Embers Ad Infinitum

It’s time for the much-anticipated summary of each volume. Well, maybe I’m the only one looking forward to it.

Actually, this time is quite awkward. I would like to write a few more chapters until December 31st, so that I can combine the launch remarks and save trouble.

Of course, this also has advantages. It will be on the shelves on January 1st, and the first part will be completed on December 31st. How dare I ask for leave?

Therefore, everything has pros and cons.

Talking back to the first novel itself, because the mystery itself is very heavy, continuing this tone in the long night will not only appear repetitive, but also leave no room for buffering and adjustment. In addition, in my previous novels, except for Xiao Meng, the others are not as good in terms of character and Internally, they are all very similar, but they differ in certain aspects and some details.

Therefore, I wanted to challenge a completely different protagonist than before and break through my own limitations.

Based on these two points, I have said before that I plan to write a psychotic protagonist. On the one hand, this is a new experience for me. On the other hand, it can also bring joy to the relatively dark background and dilute the water. Undercurrent of sadness.

I'm not a mental patient, laugh. I can't really simulate the thoughts of a mental illness. This is the biggest obstacle standing in the way of my real creation. After repeated thinking, I came up with a way, which is to give up most of my mental activities and use Actions and words to create characters.

After adopting this method, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was very different from my previous creations. I no longer preset what kind of character this person is, what his preferences are, what his shortcomings are, and what kind of character he is. Instead of giving the character's arc, his background and past experiences are given, and then, when he encounters different things, different reactions are derived based on the background, experience, and character status.

After writing this, I discovered that Shang Jianyao turned out to be such a person.

This may not mean much to friends who read novels, because no matter what method is used, in the final analysis, they are all about shaping characters, and there is no distinction between high and low. But for writers, this new feeling is special. wonderful.

This is not to praise my own writing skills. This does not exist. There will definitely be various problems when trying a technique for the first time, but if you develop it bit by bit and test it out, you will feel a sense of accomplishment.

This way of writing is not without its shortcomings and disadvantages. At least I have discovered several of them now:

First, without psychological activities, the most powerful weapon to create a sense of substitution is missing. This is quite troublesome for an online novel. Without a sense of substitution, many plots cannot develop tension.

Second, the initial shaping of the character will take a long time. It was probably when I was in Shuiwei Town, when Shang Jianyao separated the beef bit by bit for the little girl, that I felt that the character's feet had really stood on the ground.

Third, it is impossible to rely on psychological activities to quickly label a new character, deepen the impression, and shape the image.

Coupled with the fact that I used a writing method similar to a travelogue and a road movie in the first film, it was difficult to build up much tension in the advancement of the whole story. I was unable to quickly establish some supporting characters, so many ups and downs obviously occurred. , but the plot seems slow.

This way of writing also has its own advantages:

When there is a lack of psychological activities, character creation relies more on interaction. Once there are more interactions, the characters that appear frequently will naturally become brighter and fuller.

In the first part, they were mainly members of the old tune group.

I can boast a little bit about this, but well, there is currently too little plot, and the arcs of the characters must not be brought out yet. I just hope that it can be done well in the future.

After talking about the characters, let’s talk about the overall structure of the first part.

Because I wanted to present such a large environment first, and combine the reflection of the old world, the gloom of the new world, and the absurdity of their combination, first create a big picture and lay out the atmosphere and tone, so I used a method similar to travel notes and highways. The way the film is written does not set up explosive or climax content, but focuses on experience.

In addition, the feeling of upgrading was downplayed, which resulted in the entire first part having very weak plot tension. After all, it lacked two powerful weapons.

By the way, the title of the first part is "Prelude", and the preface is:

"At the moment of death, the solemn first notes of an unknown song will sound. Life is just a series of preludes to this song."

When many friends saw this, they thought people would die. In fact, it was not the case. I was writing about a "civilized" life.

In the last two chapters, one song is one of the series of preludes before the death of the old era, a memory and mourning for the past civilization, and the other song is a prelude to the new world, a sincere expectation for it.

In the long night of civilization, there are still many remaining fires.

Perhaps one day, a certain remaining fire will start a prairie fire again and illuminate the world. This is closer to the moral of Liszt's "Prelude". People and civilization will eventually die, but we will make the Prelude as long as possible, as magnificent as possible, and as brilliant as possible.

If it can make you feel nostalgic for the old world when you read the first part, and when you hear the song "Remembering the Past", and the word civilization flashes in your mind, then I think what I want to express is It's out now, enough is enough.

Having said that, let’s talk about the problems in the first part:

First, the second half is too tiring to read. This is not a problem with the writing, but a problem with the rhythm. Maybe it’s because I’m used to playing games and always make a bunch of branch lines before doing the main line. So when I first set it up like this, I didn’t think there was a problem at all. But after I actually started writing, I discovered that once I went to Qifeng Town to deliver chips, If you always deviate from the task and delay the task for too long, the readers will be irritable and feel that the plot is too long and tiring to read.

Playing games yourself and designing "games" for others are really different, laugh.

Second, in the area of ​​urban ruins, I hope to enhance the atmosphere of the wasteland and pave the way for nostalgia and mourning for the old world through descriptions of common scenes and things. Therefore, many places are written in very detail, which in itself is nothing. Problem, but I overlooked one point. At that time, the old tune group was not free and was controlled by Qiao Chu. Many friends would be eager to get rid of this as soon as possible. This is contradictory to the peace of mind needed to read the detailed description. This is indeed because I didn't design it well and there was something wrong with it.

The first part is mainly about sketching the outline, and trying some new writing methods at the same time. That’s pretty much what I need to say.

As usual, I will take a day off to rest and sort out the outline. However, because the second part will be very short, with only about twenty pictures, it is a relatively important turning point, so I will only take one and a half days off. It will be noon the day after tomorrow, which is 12 noon on the 31st. Updates will resume at half past one.

You don’t have to worry about the length being too short. The third, fourth, fifth and seventh parts are expected to be long, around two hundred chapters.

The second part is called "Unfinished"

In fact, there is still a lot to say, but let’s leave it to the final remarks, otherwise there wouldn’t be so much to say.

Anyway, thank you all.