Lingling Zhang: Writing is not just about meeting the self

Zhang Lingling, born in 1986, has served as a journalist, screenwriter, etc., and her representative work is "Jealousy".

Zhang Lingling smiled quietly and elegantly, similar to the star Gao Yuanyuan, and also had a literary temperament. However, as soon as she opened her mouth, her agile thinking, meticulous logic and extremely fast speed of speech immediately made people feel the imprint of her former journalistic career on her. Recently, Zhang Lingling was interviewed by China Young Writers Daily, telling the story of her relationship with literature and how to create as a "less talented" creator.

Read to see the story "frame by frame"

"I don't have any choices about what to read before college, and when I'm scarce, I don't even let go of paper with words." Zhang Lingling recalled that when she was a child, she lived in the town with her grandparents, and her reading resources were very scarce. Because her parents worked in Shanghai, they would occasionally bring back some books as gifts for her, and classic books such as "Andersen's Fairy Tales" and "The Education of Love" accompanied her throughout her childhood.

Because of her love of words, Zhang Lingling chose Chinese department in college. She recalled that the learning atmosphere in the college class was particularly strong, and the competition of reading ran through 4 years of youth, and everyone was competing with who read more, was more niche, and had a better understanding. On her first day at university, she heard a senior say that there were more than 5,000 books in the family collection, a number that deeply shocked Zhang Lingling, who had just entered the campus from a small city.

"At that time, compared with many talented students around me, I often felt inferior." Zhang Lingling said that when her understanding of foreign literature was still stuck in the classic novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, others had begun to read modern novels after the twentieth century more systematically.

But this inferiority has also become the driving force for Zhang Lingling to study. She chose to spend more time reading to bridge the gap, reading more than 300 books a year. At that time, there was not enough money to buy all the books, so she had to go to the bookstore to "explore the treasure", and once she encountered a good book that was not plastic, she squatted down next to the bookshelf and read the books in one breath.

Today, Zhang Lingling's family has nearly 4,000 books in her collection. A lot of reading laid a solid foundation for her to embark on the road of writing. In her opinion, even untalented writers can improve their writing level through training, and reading and imitating are the best shortcuts. When reading, it is not only to look at the literal, but to do "frame by frame" to see the story, in-depth word making and kernel thinking, the more fine and refined the reading, the greater the harvest. After reading, to deliberately train yourself in logic, you can first imitate well-known writers to write, and long-term practice will inevitably make great progress.

Unexploded stories are like seeds

Zhang Lingling considers herself a person with "no literary talent" and has never thought of becoming a writer. After graduation, she chose to enter the media and become a journalist, "the profession of a journalist provides a window into the real world." Zhang Lingling said that over the years of interviews, she has been able to observe the lives of more people, see more diversified worlds, and accumulate a variety of writing materials.

"Being a journalist has cultivated my patience to observe, and in the past long-term observation of interviewees, I have gradually trained my ability to observe things for a long time, and precipitated the depth of thinking in continuous gaze and lookback." She admits that news writing has also laid a solid written foundation for her, and she has learned how to express the richest information and methodically explain an event in the most concise and concise words.

Zhang Lingling said that when she was a journalist, she had a feeling of "iron shoulders and moral righteousness", which also affected her later creations. For example, the sensational Gansu Silver Serial Murder Case gave her a great shock, which gave her the idea of creating a crime-themed work, and the inspiration for the novel "Windless Day" was derived from this. The novel "Ping'anLi", which tells the story of the demolition household, was also inspired by her in-depth contact with the "nail households" when she was a reporter.

After leaving the newspaper, she joined a film and television company and became a screenwriter. The work of screenwriters has given her a new perspective to examine literary works, and she has begun to think about what kind of works have more IP value. Writing a script pays attention to aesthetics and drama, while not detaching from the real framework, whether it is character dialogue or story logic, it must be standing, she must learn the story design and character biography writing, and this training also lays the groundwork for Zhang Lingling's future novel creation.

During that time as a screenwriter, in addition to the rated script tasks, Zhang Lingling had to submit story outlines and ideas every month. These unexplored stories are like seeds, although they did not germinate at that time, they were brought back to Shanghai by her and became a treasure trove of her creations. These seeds gradually grew and blossomed under Zhang Lingling's pen, forming a collection of novellas, "Jealousy", which includes the novel of the same name, "Jealousy", as well as "The Other Side of the Island", "The Heart of the Broken Story", "It Seems that the Old Man Came", "To the Sea of Galilee", "The Day Without Wind" and "New Year's Greetings". From the three perspectives of youth, middle age and old age, she tells seven stories that take place in southern cities, cutting into the real dilemmas of contemporary life. In each story, the author's thinking on life choices is revealed, and the flexible beauty of Jiangnan Water Town flows between the lines.

Start over from constant learning and self-denial

Zhang Lingling's text reads quietly and steadily, and the narrative rhythm is not hurried, which is in stark contrast to her fast-paced language, "Such a style is the result of control when writing." Because she is an acute child, Zhang Lingling prefers to be as mature and elegant as her favorite literary figures such as Monroe and Walcott, and carefully trains her writing style. Zhang Lingling admired keltes Imlay, Coeche, Jellinek and other writers and their works. Not only was she influenced by these writers in her writing style, but she was also trained in her thinking logic during reading, greatly expanding the possibilities for her to write short stories.

Zhang Lingling told the China Young Writers Daily that her literary path is not smooth sailing, and she constantly encounters problems and difficulties. The story cannot be made up, the characters cannot stand up, the right perspective or narrative tone cannot be found, the language is jerky, the breath is not smooth, the structure is unbalanced, the writing feels meaningless, etc. These questions popped up one after the other and recurred in the creative process.

"I only have two stupid ways to deal with these problems, one is to read, and the other is to hard-write, read more updated texts, and make deeper and more difficult attempts." Zhang Lingling said that she often feels a sense of shame about her past creations, and her writing is starting from continuous learning and self-denial.

Zhang Lingling, who thinks she has no talent, is always meticulous about creation, even with a little awe. Although her stories have realistic inspiration, she never dares to rely too much on prototypes, because "there will be a sense of moral immorality in creation."

Before writing, she was always prepared before she started writing. When writing the crime novel "New Year's Greetings", she went to the archives to collect information, do social investigations, chat with police friends, and then outline the structure and general direction of the story in her mind, establish the main characters, and then write the outline and plot line. She also has another way of writing, that is, in the beginning, only the framework, the structure, and the main characters, knowing what narrative attempts will be made, and a certain character will appear in a certain chapter, but not down to every line of action. "It's better to be outside the preset than it is inside the preset." She added.

After the first draft of the work is completed, she will continue to revise it. In Zhang Lingling's view, revision is extremely important, and it is the responsibility of the writer to polish it carefully. She likes to put the work for a while and then look back, then there will be a new judgment, to reflect on whether some details are necessary, whether the sentence is concise and fluent, can convey more information, even before and after the name, the word and the word switch, she will carefully consider, and strive for the quality of the work. For example, the first chapter of "It Seems that the Old Man Came", she wrote it for only two days, but changed it for a week, and it took more than a year to revise this collection of novels, and the scrapped manuscript was several times that of the original manuscript.

Speaking of suggestions for young writers, Zhang Lingling said that some young writers feel that they do not have enough accumulation in their lives, and they do not have to give up their attempts to create. Writing is not just reality or modernism, writers can start by writing other people's stories, and writing alternate and fantasy is not a problem. "At some point, authors may return to familiar personnel writing, but it will be different from the earlier understanding." Even if it is empirical writing at the beginning, the future will inevitably have to face problems such as dealing with unfamiliar subjects and unfamiliar fields, after all, writing is not only a process of encountering the self, but also encountering others. Zhang Lingling said.