In today's world where everyone is the media and the crowd is noisy, many people are often wrapped up in emotions and forget to think, and many people are stirred up by anxiety and anger by 10w+ article by article... But in a "carnival of views" and a reversal of plots, it has entered a deeper loss.
Where are those words and stories that are rational and calm, full of humanistic care and full of real tension? And where are the people who write such stories?
Whether it is the industry or thousands of readers, those who always respect and respect are those who deserve the title of "news people". With calm observation and delicate brushstrokes, they refine the world into touching stories and present them to everyone.
For example, "The Forgotten Genius Son", "Zhengzhou after the Disaster: When a City Suddenly Lost the Internet", "Takeaway Rider, Trapped in the System"... These manuscripts, which have moved countless readers, are written in the same way as "press features".
Southern Weekend is the birthplace of "Chinese-style features". Feature articles are the most literary varieties of news genres, known for stories. For more than 20 years, the "Whampoa Military Academy" of this feature article has trained generations of Chinese feature writers, such as Nan Xianghong, such as Lei Lei, and Du Qiang.
These shining journalists, with their stories spanning years of time and space, can still stir up reverberations in people's hearts.
And this time, we invited the "legends on the rivers and lakes" one by one and asked them to share the "martial arts secrets" that they had summed up over the past ten years.
In the first season of the Southern WeekLy Writing Camp, you will learn how to lock in the topic, how to build the story structure, how to grasp the key information, how to improve the texture of the story, and how to make the text look good like a movie!
This is not only the inheritance of skills and feelings, but also the only way for the entire market to return to rationality.
The contemporary philosopher Mackinthyre said meaningfully that human beings are storytellers. Seemingly isolated events find their place in the story, are linked to each other, and humanity is able to weave a web of meaning, and this confusing world becomes easy to understand.
This is an era when desire is expressed more than desire to listen, and how to tell a good story has become the most important ability in the 21st century.
01
How do I find a good story topic?
When I first arrived at Southern Weekend as a journalist, I was anxious all day about whether I could find a topic, and when I could find a good story, I had too many stories in my hand to write.
The story is everywhere, depending on whether you have the vision to discover.
When I write the story of the wild horse, even the editor is amazed: can the wild horse be written into a story? Can wild horses also write good stories?
Why not? When I go back again and again to write about wild horses in the desert of Xinjiang's Junggar Basin, I can always persuade editors who are reluctant to repeat a topic. It's not that I'm persuasive, it's that I discovered the meaning of the story, and it was this that impressed the editor.
In the more than 30 years of journalism, I have written many, many stories and done all kinds of topics. But instead of throwing one by one like a blind bear breaking a bud, it is deeply cultivated in some fields. Wild horses, I wrote a series of their survival and death in nature; the history and culture of Xinjiang, I made a series; the history and reality of the transformation of the old city of Beijing I know very well; disaster reporting, I conducted special research; germ warfare, which has become a writing project that has lasted from 2002 to the present.
Non-fiction writing requires a persistent research and writing attitude, and you can only really find the story and find the meaning of the story if you dive down and salvage and think about it.
------------------
Non-fiction writers,
Former senior reporter for Southern Weekend
02
How to build a solid structural skeleton?
The story grows on a sentence, and such a sentence determines the connotation and boundaries of your writing.
Going from an idea to a good story doesn't happen overnight, but there's a process of realization, which is the structural skeleton of the story. The topic is the foundation of a story, then the structure is the reinforced concrete structure of a building, and after the frame is erected, it is a quick thing to add bricks and tiles.
When I first entered Southern Weekend after graduating from college, my first business trip was to go to Yunnan to write a report on an accident. During the interview, I got a lot of information and character materials, and when I wrote, I held back for a day and a night, my eyes were red but I didn't write a word. The editor asked me to try to make it clear in one sentence what I was going to write.
Since then, I have been thinking about practicing this sentence repeatedly, and my writing has quickly improved a lot, and I have won the Southern Weekend Journalism Award in a row. To this day, this sentence still benefits me in my writing.
- Lei Lei
Founder of the documentary content organization "True Story Project",
Former senior reporter of Southern Weekend and Zhizu GQ
03
How to find the most valuable clues?
I've always considered myself a standard Southern Weekend pedigree, and after graduating from college in 1998, I went to work at Southern Weekend, where I slowly learned how to write news and how to write features from a hairy kid with no journalism experience.
I learned a lot in Southern Weekend, from interviewing skills to writing tips, and the essence accumulated by old colleagues is enough to write a book. But if I had to pick the one that would be of the greatest benefit to me, it would be the ability to find the topic and the ability to find key clues.
- Chi Universe
Founder of new media "Business People",
Former deputy editor-in-chief of Beijing News
04
How do you write a textured story?
I've been writing stories for seven or eight years, and I've read a lot of books that teach people how to write. But in the end, what impressed me most was Marquez's words, and we had to tell them honestly like my grandparents told stories.
Whether fictional or non-fiction, from the moment you've gathered the material and you're ready to write, you have to have the belief that no one can tell this story better than I do. This is not only a mission, but also an obligation that must be fulfilled. Whenever I do this, I create my own storytelling style and texture, which is no different from Capote to his mother, Pamuk to Istanbul, or He Wei to Fuling. Think about how your maternal grandparents/city used to tell you stories?
——Wang Tianting
Former People magazine reporter,
Host of the cultural podcast "Unfold talk"
05
How do you tell a story as well as a movie?
Many feature writers I know, including me, prefer interviews to writing. Writing is painful, with very few exceptions, but interviews are often very enjoyable.
This is of course because during the interview you will go to places that you don't set foot in your daily life, meet characters with unique stories, but more importantly (at least for me), you will capture countless moving details in the interview, as if in a mysterious forest, you will see those fascinating, uncertain wild animals.
Hot spots will cool down, stories of time and place will wear off, but this small detail that proves people's spirit will be eternal. It is a writer's job to present it well to the reader.
——Du Qiang
Former associate editor of Esquire magazine,
Editor-in-chief of "Story Hardcore"
"It's more important to think about what's changing than to think about what won't change." We will also read and write all the time because we will always need to communicate and express.
When traditional media was still flourishing, novices would go through a 3-5 year apprenticeship and practice writing every day. Veteran editors will share various techniques and strict requirements. Now that the training ground for writing is gone, the Colosseum of writing is still really a real knife and a real gun, fist to flesh. The teenager still longs for the jianghu, but he can no longer find the Shaolin Temple and the teacher. ”
The description of Chen Ming, a former southern weekend reporter and the current CEO of the short video company "Luminous Body", is worth everyone's deep thinking.
Fortunately, the "teacher of the Shaolin Temple" was still found by us. Nan Xianghong, Chi Yuyu, Du Qiang, Yang Ruichun, Chen Ming... These names, which were once in the news industry, can now communicate directly with those of you who want to write a good story.
A set of "five-step story method" to help you remove various obstacles encountered in writing - "difficult to choose topics", "difficult plot", "poor writing" and so on.
The first step is how to find a good topic for the story. Not all life trivia can be written into a story, nan xianghong will tell you how to find a touching, storylike theme.
The second step is to teach you to build an addictive structural skeleton. The story grows on a sentence, and such a sentence determines the connotation and boundaries of your writing. Lei Lei teaches you the "root directory" rule of Southern Weekend, the "crowd rule" of the True Story Project.
The third step is how to get the most valuable information. In the process of writing, you will always find too much nonsense, full of bugs, and chi universe will teach you how to be like an "investigator", discerning key information and digging up the truth.
Step 4, how do you make your story full? Wang Tianting will teach you three ways to improve the sense of seniority of the story, and ten ways to start and end the story.
Step five, how do you tell the story as well as a movie? Du Qiang will teach you 5 ways to capture good details, identify 4 indicators of good details, and tell you how to avoid misunderstandings, find real details, and make the story full of picture sense like a movie.
We spent three months working on the course —
Southern Zhou Writing Training Camp Season 1:
How to Tell a Good Story
Strive to share the writing method at the bottom of the box to more writing enthusiasts. In order to help everyone enhance their learning effect, we also invite instructors to participate in interactive Q&A and grade assignments. We will also build a high-quality writing circle and growth community, accompanying tutoring and learning, helping you fight inertia, insist on writing...
In the first three episodes of the Southern Zhou Writing Training Camp Season 1, more than 8,000 students learned to write together.
After the course, the words frequently mentioned in the recycled questionnaire were dry goods, system, and surprise.
Therefore, we decided to add the "Southern Zhou Writing Practice Training Camp Season 1 (No. 4)" to find more fellow writers on the road and continue to pass on this spark.
In the era of public noise, we still hope to uphold the humanistic adherence and journalistic ideals and carry this banner of writing. It is not the title of the Party Heart Classic, nor is it just a 10w+ explosive secret, we have more heavy writing "stupid kung fu". Come, find out and join us! Let's pursue the beauty of words together and present complex truths.
Southern Weekend Writing Bootcamp Season 1 (Phase 4)
Southern Weekend Journalism Awards, Swiss True Story Award,
Winner and judge of Tencent Guyu Award
Teach the secrets of story writing
PPT lecture video recording
+
Audio/video live Q&A
Camp officially opened on May 6
The original price was 499 yuan
Limited time early bird price 399 yuan
Provincial 100 yuan
(Active.)
Limited to 10 days
: From now until 17 April)