Embers Ad Infinitum

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

Let's follow the order of ideas, practice, problems, gains, and prospects. However, it is every author's instinct to deviate from the topic. Writing testimonials does not know how to write a manuscript. Basically, it is inevitable to write what comes to mind.

Let’s start with the idea, that is why I want to write such a book, what I want to express, and in what way I am going to express it.

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

Those pictures have buildings that are hidden deep underground and form a society of their own. This first came from a science fiction novel I read when I was a child. It was about human beings building buildings with a height of thousands or tens of thousands of floors, so that the occupants do not need to go out inside. You can live your whole life to solve the problem of dense population. The final result is that the building is too huge, and the building mechanics can't support it, so it collapses.

In addition, there are nuclear bomb explosions, human beings are reborn, and human civilization is passed on from generation to generation on the ashes, that is, under the extremely difficult environment, children are still reciting classic scenes.

Such pictures and some interesting ideas made me decide to write about waste land. Besides, when I finished writing Mystery, I didn’t have any clear ideas. point, but the wasteland can also be heavy, so neutralize it with a psychopath.

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

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

So, I slowly set the subject matter in the post-wasteland era, skipped the familiar classic elements such as survival in the doomsday and picking up garbage, and placed them in the reconstructed, miniaturized human societies, and due to the dynasties of civilization, high-level All kinds of folk customs produced by power influence.

This actually brings about a problem, which I call "expectation dislocation", because many readers will think of those classic elements in their heads when they look at the wasteland, and the mood of anticipation will arise from this, and what I want to write is similar to theirs. The expectation is completely different, and there is a misplacement.

For an author, this is actually a problem that must be dealt with carefully. When writing secrets, with a new theme and a new worldview, most readers actually cannot 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 Cthulhu mythology also have a certain dislocation of expectations, but the proportion is not large.

In my first life, I actually suffered from this aspect. Readers came in with a sense of anticipation to watch Gaowu Xuanfan. In the end, wow, how did it become infinite stream? Later, after I ended the Six Paths system and officially switched to the half-immortal-half-high martial arts story, the readers who came because of the Jianghu martial arts style also had a relatively strong dislocation of expectations.

As a result, during the serialization of the first life, although the monthly ticket ranking is higher, the actual subscription is always a little worse than the previous arcane. Of course, the channel of the first life is better, and the overall income is also about the same. The stamina after the completion of the book is also due to the subject matter. to be better.

For Changye’s book, I think the wasteland itself is a niche subject matter, and it doesn’t seem to matter if I make it up, so I didn’t specifically add such words in front of the introduction that there is no doomsday survival and there are many common wasteland elements.

In fact, there is such a problem of misplaced expectations in the ending chapter, just like in my mind, the penultimate chapter is the finale. After Yao and Dabai die, the story is over, the long night is over, dawn is coming, other forces and other people What happened to them is another story, a brand new story.

The story of the "Old Tune Group" has come to an end, and all that remains is the aftertaste.

Therefore, the last one is the epilogue, there is no need to write so much, just bring out the feeling of the passing of the night, the inheritance of the fire, and the endless life.

But I also know that after reading the penultimate chapter, most of my friends will look forward to feedback from all aspects, as well as a firm confirmation of the final outcome. This kind of emotion is normal and I expected it. The original plan was to update the penultimate chapter at 7:00 p.m., and the last chapter at noon the next day, so that many friends’ emotions would have enough time to recede and stabilize, and then they could see hope from the end. See inheritance, see the continuation of human civilization.

As a result, I missed the starting point several times. I was really embarrassed to push back the date of finishing the book by one day, and the eagle has already set the date of finishing the book today. If it comes out, it’s better to update it in one go. In order to calm everyone’s emotions, I could have updated the two chapters together at seven o’clock, but I had to delay it until ten o’clock.

Well, some friends who read it in one breath may also have similar feelings. I can’t even think of a way to solve this problem.

This is also my personal habit. I like to leave a lot of blank space at the end of every book. In my mind, I hope to write a real world. It's still going on, and there are also my own joys and sorrows, that's another story.

There are still many writing problems brought about by the dislocation of expectations, such as the performance of Zhisui, which I will talk about later, the tone of the world.

Once the theme is determined, of course it is setting, so I won’t go into details about this. In short, I can’t write about real gods, taboos and other things dug out. This is too repetitive with the core of the mysterious story. There are no gods and no demons, so 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 ability and weakness I said when I finished the summary secretly, there are thirteen, no, fourteen powerful "foreigners" settings, and there is a price For the three gifts, in order not to be seen through by smart readers at a glance, and to make the packaging look compelling, I made a coat of "Zhi Sui" based on the "Si Chen" of the esoteric religion simulator, and the number fourteen, in The title of Zhisui naturally reminds people of twelve months. After adding the concept of leap month or whole year, thirteen will be arranged. The remaining "truth" can only be sacrificed. , for the aesthetics of setting and mathematics.

After finishing the power system and the general background setting that came with it, I started to think about the main tone of the story.

No matter what, the main tone of the wasteland theme will inevitably have the word "heavy", and it is impossible for me to completely abandon it.

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

And according to the setting of a costly and psychopathic protagonist, there is the 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 strength and limit the struggle between "people and powerful people, alienated people".

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

Many friends are saying that when you secretly finished the book, you summed up so many storytelling key words, why can't you see many of this book, just like Bai summed it up.

At the beginning, I wanted to follow the key words in the summary, do a good job in every detail, and make up for the shortcomings that are not so strong, but gradually, people always overestimate themselves and have ambitions. I gradually I wonder if certain keywords are necessary.

Tao begets one, one begets two, two begets three, and three begets all things. This is a saying that everyone is familiar with, and it is often said in many fairy tale novels.

So, can we turn all things into three, from three to two, from two to one, and finally reach Tao?

So, my brain was pumped, and I wanted to do subtraction beyond my capacity, trying to find some more essential things in writing.

As a result, everyone has seen that before reaching the other shore, don’t blindly make subtraction and empty space. In the process of experimenting with 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 want to reverse my own routine, and I want to deconstruct my own routine.

What is the most obvious routine? Except for martial arts and arcane arts, everything else is arranged and played by great powers. This is actually the most reasonable development in the world view under the high-level power system.

Therefore, combining the main theme of "absurdity" and human struggle, as well as the existence of the setting of price, I have degraded, dwarfed, and psychopathized the powerful.

In this way, their arrangement seems ridiculous. Their struggle is a struggle between powerful people and alienated people, and they themselves cannot be omnipotent. , There are countless hole cards.

In our eyes, the executives are in a sense closer to dictators and ruthless people like Amin in Africa, but they 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 and fight.

Only then can human power intervene.

This also brings about a dislocation of expectations. When you don't end or make a long-range shot, it is still possible to hold the old age, but the result is actually that way.

But think about the Awakened who only play today. Which one has a strong character, whether it is funny or absurd, or a variety of illnesses, everyone should still have a certain guess about Zhi Sui's strong character and ability.

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

Due to the absurdity and the ability to hold ages, there are different sects, different ceremonies, different customs, and different prayers. I have done this in detail, and it has been relatively successful. It always makes everyone feel "grassy". Feel.

It's right to feel this way, absurd.

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

At the end of Mystery, I said that I would try to get back the burst of repeated inquiries and use it again, but I decided to reverse some of my routines, which is a bit weird.

So, I was thinking about whether there is a better way to deal with it, which can not only have a burst of repeated inquiries, but also not require a bunch of mental activities every time.

In fact, I often complain when I watch dramas and novels, why there are always flashbacks at critical moments, and a bunch of thoughts at critical moments.

In fact, I can understand, otherwise it would be impossible to fully set off the atmosphere and make the emotions sincere.

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

I mentioned it in the summary of the third part, and I didn't go into too much detail, so I can talk about it in detail now.

The function of "echo" is to make everyone remember deeply through the repeated appearance of the same or similar words 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 questioning the soul.

And reverberation is not necessarily an enhancement effect, but also a contrast between front and back, forming a contrast, and there are many ways of expression.

Once the echo is confirmed, there will be "Save All Humanity", "Dreams everywhere, why take it seriously", "There is a latecomer", Dabai's "The Price of Love", the whole news in the company, Xiaohong's self-mockery and Words, songs, and broadcasts, such as being ridiculed and Xiaobai's obsession with not wanting to escape, appear repeatedly in order to achieve different effects at different stages and in the final part.

The same goes for children's reading.

With reverberation, Long Night seems to have become a symphony in my mind, so I named each part after different classical music, and hoped that there would be reverberations at the end.

In fact, I haven’t listened to classical music for a long time. In recent years, it’s very vulgar. I only listen to pop songs. The only more classical music I listen to is the domestic "Yellow River Concerto".

I am actually quite satisfied with the overall effect of the reverberation. The more flawed part is Xiaohong.

My original plan was to let him and Xiaobai meet the elevator closed, open the door forcibly, climb out, go up the stairs, and run up to ten or twenty floors. In the process, they were chased by a large number of "unintentional people". Gradually exhausted, she fell behind, not to be hunted by the "unintentional", Xiaohong wanted to rescue, but because her parents and Xiaobai were present, she endured it.

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

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

But in that way, Xiaobai would not escape, and his parents would not be able to escape even if they climbed a flight or two.

I was still a little soft-hearted, and chose to run to the door. There were more twists and turns on the way, but this seemed too deliberate, so that it felt like a forced knife, and I felt like I couldn't get up.

Moreover, temporary changes cannot be effectively made up for. If I can save more manuscripts, I should extract the consciousness of the big boss from the upper floors of the underground building and create "unintentional people" in advance, so that the logic will be smooth and the feeling will be better. a lot of.

After the response, let's talk about the reduction.

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 create a sense of substitution?

I can only consider attracting everyone with interesting things, and slowly let you like the members of the group, and read on because you like it.

But I tried my best to adopt the writing method of travel notes and road films, so that the structure is loose and the plot is not compact enough.

Of course, this is not impossible to solve. Travel notes and road movies also have their own charms, but I ran out of the main line from the beginning, investigating the reasons for the destruction of the old world and the source of "unintentional disease".

If the main line is too clear, everyone will always want to push the main line, and they will lack patience in other aspects, and road movies will become less attractive.

Coupled with the first attempt to write a team, there are too many internal dialogues, which seems quite procrastinated, and the overall reading experience is not very good.

Another point is that I hope to form layers of echoes in the end, and from different perspectives, to charge bravely for what I want to protect, to die for obsession and love, to sacrifice actively to save all mankind, because of complex Various unspeakable emotions and one's own character, experience, and choice to die calmly...

This causes the team members to be too fixed and lack "changes". Moreover, as ordinary people, it is impossible to have growth and highlights all the time, and it is impossible to repeatedly do this plot, which is a bigger problem.

This caused the highlights to return to mediocrity, and had to play for a long time.

It is better to write 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, you have to decipher it again and again, and approach it step by step. In terms of the length of the whole book, only writing such a puzzle is actually easy to make people tired and lack the motivation to read .

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

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

In the same way, once the purpose of "Zhuang Sheng" was announced, many questions were just to explain things, and explaining it in advance made it easy for everyone to guess the purpose, so I had to pile them up and tell them together at the end.

That paragraph seemed procrastinated, lacked enough turning points and surprises, and failed to form the expected emotional foreshadowing and progression.

I have to say that fighting wits and courage with readers is hard work, very difficult.

There is no sense of substitution, and there are so many problems. The story has always been difficult to tell. Coupled with the limitations of the power system, there are not enough tricks for abilities. just avoid.

At this point, I won’t write much. The big problems are these. There are not enough 10,000 to 20,000 words to sum up the small problems and small details.

There are so many problems in the long night, and I have gained a lot from writing until now. For example, better performance of characters with actions, for example, the setting of echoes, for example, the display of the overall spirit, all gave me more arms.

In the end, such an ending was set long ago, so that when I wrote the first seven books, I was not willing to embarrass the "old tune group" and give them too much suffering. Sometimes, when I wrote their group discussions and made jokes, Instead, I was happy and sad.

This also caused the problem that the front is actually too smooth, and the text seems to be looking at the mountains and not happy.

Of course, it can't be a mountain all the time, it will be tiring.

The overall performance of Long Night is actually not bad, and there must be a gap with expectations. The average number of orders on the shelves is only a few hundred more, but no matter what, I still feel a lot of satisfaction when I think back to the content of Long Night.

The story of the "Old Tune Group" is over, but as long as you still remember Shang Jianyao, Jiang Baimian, Long Yuehong, Baichen and the others, then I think they still have a second life, an emotional life. ?

The next book is Mystery 2. This is what I promised. How to write it specifically. I don’t have any ideas at the moment. You can follow the progress at any time through my official account. Hole, and food sharing, and so on, and so on, the book is finished, and I finally have time to update the official account.

Mystery Part 2 is on March 4 next year.

This date should be familiar to everyone, I am still a boy with a sense of ritual.

Let's see you then.