Embers Ad Infinitum

It's the end of a book, and it's time for a summary.

Let's follow the order of ideas, practices, problems, gains and prospects. However, it is the instinct of every author to write testimonials, and it is basically inevitable to write about what comes to mind.

Let’s start with the idea, that is, why I wrote such a book, what I want to express, and how I intend to express it.

When Mystery just finished the book, I only had the idea of ​​writing a wasteland theme. Others were very vague. There was no theme or a general story, but there were some beautiful pictures and interesting ideas that made me feel very beautiful. .

Those pictures have a building that is hidden deep in the ground and becomes its own society. This first came from a science fiction novel I read when I was a child. It is about human beings building thousands or tens of thousands of stories high, so that the occupants do not need to go out. You can spend a lifetime to solve the problem of dense population, and the final result is that the building is too huge, and the mechanics of the building do not support it, so it collapses with a bang.

In addition, there are nuclear bomb explosions, human beings are reborn, and above the dust, the fire of human civilization is passed on from generation to generation, that is, under extremely difficult circumstances, children are still reading classics.

Such pictures and some interesting ideas made me decide to write about the theme of wasteland. Besides, when I wrote the testimonials about the mystery, I didn't have any clear ideas, but I just felt that the writing of the mystery was too heavy, and the next book was easy. Points, but the wasteland can also be heavy, so neutralize it with a psychopath to tone it down.

Of course, at that time, I didn't dare to pat my chest for protection, so I had to add the word "laugh" after that sentence.

With the initial idea, we have to start refining it. I have read a lot of wasteland novels, and played Fallout 2 (after the Fallout turned into a shooting game, I haven’t played it much. After all, I am 3D dizzy, and the most dizzy shooting game. games), always want to write something different, this is a personal paranoia, I hope to be different.

Therefore, I slowly set the theme in the post-wasteland era, and skipped the familiar classic elements such as survival at the end of the day, picking up garbage and other classic elements, and placed them in the reconstructed, miniaturized human societies, as well as due to the ageing and high-level civilizations. The various folk customs produced by the influence of power.

This actually brings up a problem, which I call "expectation dislocation", because many readers will think of those classic elements when they see the wasteland, and they will have an anticipation emotion, and what I want to write is related to them Expectations are completely different, there is a misplacement.

For an author, this is actually a question that must be taken seriously. When writing about mystery, with a brand-new theme and a brand-new world view, most readers cannot actually bring the corresponding instinctive impression when they read it, even if it is In this way, friends who have expectations for steampunk and the fundamentalist myth of Cthulhu also have a certain dislocation of expectations, but the proportion is not large.

In my first life, I actually suffered losses in this regard. Readers came in with a sense of anticipation to see Gao Wu's fantasy, and as a result, wow, how did it become infinite flow? Later, after I ended the six-path system and officially turned to the story of half-immortal warriors and half-high martial arts, readers who came from the frontiers of martial arts also had a strong dislocation of expectations.

This results in the fact that during the serialization period of I, although the monthly pass ranks higher, the actual subscription is always a little worse than the previous arcane. Of course, the channel of I is better, and the overall income is similar. The staying power after finishing the book is also because of the theme. To be better.

For the book Long Night, I think the wasteland itself is a niche theme, and it doesn't seem to matter if I get a post-wasteland, so I didn't deliberately add in the introduction that there is no doomsday survival and many common wasteland elements.

The ending chapter actually has such a problem of misplacement of expectations, just like in my mind, the penultimate chapter is the finale, after Yao and Dabai died, the story has ended, the long night is over, the dawn is coming, other forces and other people What happened to them is another story, a whole new story.

The story of "Old Tune Group" is over, and all that's left is the afterglow.

Therefore, the last one is the epilogue, so there is no need to write so much, just bring out the feeling of the passing of the night, the inheritance of fire, and the endless life, so that it is not long, procrastination, and has a faint aftertaste.

But I also know that after reading the penultimate chapter, most of my friends will be looking forward to feedback from all aspects of the situation, as well as the final confirmation of the final outcome. This kind of emotion is normal and I expected it. The original plan was to have the penultimate chapter at 7 o'clock in the evening, and the last chapter at noon the next day, so that many friends had enough time to calm down and stabilize their mood, and then they could see hope from the end. See the inheritance, see the continuation of human civilization.

As a result, I have pigeonholed the starting point several times. I am really embarrassed to push the date of finishing the book back one day, and the eagle has already set the book to be finished today. If it hits, it will be very embarrassing. Besides, the manuscript is there, not written in a hurry. After I came out, I just finished it in one breath. In order to calm everyone down, I could have done two chapters at 7 o'clock, but I had to delay it until 10 o'clock.

Well, some of my friends who read it in one breath may have similar feelings. I can't even think of a way to solve this problem, which is very miserable, because I have to write some detailed explanations, which will destroy the feeling of echoing after rhyme.

This is also my personal habit. I like to leave a lot of blank space at the end of each book. In my mind, I hope to write a real world, even if the stories of the protagonists have ended, the lives of the supporting characters will not be the same. It is still going on, and it also has its own joys and sorrows, and that is another story.

There are still many writing problems caused by the dislocation of expectations, such as the performance of Zhi Sui, which I will talk about later, the keynote part of the world.

After setting the theme, of course it is setting, and I won’t go into details about this one. In short, I can’t write about real gods, dug up taboos, etc., which is too repetitive with the mysterious story core, wasteland, if If there are no gods and no demons, it is either science fiction or aliens, and aliens are often classified in science fiction.

In the end, I got inspiration from brain science, starting from the fact that I have both abilities and weaknesses when I finished the summary of this mystery. With the setting of thirteen, no, fourteen powerful "inhumans", there is a price The three gifts, in order not to be seen through by smart readers at a glance, and in order to pack a good quality, I made a coat of "Zhi Sui" based on the "Si Chen" of the esoteric simulator, and the number fourteen, in The name Zhi Sui naturally reminds people of twelve months. After adding the concept of leap month or the whole year, thirteen will be arranged, and the rest of the "truth" can only be asked to sacrifice. , for the beauty of the setting and math.

After I was done with the power system and the general setting that came with it, I started thinking about the main tone of the story.

No matter what, the main tone of the wasteland theme will inevitably have the word "heavy", and I can't completely ignore it.

At that time, I also said that I was playing "Disco Elysium", and we omitted the causal connection in it. In short, there is the second word "sacrifice" in the main tone.

And according to the setting of a price and a mentally ill protagonist, there is a third word "absurd" in the main tone.

This is also because the book Long Night is a post-wasteland theme. I hope to lower the level of power and limit the struggle to "people who are powerful people and people who are alienated".

At the same time, I am also doing a little experiment.

Many friends are saying that when you finished this book, you summed up so many key words for storytelling.

In the beginning, I wanted to follow the summarized key words, do every detail well, and make up for the shortcomings that were not so strong. I wonder if certain keywords are necessary.

Dao gives birth to one, one life to two, two to three, and three to all things. This is a phrase that everyone is familiar with, and it is often said in many Xianxia novels.

Then, can we all return to three, from three to two, from two to one, and finally to the Tao?

So, my brain twitched, and I tried to do subtraction beyond my own power, trying to find something more essential in writing.

As a result, everyone has seen that before reaching the other side, don't blindly reduce and seek empty space. In the process of experimenting ideas, there are really many problems, which will be discussed later.

Since I want to do subtraction, I must start from the squid's usual routine, I have to reverse the routine of my own routine, and I have to deconstruct my own routine.

What is the most obvious routine? Except for martial arts and arcane arts, the others are all powerful arrangements and games. This is actually the most reasonable development in the worldview under the high-level power system.

Therefore, combined with the main tone of "absurdity" and the struggle of people, and the existence of the setting of price, I have degraded, dwarfed, and mentalized the powers.

In this way, their arrangement looks ridiculous. Their struggle is a struggle between powerful people who are alienated. They can't be omnipotent in themselves. , there are countless hole cards.

In our eye-catching, in a sense, the old people are closer to dictators and ruthless men like Amin in Africa, but rely on their own superpowers, they will make mistakes, do unreasonable things, and use All kinds of down-to-earth means will push out all the chips at once, and will fight.

Only then can human power intervene.

This also brought about a dislocation of expectations. When not playing or taking a shot from a distance, it is still possible to hold the age of force, but the result is actually like that.

But think about the Awakened who only appear today. Which one is compelling, it's not funny and absurd, or it's all kinds of ailments, everyone should have some guesses about Zhisui's force and ability.

Of course, no matter what, if the readers have misplaced expectations, the problem is definitely the author, there is no better foreshadowing, no more suitable intervention methods, etc., etc.

There are different sects, different rituals, different customs, and different prayers due to the absurdity and the ability of each age group. I have done this in detail and relatively successfully. Feel.

That's right, it's absurd.

With the main tone and the various settings that extend from it, the next step is to determine the means of expression.

When the mystery was over, I said that I would try to take back the outbreak of repeated inquiries and use it again, but I was sure to go against some of my own routines, which was a bit weird.

So, I wondered if there is a better way to deal with it, which can have a burst of repeated percussion without requiring a pile of mental activity every time.

In fact, when I watch dramas and novels, I often complain about why I always flash back at the critical moment and have a bunch of thoughts at the critical moment.

In fact, I can understand, otherwise, it is impossible to completely set off the atmosphere and make the emotion sincere.

I thought and thought, thought and thought, and came up with the technique of "echoing".

I mentioned it in the summary of the third part, but I didn't say it too concretely. Now I can talk about it in detail.

The function of "reverberation" is to make everyone remember the same or similar words repeatedly in front of different characters in different scenes.

At the critical moment, as soon as the sentence is spoken, the corresponding memory and corresponding emotion can be mobilized like a piercing without me needing to do flashbacks or repeatedly inquiring about my mind.

The reverberation is not necessarily an enhancement effect, but can also be contrasted before and after to form a contrast, and there are many ways to express it.

After confirming the reverberation, there will be "Saving All Humans", "Dreams are everywhere, why take it seriously", "There are latecomers", Dabai's "The Price of Love", the whole news in the company, Xiaohong's self-deprecating and The repeated appearances of words, songs, and broadcasts such as being ridiculed and Xiaobai's obsession that he is unwilling to escape, in order to achieve different effects at different stages and final parts.

The same goes for children's reading.

With reverberation, the long night seems to me like a symphony, so I named each piece after a different classical piece, and hoped that there would be a reverberation at the end.

In fact, I haven't listened to classical music for a long time. In recent years, I have been very vulgar. I just listened to pop songs. The only classical music I listened to was the domestic "Yellow River Concerto".

In fact, I am quite satisfied with the overall effect of the reverberation. The most flawed place is Xiaohong.

My initial plan was to let him and Xiaobai encounter the elevator closed, forced the door to open, climbed out, and went up the stairs to a dozen or 20 floors. Gradually, she became exhausted and fell behind, not to be hunted by the "unintentional". Xiaohong was willing to rescue her, but because her parents and Xiaobai were present, she endured it.

At the back, his parents were also exhausted, and they each carried one, but in this way, their burdens also increased, and gradually, the "unintentional ones" caught up.

After repeated hesitation, Xiaohong asked her parents and Xiaobai to run first, and stayed by herself to deal with those "unintentional". When he ran to the "unintentional" calmly, the voice-over sounded his usual self-mockery again.

But in that case, Xiaobai wouldn't escape, and his parents wouldn't be able to escape even if he climbed one or two floors.

I was still a little soft-hearted, so I chose to run to the door, and there were more twists and turns on the way, but it seemed too deliberate, so that there was a smell of forcing a knife, and I couldn't get up.

Moreover, temporary changes cannot be effectively made up. If I can save more manuscripts, I should draw the big boss out of the upper floors of the underground building and create "unintentional people" ahead of schedule. Then the logic will be smooth and the feeling will be better. a lot of.

After the echo is finished, let’s talk about the subtraction.

The first thing to reduce is the "sense of substitution", which is actually forced. With a mentally ill protagonist and no inner description, how to shape the sense of substitution?

You can only think about attracting everyone with interesting things, and slowly let you like the members of the group and read it because you like it.

However, I used the writing style of travel notes and road films to the death, so that the structure was loose and the plot was not compact enough.

Of course, this is not without solutions. Travel journals and road films also have their own charms, but I ran out of the main line from the beginning to investigate the cause of the destruction of the old world and the source of "innocent disease".

If the main line is too clear, people will always want to push the main line, and they will be impatient in other aspects, and the road film will become less attractive.

In addition, the first time I tried to write a team, there were too many internal dialogues, which seemed quite procrastinating, and the overall reading sense was not very good.

Another point is that I hope to form layers of echoes at the end, and from different angles, to bravely charge for what I want to protect, to die for obsession and love, and to sacrifice myself to save all mankind. Unspeakable emotions and their own character, experience, choice to die calmly...

This causes the team members to be too fixed and lack of "change", and as an ordinary person, it is impossible to grow and shine all the time, and it is impossible to repeatedly do this aspect of the plot, which is a bigger problem.

This caused the highlights to be dull after that, and had to play for a long time.

It is better to write it in a mysterious way, so that the characters can have highlights and exit in an orderly manner.

In addition, the suspense setting of the long night is too clear, and we have to decipher it again and again, and approach it step by step. As far as the length of the whole book is concerned, writing only such a puzzle is actually very easy to make people tired and lack motivation to read. .

And, because of the problem with the puzzle itself, as long as there is a clue, the answer is very easy for smart readers to guess, which leads me to always have no progress.

Even so, there are a few who guessed in advance. Fortunately, it is not mainstream. When the chapter on brain science comes out, it can still give people a feeling of trembling.

Similarly, as soon as the purpose of "Zhuang Sheng" came out, many questions just explained the things that were explained, and it was easy for everyone to guess the purpose of explaining in advance. I had to pile these up and say them together at the end.

That paragraph seemed procrastinated, lacking enough turns and surprises, and failed to form the expected emotional foreshadowing and progression.

It has to be said that it is a hard thing to fight with readers, and it is very difficult.

There is no sense of substitution, and there are so many problems. The story has always been very difficult to tell. In addition to the limitation of the power system, there are not enough tricks of ability. It always emphasizes the first move, and there are too many repetitions, which makes me a little afraid of writing battles in the later stage. I can avoid it. just avoid it.

At this point, I won’t write more. The big problems are these, the small problems and small details can’t be summed up in 10,000 or 20,000 words.

There are so many problems in the long night, and I have gained a lot from writing so far. For example, I can better express the characters with actions, for example, the setting of the echo, for example, the display of the overall spirit, has given me more experience. arms.

In the end, such an ending was set a long time ago, so that when I wrote the first seven parts, I was reluctant to embarrass the "old tune group" and give them too much suffering. Instead, I am happy and sad.

This also caused the problem of being too smooth in the front, and Wen Xian didn't like peace when he saw the mountains.

Of course, UU reading www.uukanshu.com can't be a mountain all the time, it will be tiring.

The overall results of Chang Ye are actually good, and there is definitely a gap with expectations. The number of orders on the shelves is all, and it has only been a few hundred more so far, but no matter what, I can still feel a lot of satisfaction when I look back on the content of Chang Ye.

The story of the "Old Tune Group" is over, but as long as you still remember to meet Yao Jiang Baimian, Long Yue Hong Baichen and the others, then I think they will have a second life, an emotional life. ?

The next one is Mystery 2. This is what I promised. How to write it. I don't have any ideas yet. You can follow the progress at any time through my official account. I will also update some long night settings. Hole, and food sharing, wait, wait, it's over, I finally have time to update the public account.

The second part of Mystery will be released on March 4 next year.

Everyone should be familiar with this date. I am still a boy with a sense of ritual.

Let's see you then. Remember the website address, www. biquxu. Com, it is convenient to read next time, or you can enter this site by entering "" in Baidu