Embers Ad Infinitum

By the time I finished another novel, I had written a total of 198 chapters, almost 620,000 words. On average, each chapter was more than 3,000 words, but I didn’t specifically pursue controlling the number of words. Sometimes I would only publish 2,500 to 600 words. Time is three thousand five hundred and six hundred.

The volume of this volume is called "Destiny", and the opening line is "This is the spring of hope, this is the winter of despair." Originally, at the end, the order of these two sentences was reversed and placed at the end like a mystery. ——"This is the winter of disappointment, this is the spring of hope" may be a more accurate expression of the theme and overall atmosphere of the film. It is a state of spiraling forward in disappointment and hope, and different sequences are reflect different emphases.

But I don’t really want to repeat the same way of writing, especially such an obvious repetition. Otherwise, how can I show my ability? (Big boo.

Therefore, in the end, I ended up with "Winter is over and spring is coming". In this way, the sense of light will be stronger, and using other examples in the same chapter to highlight the despair mixed with hope can be relatively better. He set up the previously relatively vague main goal of "investigating the source of Wuxin disease and the cause of the destruction of the old world".

This is important to the entire book and to the tension of the subsequent plot.

Talking about the title of the volume, "Destiny" is taken from Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5 in C minor". The focus is not on fate, but on destiny itself. Although this is more or less reflected, I usually like classical music, or have watched it My arcane friends should be able to directly associate the meaning of "holding the throat of fate" from this name and its origin.

The main plot of this film is the investigation of "the cause of the destruction of the old world". It is a constant journey to new places. And because investigations of this kind of thing always don't have too exciting results at the beginning, it is difficult to maintain the tension of the plot. It's so tense that it's difficult to use suspense techniques to set a good hook. Therefore, the story structure is closer to a travelogue, and the form is relatively loose.

In order to keep the form and the meaning intact, the dark thread I gave is the theme of "people and destiny", including what it is to be a human being, including the shouts, questions, regrets and unwillingness of different people when fate knocks on the door.

On this hidden line, the writing method I use is "echo structure". Well, I named it myself, and I don't know what it is called in formal writing classes.

In short, on the same or similar issues, at different stages, from different angles, and from different people, voices are raised again and again, forming echoes.

In the end, Shang Jianyao superimposed these echoes and made his own voice, completing the realization of his character.

In the entire "Destiny" volume, the refugees of Wild Grass City, Han Wanghuo, and Gnawa are a group of relatively obvious echoes, and the servants who died silently in the "Underground Ark" are echoes of the tragic sufferings of the residents of Black Rat Town in the first part. An echo of the slaughter, these two sets of echoes together almost express the undercurrent I want.

In fact, in Tarnan, I also made a small "reverberation structure", which is centered around the sentence "Everywhere is a dream, why take it seriously", and let it continue to come from the mouths of Zhou Guanzhu and Shang Jianyao, forming a funny and funny -style echo, and finally, the sadness behind Zhou Guanzhu's words is revealed, achieving the effect of a tearful face under the smiling face, and tragedy behind the comedy.

During that period, I felt quite good about myself. All the sadness was rushing through the calmness and darkness, and I laughed.

In addition, the entire hidden line and all the echoes are also serving to shape the character. After all, we cannot write about Shang Jianyao's psychological activities. How to implement him as a person and write it fully, it is very, uh, in Sichuan dialect To put it bluntly, it's a big blow to the head. This method of letting him make the final echo and give his own answer is a way to go.

After talking about what you want to express and what is actually expressed, let’s talk about the problem.

The biggest problem is the way to write travel notes.

For travel notes, you definitely have to change the map, and you have to change the place every dozens of chapters. This means that the characters you have finally created are gone in the blink of an eye, or there is no time to create more characters with more feelings in different maps.

Without a good foreshadowing, if you want to cut but the cut will not be powerful or feel, then it would be better not to cut, so the response will not be so full and powerful.

Of course, there are other reasons for this, because the echoes come from different people, not the protagonist himself, which makes it impossible for readers to have similar emotions. As a result, after a plot, the emotions naturally leak out, and even the content is forgotten to a certain extent. .

I have written about other issues in the previous monthly summary, such as the sense of character substitution and team actions that make too many interactions cumbersome. I will not go into details one by one. These are all solved by constantly adjusting the writing method and entry point. Solution, I believe everyone who has followed it all the way can understand it.

There are always various problems in new stories and new writing methods. They are constantly found and solved. For me, it is both pain, joy and gain. It is quite good, laugh.

The fourth part is also a long novel. This time it is no longer a travelogue. After the company's interlude, it basically focuses on the "First City", and many previous characters will appear again.

Well, the title of the volume is "Emperor", taken from Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5.

Because I have just finished writing a long novel of almost two hundred chapters, and next is a new volume of similar length. I need to relax and improve the corresponding details, so as usual, I took three and a half days off.

Three and a half days later, the update should have been resumed on the 29th, which is Thursday at 12:30 noon, but that morning my wife happened to have her prenatal check-up, and I had to go to the maternal and child class, so... I’ll just count this summary as a chapter. Well, three and a half days from now, updates will resume on the 29th, which is Thursday at 7 pm.

Bow and thank you all.