Today 101 saw a very interesting book "The Immortal King", the beginning of this book is not the protagonist's perspective, and there is no psychological activity of the protagonist, but it creates a strong attraction, and the sense of substitution is also quite good, which makes 101 very curious, so I went to the Internet to search for this kind of writing, and found that it is "white description". Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

White drawing

Originally, it was one of the traditional techniques of Chinese painting, that is, a painting method that uses ink lines to outline the image of objects and the color of cabbage. There are also some that are slightly rendered with light ink. The white drawing method is mostly used to draw people. This can be divided into two schools, one is from the great painter Li Longmian of the Northern Song Dynasty, which is called the iron line drawing, and the other is from the great painter Wu Daozi of the Tang Dynasty, which is called the orchid leaf drawing.

This kind of painting technique, people apply it to the description of literary creation, forming a kind of white drawing technique, that is, using the most simple and concise brush and ink, without carving or accentuating, grasping the characteristics of the depicted object, and truthfully outlining the modal appearance of characters, events and scenes.

From the white depiction of people, objects, and painted scenes, several main characteristics of this technique are shown:

(1) It does not write the background, only highlights the subject. China's excellent classical novels and operas have this characteristic: they do not focus on writing the background, but focus on describing the characters. The character's personality is highlighted through portrait depictions or short dialogues that capture the character's characteristics. For example, in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the portrait of Zhao Zilong is outlined: "A young general turned out on the left side of the grass slope of Huma, with a flying horse and a gun, and went straight to the ugly text. Gongsun Zhan went uphill and looked at the young man: he was born eight feet long, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, a broad face, and a majestic demeanor. With only 12 words of "eight feet long ......", the demeanor of Zhao Zilong, a "majestic" handsome and brave young general, was highlighted.

(2) It does not seek to be detailed, but only to convey the spirit. Because the white sketch does not have the trouble of other decorative descriptions, the author can concentrate on describing the characteristics of the characters, often with a few words and a few actions, he can reveal the spiritual world of the characters with the finishing touch, and receive the artistic effect of winning more with less, conveying "God" with "form", and having both form and spirit. Zhu Ziqing's prose is very good at sketching characters in white strokes, such as his sketch of the courtesan's boy on the boat in "The Qinhuai River in the Sound of Oars and Lights": "At that time, a man crossed the boat, took the spread out song fold, and stuffed it into my hand nearby, saying, 'Order a few!'...... I was so embarrassed! I pretended to be generous, and glanced at the courtesans, but it didn't work! I barely flipped the song over, but I didn't read a few words, so I hurriedly handed it back to the fellow, and said embarrassedly, 'No, let's ...... No. So he gave it to Pinber. Pimp turned his head away, shook his hand, and said, 'No!' and the man was still tired of leaving. Pingbo turned his face again, shook his head and said, 'Don't,' and the man came back to me. I was embarrassed to refuse him again. He walked away with disdain. Through the description of the man's few actions, expressions and words to peddle business, the author highlights his professional and personality traits, although there is not much ink, but it is quite expressive.

(3) It is not gorgeous, but simple. The reason why excellent literary and artistic works are touching lies in the fact that the authors express real feelings, and the more sincere and pure the feelings, the more they can shock the hearts of readers. Li Qingzhao of the Song Dynasty was a lyricist known for his white drawings. In her lyrics, she expresses her heart directly, her feelings are frank and delicate, her language is simple and fluent, unpretentious, and has natural beauty. Her masterpiece "Slow Voice", at the beginning of which we use fourteen overlapping words: "looking for and seeking, cold and lonely, miserable and miserable", this kind of overlapping words is the most artificial, but the author uses it just right, the miserable and poignant atmosphere set up by the fourteen characters is very consistent with the lonely and sad state of mind in the tragic experience of the country's broken family and the death of her husband, so it has been appreciated by the word theorists of the past dynasties. wrote down the sound of the wind and geese, which added to her homesickness, and also revealed her feelings of cherishing the flowers and thanking her, and finally wrote that she was bored sitting alone and extremely depressed in her heart. The author's depiction of the mood of the difficult moment of "the sycamore is more drizzle, and at dusk, it occupies the drips", and it is all in white strokes. Straight book, sincere feelings, such as seeing the heart.

To use the white drawing technique well, three points should be noted:

(1) It is necessary to properly handle the relationship with the narrative. Narrative is another form of expression that juxtaposes description. Narrative, in addition to the general narrative, there is also a specific narrative. The specific narrative is a kind of specific explanation, although the brushwork is coarse, but it is close to the simplicity and conciseness of the white drawing. If you use narrative techniques to express a certain dynamics and style of things, concise and expressive, and obtain a vivid description effect, it becomes a blank drawing. Therefore, it can be said that white drawing is described with a narrative.

(2) It is necessary to highlight key points. White drawing does not need to be elaborately carved and rendered layer by layer, nor does it need to be curved or foiled, but it should highlight the characteristics and modality of the depicted object.

(3) The language used should be frugal, general, and expressive. White descriptions do not use strong adjectives and complicated modifiers, but must use accurate and concise language to describe plain and simple, so as to be both frugal and expressive. In particular, it should be noted that the folk use the "oily" to reconcile the "eight strands", because the shallow "oily" and the "eight-strand" that have nothing to say are incompatible with the white drawing.

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The above examples are all examples of traditional literature, which may not be easy for everyone to understand, so let's paste the opening paragraph of "The Immortal Sovereign" below, analyze it sentence by sentence, and everyone will understand it at a glance.

Rob carefully swept his joints with a carbon brush, absorbing all the moisture.

As a gold-wood structure, he could do so to delay the aging of his joints as much as possible.

(The shape and appearance of the structure are not described in detail, but the key words such as "careful" and "use a carbon brush to sweep the joints, absorb water vapor, and delay the aging of the joints", and also give a human name and method of doing things in the golden wood structure, so the first two sentences of the white description give the reader the impression that he is an inhuman protagonist who carefully cares for himself.)

The first two sentences greatly arouse the reader's interest in reading, why does this strange guy care so much about his maintenance work? So he has to read with questions...... ）

Ever since he first saw a similar construct stained by a corrosive liquid during the experiment, which had been corrupted by its owner, and then thrown into the alchemy furnace mercilessly by its master, Rob had not dared to ignore this maintenance work for a day.

Rob of gold and wood has passed two hundred and fifty-one years since his birth, and even his master has changed for three generations, but he still hasn't fallen apart, which is inseparable from his unremitting maintenance work.

It's a pity that his companions don't care for him except him, so in the past two hundred and fifty years, his companions have been updated countless times.

(The three sentences here are still closely related to "maintenance" to explain the question at the beginning, that is, what will happen if you don't pay attention to maintenance?)

The first sentence uses the technique of "display" to reveal the tragic fate of the discarded structure, which was thrown into the alchemy furnace by its owner.

The second sentence belongs to explaining the background information, and in 251 it changed with the owner for 3 generations, highlighting the protagonist's insistence on maintenance work that allowed him to survive for so long, in contrast to the unlucky egg who was accidentally scrapped in the first sentence. Note: This kind of comparative writing is also used in "Fake Heroes", first saying that the comrades-in-arms did not pay attention to saving their lives, and how many people died one after another, and then explained that the protagonist successfully escaped for his life more than 20 times in a row, arousing the reader's strong curiosity.

The third sentence points out the characteristics of the protagonist - black sheep, that is, a black sheep in the white sheep flock, many online articles start with black sheep techniques in order to create the special of the protagonist, such as the recently popular "Through the Cretaceous Legend: The Legend of the Dire Crocodile", the cute dire crocodile protagonist is able to think and practice, compared to the companions who eat and wait for death, this is a different freak.

In short, this part still uses white drawing techniques to shape the maverick characteristics of the protagonist, enhance the sense of substitution, create suspense, and organically integrate the explanation of background information into the theme of "maintenance", so that people can obtain background information unconsciously.

Seeing this, 101 can be said to have been deeply intrigued, and can't wait to read on, wanting to see how Rob, the black sheep, can continue to survive in a crisis-ridden environment?)

A soul constructor like him, there are more than sixty in the entire magic tower, and all the plot cleaning and carrying goods, defending the magic tower and even making mattresses and quilts are all done by the constructor, if it weren't for the soul constructor's craftsmanship being too bad, maybe even the work such as cooking would be handed over to them to complete, and his masters are all freaks who wish there was only one living person in the entire magic tower.

Rob is a construct that belongs to the laboratory, and spends most of his time in the lab, so his careful maintenance work has never been noticed by his master. Perhaps his predecessors wondered why one of his constructs was cleaner than others, but only for a moment, a constructs like his didn't deserve much attention.

(This part is still a background information - the number of structures, duties, scope of activities, the personality of the owner, the responsibilities of the protagonist, and whether the maintenance work arouses the suspicion of the owner.)

This part of the content continues to enhance the suspense, and by explaining a strange background world, the reader is curious - it turns out that this is a magical world? It turns out that the protagonist has a low identity and belongs to the magician's miscellaneous work? It turns out that the protagonist is desperate to survive, so pitiful!

The so-called beginning to create expectations, expectations are not to pull hatred, to be stepped on by people to create, the little people are at the bottom of the society, want to turn over and rise, the same can create a very strong expectation. And those jokes that were trampled on by the children of rich families as soon as they came up, pulling hatred is too blunt, how can this be natural, it is easier to move people's hearts?)

Who would have thought that this construct would take care of itself? (again, emphasizing the characteristics of the main character)

After absorbing the moisture, Rob brushed his body with tung oil again, and every time he brushed the tung oil, his whole body would be shiny and shiny, so he also needed to use sandpaper to polish off the gloss of the surface, so as not to change too much for the owner to find out.

Ever since he knew his peculiarities, he was very careful not to let others find out, because his three masters were all curious and cruel to the constructs, and if their weirdness was discovered, they would not hesitate to take it to study.

(By brushing tung oil, the sandpaper beats off the shine, indicating the protagonist's caution and highlighting the protagonist's characteristics again.) And continue to strengthen the sense of crisis, that is, the more special the protagonist, the more likely he is to die in the future, arousing the reader's sense of expectation.

Speaking of which, 101 has made a very low-level mistake before, describing a character directly saying that he is a cautious character, showing it to his cousin, he questioned, the protagonist's personality doesn't seem to come out of your author's mouth, right? ）

It was so long that Rob was starting to get bored, and it was so boring to be in the lab every day, looking at the bottles and cans that he could tell with his eyes closed.

Sometimes he thinks that everything in this laboratory may be more familiar to him than his three masters, and those basic experiments, all three of his masters have carried out, repeated two or three times, and he can repeat all the processes with his eyes closed.

More than two hundred and fifty years is too long. But he had already figured out a way to get out, and if he could succeed, then he could get out of his current life forever, and he would never have to hide it so carefully again.

(This section begins to twist, the first sentence is that the protagonist is tired of this kind of life; the second sentence is that the protagonist is more familiar with everything here than the owner, implying that the protagonist will use the things here to change his fate; and the third sentence indicates that the protagonist has a way to get rid of it.)

The biggest role of this part is to create expectations, so that the reader expects the protagonist to change his fate successfully, and expects to use the laboratory to carry out some unexpected escape plan.

Another role is to continue to highlight the characteristics of the protagonist, a protagonist who is only cautious and cautious is not enough to fully win the reader's approval, and cautious and unwilling to fate, but also knows how to rely on wisdom to use the surrounding resources, such a protagonist is the protagonist who is loved by everyone!)

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Well, after analyzing so much, I believe you have understood the role of "white description", its biggest role is to highlight the characters, in fact, reading this beginning here, everyone has a clear image of the protagonist in their minds - "cautious, unwilling to fate, witty and brave"

And for the background information of the story, I also have a certain understanding - "The protagonist is a non-human construct, working in a laboratory in a magic tower, living for 251 years, changing 3 generations of owners, its life may be terminated by the ruthless master at any time, only by constantly maintaining, and looking for opportunities to escape, can save his fate." ”

Many newcomers, including 101 themselves, are very confused about how to unfold the beginning of a novel in order to attract readers, and some writing experience tells us that the elements to be explained at the beginning are as follows:

1. The background of the story (novel and interesting as well);

2. The protagonist's information, including personality, wishes, strengths, interpersonal relationships, etc. (among which the protagonist's traits and desires are the most important);

3. The crisis faced by the protagonist (this crisis must directly threaten the protagonist, and if it is not solved, he will die, or face an irreparable situation, in order to be attractive enough).

4. The main supporting role or antagonist.

Although the above 4 elements of the opening chapter, 101 are clear, they can't be explained naturally and effectively, and sometimes even explain for the sake of explanation, ignoring the shaping of characters. I hope that by analyzing the above examples, you can get some inspiration for the opening article.

Presumably at this point, everyone naturally understands the question raised at the beginning, "Why is there no protagonist's perspective?" "Why is there no protagonist's psychological activity?", it turns out that in order to cooperate with the "white description method", the author deliberately did not do this, because once the protagonist's perspective and psychological activities are increased, the protagonist's white sketch image will be dispersed, and it is not conducive to quickly and effectively explaining background information.

Well, there's another takeaway, which is how to capture the reader's attention with a narrative. Because we know that narrative sentences are very dry, and without demeanor, dialogue, and scenery descriptions, it is easy to distract people.

The above narrative has three main features -

1. Closely focus on a theme, first "maintenance", and then the turning part is "escape", the pen and ink can be used around one theme after another, which can make readers more focused;

2. The narration is novel and interesting, with a hint of ridicule, which is easy for people to read;

3. All of this is closely related to the fate of the protagonist, and the reader cannot afford not to read it.

So, today, taking "The Immortal Monarch" as an example, I hope you can work with 101 to master this very interesting "white description".