Last August, Shi Yueqi became a student of Yu Hua. The admission notice for the Ph.D. in Creative Writing was posted on the Internet, and the question that the comment area was most concerned about was, "Did you tell Teacher Yu Hua about the scribbled puppy?"
This is probably the most outlandish question he's ever been asked when it comes to writing.
For those who aspire to literary writing, Shi Yueqi's resume is equally curious: he studied creative writing at Fudan as a graduate student, studied writing with writers such as Wang Anyi and Zhang Yiwei, and after graduation, his works were published in top literary magazines in China.
From "student" to "young writer", his experience has made people have some expectations for creative writing: such a young discipline in China seems to fill the gap of "Chinese departments do not cultivate writers", and it also seems to make the "writer's dream" of young people more traceable in addition to the general "self-taught" path of the previous generation of writers.
Therefore, Shi Yueqi is often asked the question, "Do you think colleges and universities can train writers?"
His answer to this question was very firm.
Here's what he had to say:
Writing classes in the slaughterhouse and dance room
As the research institute was approaching, I was almost naïve as a student in the Department of Chinese at the time, and I thought that it would be nice if there was a master's program in China that did not require a thesis. After some searching, I didn't expect to find a creative writing major in Fudan from this.
Before that, I didn't know there was such a major, and I didn't know what "writing novels" was all about. I didn't know that novels needed to be published before they were published, I didn't know the importance of various literary journals and competitions, and I didn't even know that Yu Hua, a pioneer novelist repeatedly mentioned in literary history, was still alive – and I didn't expect him to become my doctoral supervisor.
At that time, I was just madly passionate about writing, and I couldn't agree with Sartre that only "creation" can give people a tangible meaning to life.
I'm even a little conceited that there are countless research articles written for Shakespeare, but none of them have a greater byline than Shakespeare. I don't want to be an interpreter, I want to be Shakespeare through my work.
So I decided to take the creative writing exam immediately, but I was still very nervous. I thought that this major, like the so-called "writers' class", only recruited famous writers.
At that time, there were only two months left before the start of the pre-promotion of the insurance research institute, and I had almost nothing but enthusiasm.
But I was confident that as long as I had passion, I could have a work, and that a work would be enough, so I decided to write a novel before the interview.
My desk as an undergraduate
I imagined myself to be like Kerouac, the representative writer of the Beat in the United States, who was driven by passion to complete a hearty novel like "On the Road" in three weeks. But after I started writing it, I realized that I had been deceived by the story of the great writer's "overnight success".
Behind the 270,000 words improvised in "On the Road", the writer spent 7 years on the road, 4 years in the making, and 10 years for the final publication.
The time is approaching, and the more I write, the harder I become, and I can only push myself into a desperate situation every day: "I have to write 6,000 words today, and if I can't finish it, then I have to write 7,000 words tomorrow, and if I can't finish it, then I won't be able to pass the exam." ”
Before the interview, the novel was finally written to about 130,000 words. So I put it together with some of my previous poems, and made the line spacing a little bigger, and I finally had a book that looked decent.
During the interview, this portfolio won the favor of the teachers. But I didn't realize at the time that it was my attitude towards writing that my teacher recognized, not my immature view of writing.
Therefore, after entering Fudan, I still maintained the writing habit of my undergraduate - I like to use my works to discuss philosophy, or use all kinds of tricks and techniques to enrich the text.
For example, I will change the style and language to write stories: classical Chinese, stage tones, historical allusions, and metaphysical code words. The teacher often said when handing out homework: "Everyone can take a look at Shi Yueqi's works, but everyone can't understand them anyway." ”
At that time, I thought that "I can't read" was a compliment to my work.
I can't say exactly at what point in the future my concept of writing changed. But in class, something really affected me.
Although we are students, our teachers always ask us as writers to not be confined to the classroom and the school.
Teacher Wang Anyi once took the writing class to the largest slaughterhouse in the Far East in the 1930s. Although it has been converted into a commercial art center, the labyrinthine design of the space is still intriguing - in order to kill the cow, the cow is first lost and dizzy in the twisting curves, and the undulating steps let the blood of the cow kill slowly flow.
The observation and grasp of space is the basic skill of a writer, and Mr. Wang Anyi referred to the map when he wrote "Tianxiang".
After walking into the trance-like corridor, the teacher's sentence that "a reliable and clear three-dimensional space environment is itself a part of the 'narrative logic'" became more concrete to us.
Back on campus, our classes are not limited to the traditional mode of teaching. Once, a dance teacher led us into the dance room. After the warm-up, the teacher constantly changed the beat and beat the drums, so that we could walk or dance to the beat "without scruples". Then, we stopped, and in the middle of the group, the teacher encouraged us to hug each other, and felt each other's heartbeat and body temperature during the five-minute deep hug.
That class made me more convinced of the importance of "involving the body in writing". Later, when I was on the bus, I saw a hearing-impaired couple sitting in the back row. If it was before, they wouldn't have caught my attention, but then I noticed that they were playing fast sign language and the girl seemed to be coquettish to the boy. I tried to understand how they gestured to express a kind of coquettishness in a world that could not be heard.
In the long gaze, I almost felt like they were very close friends.
When our experience is opened, learning to write will return to the text. Teachers of creative writing will ask us more to disassemble the work from the perspective of the writer.
Zhang Yiwei, a post-80s writer, is one of our teachers. In class, she often shares her observations.
Teacher Zhang Yiwei is giving us a lecture
For example, once, she talked about the fact that in "Song of Long Hatred", the main male characters only have titles but no names, such as Director Li, Mr. Cheng, Mao Mao's mother's uncle, Lao Koehler, etc., but the female names are very conclusive, which is actually a meaningful hint of the writer's gender issues in the context of that era.
"It's rare for a mature artist to finish a work out of sheer inspiration. Teacher Zhang Yiwei's interpretation, from the naming of famous characters to the writer's conception of politics, times and other propositions behind the love story, is to guide us to discover the author's hidden position and attitude in the details of the text.
Towards the end of the first year of study, we were asked to learn to write non-fiction stories to lay the groundwork for fiction. After a writing class, I was in a different mindset than when I first started. My idea is that if you can tell a moving story in a down-to-earth manner, then the work is at least good.
So, I squatted in the subway station for a few days, and honestly collected all kinds of materials - dictation, work schedule, line design drawing, subway construction background, etc., and finally wrote the story of two subway station attendants.
Unexpectedly, that work won first place in an anonymous competition. In class, the teacher asked all the students to applaud me, and then I realized that this time, the teacher really recognized me.
It was then that I became more convinced of the meaning of "sincerity" in writing.
Don't give up writing
When I studied creative writing at Fudan, my classmates came from different majors: biology, architecture, philosophy, physics, journalism, and so on.
For example, an architecture student demanded that "writing should be as delicate as architecture", so the state and relationship of his characters are very clear.
And for many of them, studying creative writing here is not about becoming a writer, but about "experiencing a new life".
A student of biology opened up the pain with his writing. In the past, she could slash a mouse in her anatomy class, but writing gave her a more nuanced and vivid understanding of life.
The most violent thing she could ever imagine for a well-pampered classmate from a big city was to "quarrel with her father", but in the process of learning to write, she realized that the boundaries of life may be more than that.
Perhaps it is precisely because our starting point and future destination are different that we are able to abandon worldly considerations and communicate our work sincerely and boldly.
When I first came to Fudan, I submitted the kind of bells and whistles that I submitted, and my classmates criticized me mercilessly: "What else can you tell me about this work besides telling me how much you know?" and when I write about female characters, I will be criticized for "this look is a man writing a woman".
When a classmate wrote about "abortion," some people immediately stood up and questioned: "Have you ever had an abortion?" What you wrote about was a conceptual abortion, and there was no real abortion at all. ”
Such intense but free discussions continued throughout my graduate studies, and reminded me that I should write outside my familiar "circle" and not equate my own experience with the consensus of others.
Discussions between classmates can sometimes last up to ten hours
In addition to the lively communication atmosphere, the arrangement of various writing courses does provide an environment in which we have to write.
Before graduation, a student is expected to complete an average of 5-8 short stories and 1-2 medium-length novels in three academic years. In the fiction practice class, we have to submit four novels in a semester, and the teacher also sets up a "special level" - whoever is willing to submit more works on the basis of daily assignments, we can hold a revision meeting for him.
In order to get a better score in the assessment, we also have to force ourselves to practice constantly. Because even though everyone understands the content of the class well, it is often not until after the pen has been written that the writing problems are identified and corrected.
I once wrote a historical novel in one of my exercises, in which the protagonist experienced various social changes such as the puppet Manchukuo, the War of Resistance and Liberation. In the homework feedback, Ms. Yiwei wrote: "The time algorithm of this novel is quite accurate, but if it is too accurate, it is more like a made up story, because there is always a delay between the human experience time and the time recorded in the textbook." The realism in the novel is to be written a little more vaguely. ”
Immediately afterwards, the teacher questioned the protagonist's educational background: "Was there really such a good educational environment in that era?
After experiencing such "criticism" and "questioning", I will continue to ask myself in my future writing, like a teacher: "Why did he" do this? "Is the motive of his" behavior reasonable? Every time I ask myself this way, the fog in front of my eyes will be dispelled a little more when I write, and the web of the story will be woven more firmly.
Teacher Zhang Yiwei always urges us to write more, submit more papers, compete more, and publish more, so as to overcome those moments of "not daring to write" and "no inspiration", and other teachers often forward the information of writing competitions and activities to us.
However, the teachers told us how to submit the manuscript at most, and basically did not recommend the manuscript for us. What they care about most is whether we write well or not. Because in the eyes of the teachers, the key to the apprenticeship period is to maintain the sincerity of writing, keep writing and practicing. Moreover, "obscurity" is also a must for writers.
Therefore, in Fudan, if you want to publish or even become famous by writing, you can only rely on yourself.
In my opinion, the training environment for master's students at Fudan is more like a workshop to hone their craft
Now, I'm almost the only one still studying creative writing in college, but none of us have given up writing, and the rest of us have just gone to more diverse fields. Some are working as Chinese teachers in high schools, some are working as game planners, and some are working as reporters in financial media. No one thinks that their work is "professionally misaligned" with creative writing.
And those former seniors returned to school after work to exchange, which also brought more "writing" experience. For example, a senior student who is a game designer once came back to give us a lecture on the use of narrative in triple-A games. On that occasion, even the teachers of the philosophy department came to attend the lecture.
It's fair to say that the creative writing major has never only trained writers. As teacher Wang Anyi once said: "Teaching writing is actually just to tell students about their understanding of writing, and dare not be responsible for the birth of writers." ”
She also repeatedly stressed that the part of writing that can be taught "is a technical thing".
However, for many of us, "learning to write" is more than just acquiring a skill that can be used extensively.
There was a story that almost everyone in our class knew: there was a senior sister who had never been heard from after graduation, and later everyone learned that she had become a single mother. No one knows exactly what she went through, but you can imagine her hard work.
After Teacher Wang Anyi heard about this incident, she tried to get others to convey a sentence to her: "Don't give up writing." ”
Even if we don't write for a living, we still need to write.
The cause of the loser
"Writing" is indeed beautiful, but for us, there are many difficulties that "writing" has to contend with.
Every student majoring in creative writing at Fudan University is asked a question when they enter the school: "Can you survive in Shanghai?"
Even before thinking about whether or not I could make a living from writing, the real economic dilemma emerged.
Like most universities, Fudan's creative writing is a professional master's degree, and the tuition fee for three years from 2020 is 135,000 yuan, and the school does not provide accommodation, and you also need to bear about two or three thousand yuan per month rent in Shanghai, where every inch of land is expensive.
Some students need to rely on frugality and part-time income to maintain their studies and not be dissuaded from quitting. If you don't have money, it's all in vain.
And the difficulty of "writing" does not stop there.
As I approached my master's degree, I wanted to continue writing novels, and my PhD became my first choice. Because of the undisturbed environment and various literary activities in the college, there are more opportunities to contact teachers, editors, and great writers, and the works are more likely to be "seen".
In China, there are few universities that offer a doctorate degree in creative writing, and Beijing Normal University is the one that I yearn for and dread. Here, not only are the tutors Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Su Tong, Xichuan and other writers whose names often appear in textbooks, but also the name of a writer who has won the Mao Dun Literature Award in the previous admission list.
At that point, I thought to myself, "It's over, I definitely won't have a chance." ”
Three years have passed, and I am almost back to the state of being empty-handed when I was preparing for the graduate school.
Unlike three years ago, after a solid but dull training in writing, I no longer dreamed of becoming an "overnight success", but often felt the despair of writing and the pain of never coming out. Because there is no opportunity to publish, no matter how well you write, you are nothing.
In my hesitation, I missed the opportunity to apply for the exam that year. The only thing I knew during that year at GAP was that I couldn't stop writing.
At this time, the explosion of the Harbin flax factory that I heard about seven years ago came back to my mind. The dust explosion killed and injured countless people, and the surviving female workers were covered in burn scars and could only live in hiding like ghosts for the rest of their lives.
This incident evoked the pain of my internship at the magazine. At that time, I always had to return a lot of submissions, and I didn't know when my novels would stop being rejected. I would even cry when faced with the novels that had been hidden in a drawer.
And my hometown is also in the northeast, and my grandmother is from Harbin. As I browse through the information about the accident, the depressed streets of my childhood make the disillusionment of the glory of industry all the more vivid in the past.
In Night Wanderer, I used the scene as a reference to the environment around my home
With all these emotions intertwined, I had an urge to write, and I was determined to write a story that was "impossible to see".
At the time, I was an exchange student abroad, and there was no habit of wearing a mask. But I always wear a mask when I go out, I think of myself as a burn patient, and I also avoid people, and I don't dare to meet the strange eyes of passers-by.
This is what I have learned in my writing training over the past three years. Writing is life, I'm not trying to make up a character, I'm trying to be that person.
The novel, eventually titled "Night Wanderer," begins with a rejection letter from the editor of a literary magazine to a female worker with a burn, revealing a lost memory of Northeast China in the exchange of letters.
The next year, I took this novel with me and decided to try Beijing Normal University, and I was prepared for the worst.
On the day of the interview, I received the news that "Night Wanderer" won the first prize in a certain youth literature award. Standing in the examination room, I excitedly said to Teacher Yu Hua: "Teacher, this novel is now not only my masterpiece, but also my award-winning work. ”
Teacher Yu Hua smiled and said, "This is also the novel I want to see." ”
I was re-admitted as a student of Ms. Yu Hua, but I don't think it's all out of luck
After "Night Wanderer" won the award, Wu Yue, the editor of Harvest magazine, approached me and asked if I could read the novel. Only then did I dare to cautiously ask her, "Teacher, can I try to submit?"
Harvest is one of the top literary journals in the country, and I could hardly have imagined that I could publish a novel on it. I hadn't published anything for a year and nine months before Night Wanderer, and I remember it very clearly, because I had lived almost like years in the days when I had to write hard-headed and had no reward.
But even after being admitted to Mr. Yu Hua, the lack of confidence and pressure in writing still haunts me.
Once, I talked to Mr. Yu Hua about my unstable writing status, and I still have to hurry up and work hard to write more. Teacher Yu Hua comforted me and said, "Don't be in a hurry, take your time, the narrative will sometimes give you the opportunity, seize it." ”
There is a generation of writing, and the path of writing in our generation, the difficulties we face, the problems and emotions we deal with are all different from those of Mr. Yu Hua. I think it is very valuable that Mr. Yu Hua understands the state of young writers very well. He cares a lot about young people's writing and has read a lot of novels from the 90s and even the 00s.
I still remember when I was first admitted, I sent the work that had been sealed in the drawer to Mr. Yu Hua to read. After a period of silence, Teacher Yu Hua sent a reply one night. Only then did I know that during this time, he had been working in cities all over the world, and as soon as he came back to work, he contracted the new crown, but he still read my works in one go.
At the end of the message, he encouraged me to say, "You are on the right path, keep going." ”
That's when I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, I can trust my own writing.
That's why writing doesn't stop.
On New Year's Eve this year, I saw a circle of friends posted by my master's classmates: "Don't give up despair of life. "I know he's still in a place where no one sees, writing novels that I don't know when they'll be published.
I silently gave him a thumbs up, because I understood the desperation he was talking about.
For us, this desperation is necessary. It gives us the opportunity to calm down and understand life, and forces us to the desperate situation of writing, so that we can get rid of vulgarity, laziness and impetuousness, and stimulate the real desire to write.
Indeed, literature is destined to be a loser's business.
In the new year, I came to Beijing from Shanghai, and in a campus in the suburbs, I re-faced the life of writing alone, and became a desperate but determined person.