"Originally a skyscraper, standing on the side of the road, the front door was bustling with traffic, and the building symbolized a Tower of Babel. But interestingly, it wasn't until I left the skyscraper that I really had the ability to write about it. But in my writing, it's already a fictional building. Writer Chen Xue is the author of the original novel of this year's popular web drama "Skyscraper", the 2020 Shanghai-Taipei Cross-Strait Literature Camp and Novel Workshop opened in Shanghai on the 27th, she and a number of young writers and critics to carry out "cloud" exchanges in the form of network connection, when talking about the understanding of fiction, she believes that fiction often comes from the truth, but is not written according to the real appearance, but through different types of novel expertise, preferences and ambitions to create a second degree.
"Skyscraper" begins with the accidental death of skyscraper occupant Zhong Meibao, and uses a pair of police apprentices to track down the murderer as the driving force, revealing the multiple dilemmas that contemporary women may encounter. This emotional suspense short drama, constantly reversed, is quite "brain-burning". In Chen Xue's view, the reason why the novel itself is fascinating is precisely because it can be played through imagination indefinitely. "If there is no imagination, it is hardly fiction. But fiction is not a lie, it is not a forgery, but fiction is a fabrication. If fiction cannot bring a fictional world to life and give it its own reality, then the fiction is shattered. By writing Skyscraper, Chen Xue more clearly understands that through fictional behavior, it is possible to achieve a goal closer to reality," borrowing the detective reasoning element of genre novels, but what I want to do is not to investigate and investigate the murder, but to explore the smallness and isolation of people in the towering and huge building. ”
"Image reproduction in literary expression" and "how to fiction in the virtual world" are the two major themes focused on in the Shanghai-Taipei Cross-Strait Literature Camp and Novel Workshop, Mao Jian, Xiao Bai, Blood Red, Cai Jun, Muye, Chen Xue, Gao Yifeng, Dong Ye, Jie Qing and Chen Guowei and other writers conducted the theme discussion, and Mao Jian, Xiao Bai, Chen Xue and Gao Yifeng were also invited to serve as resident instructors of the cross-strait literature camp. The event was sponsored by Shanghai Writers Association, Lianjing Publishing Co., Ltd., Sprout Magazine and United Literature Magazine.
Perhaps, every writer wants to reach more readers, but at the same time, the mother book and video adaptation of the novel are "intertwined with love and hate" and "love and kill each other". Writer XiaoBai believes that in practice, the narrative conversion of novels and film and television dramas often has problems, "a major factor lies in the difference between the narrative methods of novels and films, the former has a very clear narrative perspective, but the film does not have a perspective in essence; secondly, the novel is sometimes stated, especially the film is mostly in progress now; in terms of information distribution, the novel can increase character information at any time, but if the film is not adapted well, it is often the information disorder." ”
Critic Muye mentioned that many writers will care about the "anti-shooting" of their works, and think that novels that are easy to be adapted may also be suspicious. "But a text can indeed derive different forms of communication, and as described in poetry, no tree is described in its original form, whether it is selectively written, memorized and published by journalists, or by novelists and video makers, the same tree has countless possibilities for expression."
But no matter what, people always need stories. It's just that the way the story is told is constantly changing. In Mao Jian's view, the film can harvest techniques such as "long and short virtual reality" and "parallel segmented narrative" from the novel, and can also give back to the novel such as montage and other narrative modes. Gao Yifeng, who is also a novelist, screenwriter and director, cited "2001: A Space Odyssey" as an example to illustrate that there is a very delicate relationship between literature and image.
Whether it is fiction or video, the craft of fiction always needs to be refined. "Fiction is a force, and truth is a force. Some real-world news may indeed be beyond the imagination of novelists. Cai Jun believes that people can approach real existence in an absurd and seemingly unreal way, including the relationship between the individual's heart and the world, and we can still construct a real imagination based on fiction.
This year's literary camp and novel workshop arranged a number of literary activities, including Jin Yucheng's theme lecture "Old Golden Map - Handling and Expression", talking about "Image Reproduction in Literary Expression" and "How to Fiction in the Virtual World". In the December and January 2021 issues of Sprout magazine, the "Shanghai-Taipei Cross-Strait Literature Camp Album" will be launched, publishing new works by young writers such as Chen Baiyan, Cao Xu, Lin Wenxin, Xu Zhenfu and Yang Liya.
Image: Courtesy of the magazine
Editor: Xu Yang