Some issues to pay attention to when starting out in fiction writing

Before doing something, you must first adjust your mentality, and engaging in fiction writing is no exception. So before I list the dos and don'ts of long-form writing, I want to talk about the mindset. Huan Tan said in "New Treatise": "If his novelist is a novelist, he combines the remnants of the small language, and takes the arguments in the near future to make a short book, and he can govern the family, there are considerable words. This passage clearly defines the value of the novel - it is just a matter of governing oneself. Compared with the scriptures of the saints who awakened the world, the novel is a 'trivial path'. If the most holy man is compared to the sun, then the novel is at best a rainbow that reflects the light. At this point, you should understand that if you want to write a blockbuster novel, the first thing to consider is the story, not the ideology.

'Combining the remnants of the small language', fabricating and compiling collections, and exchanging pen skills for food for food—a novelist is more like a 'craftsman' than a 'literati' who specializes in scripture and history. So, even if you have achieved something after entering the industry, don't be complacent and pretentious, and don't be discouraged if you fail. Only by thinking and doing it with a calm mind can you be promoted from a rough apprentice to a skilled master.

I would like to use the above words to encourage friends who are engaged in the creation of novels.

Writing a novel is a long-term process. At the beginning of writing, it is necessary to first make an outline of the text and write down the basic context of the development of the plot, so as to avoid the situation that the plot deviates from the main line when the next day is resumed. The outline is vague, specific to the main text, and there are more questions waiting ahead, which will test the author's writing skills at any time. Taking the current mainstream business novels as an example, I summarize here a few mistakes that novices tend to make -

One: the unity of the elements in the text

As I said before, the task of the novelist is to 'merge the remnants of the whisper'. For a writer with profound skills, the foundation of this foundation is naturally not difficult, and all kinds of bridges can be easily matched and matched, and for a beginner author, some elements that are inconsistent with the tone of the whole text are often summarized into the text. In this way, it will create a reading barrier, which will greatly tarnish the whole text.

For example, if you want to write a novel set in Western medieval society, but the author does not avoid the Eastern habit of obscuring surnames and names, how can such a text be recognized by readers? Strange beans are not something that anyone can eat. It's not just the names that should be noted, but also the linguistic habits, regional naming conventions, and the ideologies of the characters...... and so on, all of which must conform to the set background characteristics of the times. This requires the author to collect a wide range of materials in the place of creation, and only after achieving a basic understanding can he start writing; if the novel borrows from the background of ancient Oriental society, then when writing the novel, he should pay attention to avoiding some foreign words and new words, otherwise it will be difficult to enter the hall of elegance. There are often protagonists in ancient Xianxia novels who talk about 'energy', or whose dialogues are mixed with sentences in Western translations, and I can't imagine what the editors of this kind of authors will look like when they read the manuscript.

This is a question that must be paid attention to, even if the 'plug-in' is turned on. Once you don't handle the elements from different eras and backgrounds, then, after the big waves have washed away, you will look back, what you wrote has been eliminated and buried, and the work will lose the opportunity to rank among the classics of fiction.

Two: the unity of perspective

i. When creating from a first-person point of view, you can express your opinions directly with the help of the protagonist's mouth, and you can also describe the psychology in large sections without being obtrusive. That's where the advantage lies. However, this kind of writing is narrow in perspective, and the first person is not suitable for novels with a length of more than 100,000 words. The more popular "Evil Awe" and "A Generation of Military Advisors Who Drift with the Flow" are good examples, and the two originally good works are flawed because of the confusion of perspectives, which shows how difficult it is. I have the impression that novels that are perfectly written from a first-person point of view are mostly 150,000 words or less, and are often found in works translated from abroad, and then in the middle and long works preferred by some magazine supplements.

When the first person is used, the words of the supporting characters in the book can only be relayed through 'me', and the mental activities of the supporting characters can only be 'guessed' through 'me' heads.

ii. Creating in the third person, although it lacks the pleasure of 'expressing one's heart in the first person', it can be laid out with advantages similar to the 'God's perspective', and the protagonist's plump character image is highlighted through contrast. The third-person perspective does not have any obstacles in depicting the behavior of the main and supporting characters, and can also change the scene regardless of the spatial distance. I'm quoting a newcomer's mistake -

While touching his upright belly with his hand, and shaking his slightly dizzy head, Niu Man thought about what was going on: how could he come to this ghost place after picking up dung at home?

This 'self' here should not exist. When depicting mental activity from a third-person perspective, the subject of the sentence is usually omitted unless the character mentally compares himself with others. Even if it appears, it can't be the word 'self', but 'me'. Change it again

Touching his stomach with his hand and shaking his head, which was still slightly dizzy, Niu was full of wonders: How could someone who picked up dung at home come to this ghost place?

And after the appearance of the subject, it is usually necessary to put quotation marks around the part of mental activity -

Touching his stomach with his hand, shaking his head, which was still slightly dizzy, Niu was full of wonders: "I picked up dung at home, how did I come to this ghost place?"

When using the third person to create, except for some specific scenes where it is impossible to communicate with people, it is not appropriate to depict too many psychological activities when creating characters. If you want to write a scene where the protagonist talks to himself, it is best to set a convincing premise, such as a shock to the heart, or a sacrifice to the dead, otherwise it will make people feel that the character you are creating is a psychopath, and thus lose the sense of substitution. Even if you are talking to yourself, don't write in large paragraphs.

If you can do this, you will basically be able to create in the third person more reasonably.

The perspectives of the two different people are also different, and although there are intersecting parts, they should not be mixed. This is especially important for those who are just getting started.

Three: the unity of writing style

Broadly speaking, it is understood as the implementation of the 'sentence style'. This crosses paths with the first article, 'Unity of elements in the text', but it is not necessarily the case. For example, if some authors use a 'naughty' translation style sentence structure in the first paragraph to set off the atmosphere, but in the latter paragraph it becomes a 'deep' classical Chinese narrative, how can readers buy such an article? Just imagine, if Xiong Yaohua inserted a part of Zha Liangyong-style paragraphs into his book, would the pen name 'Gu Long' still be ranked among the martial arts masters? Like sentence length, punctuation, usage, and word choice habits...... and so on, all of them must agree to form a unified style, so that the book can be written.

The unity of writing style is a must, and newcomers should pay attention to it.

Four: the implementation of the idea of character building

For example, if you want to create a taciturn character who understands the world, then you need to make him feel like gold from beginning to end, and focus on his behavior and mental activities for different things. If you can't follow through on this, and suddenly write him as a shallow and frivolous word, then the book will fail.

This criterion is still relatively easy to understand. The reason why new friends make mistakes in this point is mostly because the outline is not detailed and does not have a deep understanding of the role they want to create. In general, this can be solved by establishing character cards. Below, I will try to write a character card according to the fat man protagonist who is more successful in ** station-

i. The fat man is very persistent and cunning, and he is extremely possessive.

ii. The fat man is very clever and knows how to use his 'harmless' appearance to dispel the vigilance of others, and then he will use his wisdom to gain advantage at the right time.

iii. The fat man will go berserk when he is strongly insulted, and he will run away in the form of hysterical fighting, and when he is so frightened that the disparity in rank is so great that no effort can change the outcome. I don't care about the life or death of my allies, and I don't care if I will be labeled as a 'coward' or a 'repeat villain' in the future. He was not a hero who was dedicated to serving the people.

iv. Zi's cheerful smile hides an inferiority complex that even he is not aware of, so he will not take the initiative when facing the girl he likes, and usually adopts an evasive attitude, taking care of everything else;

The above four are the basic protagonist cards. Set the main line along the outline, and the different plots at the development department show the characteristics of all aspects of the characters to the reader, so that the characters you create come to life, and at this point, the plot takes a back seat, and no one will accuse you of using too old bridges - because they are not reading books, but fat people.

5. The application of special styles

When writing novels from different eras and backgrounds, it is very helpful to write some embellishment words in the style that prevailed at that time. For example, when writing historical fiction, add some ancient style poems, or in the Western fantasy, bring two poems close to the medieval style. However, because modern education rarely covers this aspect of knowledge, authors often make very low-level mistakes in their writing, so that they not only fail to add color to the text, but laugh at it. To solve this problem, it is necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of the structural principles of the particular text before attempting to write it, and before that, the only solution is to avoid the creation of the special genre, or to quote the existing work directly.

Here, there is a problem to emphasize: You can quote other people's works, but you must explain them! Even if the time travel essay is based on the collision of ideologies of different eras, the source of the quotation in the text should be clearly marked in the remarks. It's a matter of morality.

Six: the distribution of pen and ink

Modern commercial novels were a seller's market in the early days, and the author wrote how the reader was When Jin Yong created "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", readers would not care how much text he wrote on characters other than Guo Jing. When it came to "Dragon Babu", there were countless supporting roles for the three main characters, and the scenes jumped constantly. At that time, as long as you can write a story that can justify itself, then everything is fine, the times have changed, and in today's society, people are impetuous, and readers are no longer willing to be a spectator, but to jump into the book to replace themselves as the protagonist, and take the initiative to experience the pleasure of galloping in the book. In the face of such a buyer's market that has already taken shape, the author is powerless to change the status quo and can only cater to consumers. In order to bring readers a stronger sense of substitution, what the author has to do is to take the single-protagonist mode, and carry it out to the end, and focus on the protagonist in ninety percent of the book. This is the basis for the popularity of commercial novels.

Use the outline to establish the main line, use the main line to constrain the plot, and the plot should be tailored to reflect the character of the protagonist in all aspects.

Compared to their predecessors, contemporary commercial fiction writers are happy, because you don't have to worry about how to perfectly intersperse the side plots of other characters, you only need to portray a main character, and you are already half successful. Please refer to the fourth item listed in the main building for details.

Seven: Refining words and brushstrokes

Rhetorical refinement refers to the conciseness of sentences in the pen, which is not redundant and verbose. To do this, it is necessary to keep in mind the criterion of Article 6, 'Distribution of Pen and Ink'. I'll take a quote from a sentence before as an example -

Touching his stomach with his hand, shaking his head, which was still slightly dizzy, Niu was full of wonders: "I picked up dung at home, how did I come to this ghost place?"

You can divide this sentence into three parts: Niu Man touched his stomach, Niu Man shook his dazed head, and Niu Man's mental activity.

What do you touch your belly for no reason? I'll change it—

Habitually touching his stomach and shaking his head, which was still slightly dizzy, Niu was full of wonders: "I picked up dung at home, how did I come to this ghost place?"

Interpret the action of touching the belly as a habit of the characters so that it doesn't feel wordy to the reader. Rhetoric refining does not mean reducing the number of words, but rather using words appropriately and focusing on the creative idea.

As for the refinement of brushstrokes, it can be understood as the choice of entry point. For example, in order to portray the image of the protagonist, we can do it from many immovable angles such as behavior description, language description, mental activity description, etc., and the art of brushstrokes is to choose the best entry point to show it to the reader. Most of the brushstrokes of master authors are untraceable, and anyone who feels it is just the word 'natural'. Generally speaking, the pondering of the strokes of the full text should wait until it is written, and then think about the revision in the process of proofreading.

Eight: the application of idioms and allusions and the accumulation of rhetoric

This article is somewhat similar to Article 5, 'Application of Special Styles', but there are differences. Compared with ancient literary genres such as poetry, idioms are the least difficult to use, but idioms have high requirements for the language environment. Whether it is a realistic novel or an absurd fantasy novel, it must be based on life. As an author, you should adhere to the following at the beginning of your creation –

In novels with Western fantasy backgrounds, no one can speak Chinese idioms.

At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, there was no such thing as a happy thought.

Until the allusion behind the four words 'Zhenglong shoots the tiger' is not fully known, it cannot be regarded as an idiom.

You can instruct your brother to get rid of the flies in the house, but don't add the idiom 'Kusanagi Bird' to your words – that will leave him at a loss.

Probably because the ancient people of the East rarely had the habit of rubbing oil lamps with their hands, they did not see Aladdin.

The king of Chu liked Longyuan Tai Agongbu, but he had never heard of the sword of Damocles.

It is more appropriate to make a scarf of the 'fox's tail' in Bigan and present it to the king.

I have emphasized the 'unity of writing style' before, so when using idioms to quote allusions, we must take into account the source and time of the allusions, compare the language environment and the background of the times, and whether it is suitable to appear in the text.

As for the accumulation of rhetoric, when applied to novels, it is usually used to explain the environmental background, or to portray something different from the laity as a high-ranking person. In this regard, it is not important whether you have a rich vocabulary, whether you are able to use various writing techniques skillfully, or whether you are abrupt or not. I have emphasized the 'unity of writing style' before, and also emphasized the 'unity of the elements in the text', and also emphasized the 'refinement of words and brushstrokes', if there is a conflict with these three points, then don't waste time pondering the splendid vocabulary. Some authors prefer to use the mouths of Western characters to chant the bullshit 'Wenfu' to show off their literary talents, which is really ridiculous, and it is no wonder that people are slapped in the face.

This article is going to talk about some of the problems that tend to arise when you first get involved in long-form creation, and this is basically the end of it. If you have friends who want to try their hand at writing novels, you can use this as a reference. Whether you want to hit the electronic version market of the simplified Chinese market in mainland China or the traditional Chinese publishing market in Taiwan, you must deal with the above issues. It's all common-sense stuff and doesn't help much, but it can at least help you set a direction. It's not necessarily a shortcut, but it won't lead you astray.