuan Longping with uncertainty and various possibilities in life.
Even when he was studying at the College of Agriculture, he did not have a mind to engage in agriculture and study rice, he first wanted to be a professional swimmer, and then he wanted to be a pilot, until these two dreams were shattered, he did not choose the sky, but chose the earth, and finally went step by step to the road of hybrid rice research.
Wang October: The direction of future reportage efforts must be a combination of non-fiction and major topics, so that the former has a broader vision and writing resources, and the latter has more literary and artistic colors.
Reportage is a strong genre at the moment
Yangcheng Evening News: You used to be based on pure fictional literary creation, while reportage literature has a non-fiction side. In your opinion, what is the difference in the creative method between pure literary creation and reportage creation, and which one is more difficult?
Chen Qiwen: The biggest difference between the two is the understanding of authenticity. The first nature of reportage is authenticity, and literature as fiction is more about pursuing a psychological level of truth. Fiction literature such as novels and dramas can be fictionalized, but reportage as non-fiction can never be fictionalized.
At present, some works that are clearly marked as "non-fiction", and even some representative works of "non-fiction", have fictional elements in basic elements such as time, place, and characters, and even fiction, which I think violates the basic ethics of "non-fiction" and is also a deception to readers.
There is also a difference between the representation of the character image, fictional literature can "shape" the character or character image, while reportage literature is the "portrayal" of real people. The latter needs to select many elements from a large number of materials that can highlight the character image and personality, and present the characteristics and style of the character through portrayal.
In addition, it is necessary to distinguish between the two concepts of reportage and non-fiction, which is confused by many people. Non-fiction is a literary category, reportage is a genre, and non-fiction literature includes reportage, jichuan literature, etc. Many people regard "non-fiction" as an independent genre, which is actually a misunderstanding.
Wang October: I am positioning reportage as a non-fiction work to write, as a serious literature. The reportage of the 80s of the last century was full of speculative colors, and the writers had a strong sense of problems, and later some reportage literature slowly became partial to praise and praise.
However, when we wrote "Struggle and Glory", we basically adhered to an objective, fair and accurate attitude to present the road of Guangdong's well-off construction. Because China's well-off construction has not been smooth sailing to this day, it is not so easy, if we ignore the problem, we ignore the difficulty of struggle, so we must face it squarely.
Compared with fictional literary works, reportage literature is "dancing in shackles", and historical facts must be accurate and cannot be separated from facts, such as the day I wrote about the abolition of food stamps in the middle, and various economic data, which cannot be wrong and must stand the test.
What is more difficult is to select materials, reportage literature has to face a large number of historical materials, how to choose and how to combine is a great test of the author's skill.
Yangcheng Evening News: What is the current status of reportage creation, and is the creative group and the scale of the works large?
Chen Qiwen: Reportage literature is a strong genre at present, and it is very important from the central to the local level, and the team of writers and the scale of works are quite large. Because this genre is closest to social reality, whether it is poverty alleviation or the fight against the epidemic in recent years, reportage writers need to pick up the pen in their hands to reflect in time.
Many times, writers of reportage literature, like journalists, will rush to the scene of major social events at the first time, face major historical events and major era nodes, and report the truth to readers in a literary way.
Wang October: There are still many people writing reportage to this day, and there have been many reportage works on the theme of Guang xiaokang.
Copying and pasting with materials is harmful to reportage
Yangcheng Evening News: Some people say that the most difficult thing in reportage is to take into account the true observation and aesthetic character, will you encounter this problem in creation, and how to solve it?
Chen Qiwen: Under the premise of adhering to authenticity, reportage literature still has room for literary expression. Some people say that reportage cannot be literary, and this judgment is a bias, and it also lacks a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of reportage. Many excellent long-form reportage literature, whether in conception, language, image portrayal, and human nature excavation, is no less than a long novel.
Reportage is not that it is not literary, but whether you have the ability to write literature. Reportage is also a literary creation, but some authors are not at all in literary creation when writing reportage, more like "Baidu text", just search on the Internet, copy and paste the data, neither the scene, nor the character image, this kind of work is labeled "reportage", but it is not reportage at all, and the reputation of reportage is also a kind of harm.
Wang October: Reportage literature should have taken more into account literature, but now it is facing a problem, non-fiction writers are more independent choice of topics, and the authors of reportage literature are more passive topics, so when writing, the former will have more personal colors and literary colors, and the latter is subject to the planning, coordination and restriction of the subject matter. Therefore, try to avoid this when writing, even if it is writing data, try to make the text more literary.
Yangcheng Evening News: Is reportage the subject matter determining the value? Is it true that choosing a major theme must have a grand impact and significance?
Chen Qiwen: This view is definitely not correct. The value of reportage literature is not determined by the subject matter, although the subject matter is important, but it is never the subject matter that plays a decisive role, but is determined by the author's writing level and value orientation.
Some authors are keen to track popular themes or major themes, but choosing major themes may not be able to write a grand meaning, which depends on your realm, there is a realm with its own high grid, even if it is a story of small people and a narrative of small incisions, it can also reflect the grand significance of the times.
Wang October: The theme of planning actually has its scientific and reasonable side, "Struggle and Glory" is the result of collective wisdom and wisdom, the crystallization of the wisdom of everyone. In the face of such a grand theme, the collective will be more thoughtful and comprehensive than if you think about the problem alone. Fiction may be difficult to operate this way, but I think reportage can do this, and Struggle and Glory is a particularly good attempt.
Yangcheng Evening News: Some people think that the current reportage tends to "praise" and "propaganda", what do you think?
Chen Qiwen: Compared with the 80s of the last century, the current reportage literature is indeed dominated by praise, but the real reportage should have a more comprehensive and profound reflection and revelation of social reality, although there is not much reportage that reveals practical problems, but there are still many writers who write straight. Like "Struggle and Glory" we wrote, we did not avoid problems, but faced historical reality.
Why reform? Because economic development and social development have more or less encountered obstacles and there are many problems, it is necessary to change. If the problem is evaded, it is historical nihilism. Therefore, the first volume of this book is written from the great escape to Hong Kong, starting from the problems faced by society before the reform and opening up.
Wang October: In any era and in any country, there is a space and necessity for the existence of the body of the song, and there is no exception in ancient and modern China and abroad. In ancient times we had "Ode to the Wind and Grace", and today we have the main theme of writing. Many blockbusters in the United States are also the main theme, serving the national ideology. The "national narrative" is needed, just to say that we have achieved what level of this "national narrative", to do it a little better, or to cope with it a little.
Like "Struggle and Glory", just the preface we will change the draft, the revision will also be opened repeatedly, everyone attaches great importance to it, and devotes ourselves to this matter to do a good job. "Struggle and Glory" has both a grand narrative and a problem-conscious focus on small groups of people, both of which are taken into account.
For details, see the A6 edition of Yangcheng Evening News on March 27, 2022
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Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Wu Xiaopan