Basic knowledge about novels

As a literary style, novels generally describe characters' stories and create various characters, but there are exceptions. It is a literary work with complete layout, development and theme. Whether the dialogue has a distinct personality and whether each character's words have a unique language style is an important criterion to measure the level of novels.

Compared with other literary styles, the novel has a large capacity, which can show the characters' character and destiny in detail, show the intricate contradictions and conflicts, and describe the social life environment in which the characters live. The advantage of novels is that they can provide a complete and broad social life.

Classification by length

Minifiction

A novel shorter than a short story fully conforms to the reading habits of busy people in a rapidly changing modern society. Almost every day, people give new terms and definitions to this kind of novels, such as extremely short stories, short stories, ultra-short stories, micro-information novels, one-minute novels, a pack of cigarette novels, pocket novels, focus novels, primary school novels, thumb novels, mini novels and so on. There are so many of them that it is difficult for even specialized literary researchers to describe their definitions as numerous as a few treasures. The average person is more likely to be confused, so in a word.

It is generally believed that the length of short stories should be less than two thousand words. Because the theme is often a fragment of life experience, which can be headless and tailless, can be headless and tailless, or even headless and tailless. The climax is put at the end, and it ends as soon as it comes out, creating an artistic conception with lingering sound. Because it is shorter than short stories, the text needs to be more concise, and it is best to know the theme. Although an unexpected ending can attract people's attention, the essay should be foreshadowed, and more attention should be paid to whether it can impress readers than to surprise them.

short story

Novels with an average length of about 10 thousand words will be classified as short stories. In its characteristics, there is the so-called three unifications-one person, one place and one time, that is, reducing the role, narrowing the stage and shortening the time flowing in the story. In addition, although they tend to cherish ink like gold, it is generally believed that short stories should conform to the original definition of novels, that is, there should be enough details to describe them, which is by no means an abridgement or outline of novels.

medium-length novel

Generally, novels with 30,000 to 40,000 words are generally considered to be easier to succeed. Because for people who are new to the creative field, writing long stories is easy to fall into the predicament caused by most plots, while writing short stories is either monotonous with too few turns or too many turns. At this time, it is a widely recommended suggestion to consider changing the original idea into a novella.

long novel

Words over 60000 words will be classified as novels. If the author intends to express the complex relationships that are common in life, he must use such a large space. Usually, even novels with relaxed style will have serious themes, otherwise it will easily fall into a state of disorder or disorder. When beginners write long stories, they should pay attention to the overall response to the theme and the rigor of the structure to avoid repeated contradictions or omissions.

Classification by genre

Kung fu story

detective fiction

historical novel

romance novel

science fiction

Lighthearted novel

Mobile phone novel

Fantasy novel

Fantasy novel; Fantasy novel

Internet novel

horror fiction

pornographic novel

pornographic novel

satirical novel

Overhead historical novels

First person novel

Second-person novel

Classification by genre

Realistic novels

Romantic novel

Modernist novels

Expressionist novels

Existentialist novels

stream-of-consciousness novel

black humor

New novel school

Magic Realism

Classification by year

[edit]

Ancient novels

[edit]

Modern novels

First, the concept of the novel

Novel is a prose style that reflects social life in detail and truly with a relatively complete artistic image system.

Compared with other styles such as poetry, drama and prose, it has a large capacity, which can not only depict the characters' ideological character in detail and in many directions, but also show their fate. It can also fully express the complex contradictions and conflicts between society and life; At the same time, it can also describe the living environment of the characters concretely and vividly. Therefore, it has unique advantages in reflecting complex social life comprehensively, widely and vividly, which are incomparable to other styles mentioned above. However, reportage, biography, memoirs and other article styles cannot be arranged on the basis of not violating the truth of life like novels because of the restrictions of real people. In-depth transformation, so it is better to enjoy greater artistic freedom in the creation of novels.

This novel has three elements, namely, characters, plot and environment. It reflects life through the organic composition of these three elements or the artistic pictures presented. Modern novels break the pattern of traditional novels and present a colorful face. The situation of multiple juxtaposition is the embodiment of the prosperity of artistic creation However, even in modern novels, three elements are indispensable. In fact, the so-called "three noes" novel does not exist. It's just different techniques and different styles. Some people put forward this statement only because it is a kind of resistance and challenge to the rigid mode of traditional novels. For example, characterization, modern novels have just broken through the traditional "realism" norms, making the characters not only "typical" characters in a purely sociological sense, but also typical images of "original ecology", psychological "introverted" and abstract "symbolic". Therefore, whether it is Chi Li's Troubled Autumn, Wang Anyi's Little Bags, Fang Fang's Scenery, or Wang Meng's Dream of the Sea, it is colorful, Xu Xing's Variations without Theme, Can Xue's Sorrow of Ah Mui in a Sunny Day, or Zong Pu's Head in the Mud, Wang Fenglin. In plot arrangement, many modern novels are also different from traditional story novels: or downplay the plot, such as Oh, Xiang Xue by Tie Ning, My Far Green Ping Bay by Shi Tiesheng, Tapu by Liu Zhenyun, and some works by Can Xue, A Cheng and Wang Zengqi; Or pursue poetic plots and win by artistic conception, such as He Liwei's Bai Niao, He Shidang's Joy, Peng Jianming's The Man with the Dog in the Mountain, etc. Or abstract the plot, such as Osaka by Zhang Chengzhi, Isolated Island by Huang Can and Flying over the Blue Sky by Han Shaogong. Although none of these novels have the ups and downs, touching conflicts and suspense of traditional novels, it is undoubtedly shallow and ignorant to prove that novels can have no plot. Here is a rational understanding of the story and the plot. When discussing this issue, the British novelist Elizabeth Bowen said, "Every novel must contain a story. But these stories may be on an unfamiliar or unexpected level: they may be about psychological, emotional or inner things. ..... and we have to know that the test of the story lies in whether it is moving forward. " If we get rid of the shackles of traditional concepts on plots and stories and admit that as long as it is a dynamic process, we will naturally have a correct grasp and understanding of the embodiment of plot elements in modern novels.

At the same time, the environmental background in modern novels is abstracted, blurred or grotesque; The theme of modern novels has changed the single connotation in the past (that is, the theme is only understood as an idea), and presents multiple characters (that is, information, emotion, artistic conception, ideas and so on). Can be a theme); One is contrary to the past, illustrated, didactic and one-way, but vague, ambiguous and implicit, which should also be understood scientifically. We can't take this as a basis and think that novels can have no background and theme.

In short, the novel is vivid and concrete, and the characters, plot and environment are organically integrated. Realistic and natural artistic painting reflects social life with the literary style of prose narration.

So, what is a short story?

People usually decide the number of words: three or five thousand words, up to more than 10 thousand words, that is, in short stories. Although this kind of judgment has its direct and concise advantages, it also contains one-sidedness: because it fails to involve the essence of the novel and is limited to the appearance, it is sometimes easy to be biased. For example, Mo Bosang's boule de suif, with 30,000 words, should be a novella according to the above provisions, but it is actually recognized as a short masterpiece; Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q is as many as 5,000 words less than boule de suif, but it has entered the ranks of novellas without any objection.

So, what is the basis for the correct division?

I think it is: according to the specific capacity of the novel and its artistic grasp of life.

As far as capacity is concerned, short stories mainly reflect a concrete knot in life, and generally do not show an objective panorama of social life. Lu Xun said on this road: "Learn a little about the whole leopard." That is to say, a part, a side, a scene, a trivial matter, a mood and even just a typical detail in life are excavated by the author, and then from this to that, from small to large, from "fragments" to "points" let readers associate or ponder, and infer some essential laws of social life and some spiritual outlook of the times.

The stipulation of short stories determines that they have the following characteristics: in addition to short and pithy words, first, there are fewer characters, the relationship between characters is not too complicated, and the description of characters is not carried out in many ways, generally not showing the dynamic changes of characters, but mostly static. Second, the plot is concise, mostly a single clue, sometimes there is no story, only a few, (or one) scenes. Third, although the description of the environment is specific, it is extremely brief, and the social background is generally not described, and some have almost no obvious background, only some abstract hints. In a word, short stories are characterized by high simplicity: simple background, simple characters, simple plot and simple atmosphere. British writer Mao Mu said: "Short stories ... only describe an event, or a material event, or a spiritual event, and all the details that do not help to explain this event are deleted, which will make the works vivid and consistent." Looking at boule de suif and The True Story of Ah Q on the basis of this understanding, we can understand that although boule de suif is long, its plot is simple and its environment is concentrated, and only one major event is written, and the specific background of this event is highly concentrated in a runaway carriage. Therefore, it can only be a short story; Although The True Story of Ah Q has fewer characters than boule de suif, it has a complicated plot, a long process, a broad background and a comprehensive social life. So it can only be classified as a novella.

The concept of rationality in short stories has gone through three stages of cognition, namely, the theory of "longitudinal section"; "Cross-section" theory; Theory of "knot" As far as China is concerned, the earliest short stories basically present a relatively complete "longitudinal profile". For example, the chapters in Sanyan and Erpai are basically vertical displays of life experiences and vicissitudes of the world. During the May Fourth Movement, modern novels appeared in the literary world, and the theory of "cross-section" came into being. "Short stories use the most economical literary means to describe the most wonderful paragraphs in fact, or on the one hand, for example, sawing off the trunk of a big tree, and people who know botany can know the age of the tree by looking at the' cross section' of the trunk and counting the' annual rings'." In this passage, Hu Shi only used a metaphor to illustrate the essence of short stories. Strictly speaking, any metaphor is inaccurate. However, after the founding of New China, many researchers and general textbooks, regardless of Hu Shi's full text, unilaterally and absolutely followed the "cross-sectional" theory and realized it. Although this concept points out that modern novels have the characteristics of horizontal display of fragments and breaks the traditional mode of telling only life stories, it is too one-sided. Because, even in excellent modern novels, many works are described by "longitudinal sections", but this longitudinal section is displayed by the edges of several key sections, which is different from the step-by-step description of the running account. For example, Mo Bosang's Necklace, Che Hefu's Baby, Lu Xun's Blessing, Gao Xiaosheng's Building a House in Li Shun, Ruzhijuan's Miscellaneous Story and so on. Isn't it ridiculous that these short stories can't be classified as short stories if they are defined strictly according to the "cross-sectional" theory? Then came the saying of "knot": "The relationship in real life is very complicated and often intertwined. There are big contradictions, small contradictions, contradictions between this aspect and that aspect, internal and external contradictions. However, careful observation often leads to a group. And this unity is also a unit or an individual. For the author, taking a big knot is a long story, and taking a summary becomes a short story. There is no difference between a cross section and a whole trunk. " It should be said that the "knot" theory accurately reflects the essence of short stories. In the complicated social life, there are various "knots" everywhere. These "knots" are not limited by too many machines in time and space, but reflect the various units of life phenomena qualitatively. All these units not only contain the horizontal part of the life process, but also can not be separated from the vertical entanglement. So a "unity" comprehensively and accurately explains the connotation and essence of short stories. The Country Field written by Bi Wei reflects a life group knot between external social pressure and self-inner struggle, with a cross-section (small disputes in the countryside) as the main part, interspersed with longitudinal historical changes and personnel causal constraints. In this combination, both the vertical and horizontal directions are just right and indispensable. Another example is Gao Xiaosheng's "Building a House by Li Shunda", which is based on the struggle and frustration of the protagonist's building experience, with a longitudinal profile as the main part, supplemented by several horizontal profiles. In this group of knots, the vertical and horizontal aspects complement each other and are indispensable.

Modern short stories can be divided into the following types in terms of their contents:

1, sitcom.

Plot novels pay attention to the integrity, vividness and interesting expression of the story. The author should not only connect the plots with fine stitches, so that readers can get a clear sense of time and space, but also pay attention to the inevitability in contingency, so that readers can be reasonable and unexpected, and then produce a fascinating charm. Plot novels require the coordination of the beginning and end of the story, the control of plot rhythm and density, the suspense setting and coincidence in the process of contradiction and conflict. Use of misunderstanding, etc. Take China's novels in the new era as an example, such as Looking for Hanhua, White Teeth, A Starless Night, The rest belongs to you, etc. From the point of view of content, they all belong to the category of drama novels.

2. Character novels.

Refers to a novel that focuses on characterization.

Because the character image is the performance center of this kind of novel, the other two elements should be completely subordinate to the needs of characterization: the plot cannot appear independently as a vivid and tortuous story, but must evolve with the history of the character; The background environment must closely cooperate with the activities of the characters and become the performance stage of the characters' character.

In writing, the vertical narration of social life is no longer the focus of the author's attention, but the focus is generally shifted to horizontal development to increase the clarity of the specific activities of the characters. Complex and profound.

In the embodiment of the characters' images, apart from writing what the characters do and how to do it, they usually write exactly why the characters do it, and then describe the characters from two aspects: external actions and internal modality, and even concentrate on expressing the inner world of the characters, thus shaping psychological characters that have never been seen in traditional novels, but can give full play to their specialties. There are many famous novels of this kind, such as Matthew Fargona by Merimee, Ben Mu by Turgenev, Under the Canopy by Jack London, Fat Man and Thin Man by Chekhov, Milo's Dad by Mo Bosang, and China's contemporary works, such as Chen Meisheng Going Up the City and Pulley Hutong No.9.

3. Atmosphere novels.

Infect readers with the artistic conception of a specific atmosphere. In this kind of novel, it can be divided into three types:

First, psychological emotional type. This kind of novel does not depict characters, but only shows a "situation" and a "mentality". They don't exert artistic appeal through the storyline or characters' actions, but let readers "feel" the atmosphere of the work and "experience" the touch of life on the soul through the complicated and subtle inner consciousness and emotional activities of the characters. For example, western stream-of-consciousness novels and some contemporary stream-of-consciousness works in China belong to this category.

Second, the type of artistic conception of site selection. On the surface, such works have no subjective intermediary of the author or characters, but only "objectively" depict some social scenes, natural landscapes or characters. Because there is a specific artistic atmosphere in it, people have a sense of understanding and beauty after reading it. For example, Lu Xun's Show to the Public and He Liwei's Bai Niao are such excellent chapters.

Third, internal and external integration. The objective environment and subjective feelings are integrated to create an artistic atmosphere of integration of things and me. Such as Sunset Caught in the Net, Joy, Sweet Iron and Stinky Iron, etc.

4. Abstract novels.

Abstract novel refers to its artistic embodiment. According to its essence, it can be called "philosophical novel" or "symbolic novel".

The characteristics of this kind of novels are: abstract the connotation of real social life, perform philosophical deduction through symbolic literary images, and then express some established ideas, thoughts or emotions. Most of these novels put forward and discuss philosophical issues, and often consider the real society and life as a whole in a larger space-time range. Therefore, the characters in abstract novels are not the embodiment of individuals and personalities, but often "people", "people", "life" and "self". The abstract expression of "desire" or some social force. The plot is also symbolic and an abstract interpretation of the contradiction between real life and society. Its internal environment is also mostly general and abstract, not the real environment. Some chapters of western modernism, such as Kafka's Metamorphosis, Castle and Capec's Universal Robot, belong to this kind of novels. China's modern works, such as Lu Xun's Passer-by (generally considered as prose, because it was compiled in Weeds, but novel in terms of literary mechanism), Zong Pu's Head in the Mud, Gan Tiesheng's Grey Moth and White Moth, and Favor Cai's Empty House, can also be classified as abstract novels.

The above four novels are juxtaposed in China's contemporary literary world, each with its own wonderful chapters and colorful stories, which have made its own contribution to enriching and prospering novel creation.

Some commentators have put forward an argument, which seems that there are several levels of novel creation, from low to high: plot novels, character novels and atmosphere novels (or psychological novels). Moreover, it is asserted that plot novels and even character novels will eventually decline and die out, replaced by psychological "introverted" novels. This is biased and naive. The main reason is that they simply don't respect the creative reality of contemporary novels and the rich aesthetic taste of readers from all walks of life. In any case, it is an undeniable reality in the novel world that a hundred flowers blossom and compete in many ways.

Second, the discovery of the novel

As far as short stories are concerned, "discovery" is more important than "expression". Whether a novel can be "discovered" is the first and most important criterion to measure the artistic talent of short story writers.

How can we know? Next, let's talk about it in four steps.

The first step, life foundation: accumulation and perception.

If you want to "discover" novels, you must have a deep foundation in life. First, you must be able to feel life and have a definite and unique grasp of life in order to extract "real gold" from it.

What is the basis of life? What is "living"? Some people understand from the width that the author of the novel should go to the widest possible field of life to increase his knowledge and broaden his horizons, so there is a call for "deepening the practice of the three revolutionary struggles." Some people don't have to cover everything in depth, they can write innovative and thought-provoking works as long as they go deep into the specific content of life, so there is a saying that "everyone has a deep well of life around him". We think the appropriate formulation should be: deeply feel and know as many aspects of life as possible, and then have a deep understanding of society and life. The Spanish writer de levis said: "The task of a novelist is to observe the nature of the characters and grasp the nature of the characters in his works. Living in Buenos Aires, London or new york, nothing can be subtracted and nothing can be added to a novelist. The gain of experience lies not in the population density, but in observing life with wide eyes. ..... Internationality comes from a keen and profound observation of a place in the world, even a small place, and reflects the whole world and life through it. ..... The noblest task of a novelist is to write about the place where he was lucky enough to live. " In other words, it is important to feel the life you are familiar with. Of course, this does not oppose the writer to broaden his horizons. At the same time, when talking about his role of "traveling around the world", Drevis thinks that his greatest achievement after going through Europe, Africa and America is to rediscover his hometown, which is also the profound expression of Castilla in his novels!

For the author of the novel, the accumulation and feeling of life is indispensable, but feeling is more important. It's natural to collect and record all kinds of materials with a notebook, but no matter how much material you record, it's useless to experience life with your heart if you don't really participate in it: it's just the material you hear, not the life you feel. Tolstoy once said, "Notebook, this is nonsense. Just remember a few things. It is better to participate in life than to write it in a notebook! I propose this as a supplement to' observation'. "

The second step is to trigger the opportunity.

After accumulating a lot of profound life feelings, on this basis, it is easy to have creative impulses: the collision of some trigger points causes inspiration and forms an opportunity for writing. The writing opportunity appears in the combination of life feeling and artistic imagination.

As long as you have a certain life accumulation and a certain artistic accomplishment, trigger points can be generated everywhere. Wang Meng said: "It may be the outline of a story, it may be just a painting, it may be just a lyrical monologue or a warning, it may even be just a description of a landscape or a portrait of an object ..." In fact, it is more than that. A moment's thought, a dream, an emotion, a feeling, even a breeze, a drizzle, an old tree, a fallen flower ... may all be trigger points, leading to creative opportunities.

The trigger point caused a strong creative impulse, so that the author didn't have time to pay attention, so he was addicted to paper and pen on his desk. It seems that involuntarily, a novel "magically" came into being. Moreover, sometimes it is not uncommon to have wonderful chapters that even the author is amazed. But more often, after painting on a whim, I will often be disappointed when I reread it quietly. As Liu Qu said: "Fang Qi is arrogant and irritable; When the article is finished, it begins with a heart folded in half. What is this? Curiosity is easy, but cleverness is difficult. "

So there is a trigger point and an opportunity, and it cannot be said that the novel has been "discovered". It just provides an "opportunity" to start writing. We must enter the next step in the process of novel discovery.

The third step is to conceive the intention.

Conception intention refers to the directional imagination and association of the future content of the novel after inspiration is triggered.

There are two kinds of ideas: artistic perception; Conceptual deduction type.

In artistic perception, the common ways are:

Synaesthesia By touching a phenomenon externally or internally, the author leads to another phenomenon or something related to it; Then, for the second time, even for the third time and the fourth time, the party's imagination was United, and then a certain range of associative pictures were formed. In this way, the author did not prepare materials in advance, and relied entirely on the image thinking at that time. For example, because of the particularity of the environment, the author thought of a familiar atmosphere; Because this atmosphere is related to some people and things, and because of these people and things, I think about life fragments. ...

Hair style. The author because of some objective scenes. Personnel, feeling the profound or peculiar connotation, were deeply explored, so they developed and left, mobilized and explored all aspects related to it, criss-crossed, and thus determined some writing intention.

The explosive author has some established feelings in his heart, which suppress the unreasonable expression in his chest. Suddenly triggered by the outside world, he found a suitable place to rely on or vent, so he took advantage of the situation and used the topic to play. This external trigger can be a person, an event, a scene, or a certain situation ... This external trigger can be sublimated into an artistic form for further directional excavation due to the infiltration, enrichment or guidance of internal emotions.

Conceptual Deduction Conceptual Intention means that the author has a certain idea and a certain thinking in his mind in advance. When he finds an opportunity, he will enrich this idea and thinking into the real content of concrete life, and gradually embody or deduce this idea through an exact and natural life process. As long as it does not violate the truth of life and is expressed naturally and artistically with the participation of image thinking, the intention of conceptual deduction should not and cannot be denied.

For example, The True Story of Ah Q written by Lu Xun was a critical concept of "national character" at that time. "Mourning its misfortune and angering it is indisputable" has always been reflected in the novel. In Mr. Wang's own words, it seems to have been in my mind for several years, but I have never written his meaning. Because "it is really the first difficult thing for China to draw the soul of such a silent nation." It was not until a certain "opportunity" later that this established concept was reflected through the image of "Ah Q". Even after the novel was published, Lu Xun was not sure whether he had fully expressed this established concept: "Although I have tried, I am still not sure whether I can really write the modern soul of our people." Can we say that The True Story of Ah Q is not an excellent chapter?

As for some novels of western modernism, such as some short stories by Kafka, Grey and Marquez, it is more obvious to interpret concepts through abstract artistic figures. At the same time, we can't deny their value.

As the type and way of conception intention, there is no difference between good and bad. Just pay attention to one thing: for writers who lack artistic accomplishment, it is easy to produce conceptual works with pictures and texts by using conceptual deduction.

The fourth step is the structural core.

The core of structure is the origin and core of novel structure, and it is the image entity of the initial combination of thought and image.

After imagination and association, the author's initial creative impulse has been combined with concrete and rich life images, which has taken another step towards the concrete realization of novel creation. In his mind, there are already vast life pictures, cultural scenes or psychological images related to his creative intentions. It shows that the author's thinking and exploration of life, society and life has a preliminary directional train of thought, and at the same time, he has found the target group of image expression.

But at this point, we should not rush to write, rush to write. Because, at this time, everything in the author's mind (including ideas and image group) has been initially included, but it is still very unclear and incomplete, lacking in organic grasp. Sometimes it is still in an erratic and fleeting state, and it still has great variability.

Therefore, the next step is to create a harmonious society according to the intention of the idea. Imagined ideas and image group should be further analyzed, selected, stabilized and stereotyped, that is, the main contradictions in the novel, the characters and relationships in the novel, and the direction and depth of the novel's intention should be basically conceived.

Here, the structural core appears, and the novel is really "discovered".

The core of the structure is not an abstract theme, nor a general theme, but a great fact with great theme energy and high attraction and adhesion to all the contents in the theme. It is the most inspiring and expressive image entity, which initially combines thought and image. Therefore, too much emphasis is placed on feelings and intuition in conception, and rationality is completely ruled out; Or too much emphasis on ideas, regardless of the authenticity and naturalness of images and images, it is impossible to form good ideas, and of course it is difficult to find good novels. Joyce oates, a contemporary American writer, also said, "I think images and concepts, in some strange way, gradually form together, creating a satisfactory structure with the best of both worlds."

For example, the theme of Lu Xun's Medicine is: the ignorance of the masses and the sorrow of revolutionaries during the Revolution of 1911, or the sorrow of revolutionaries caused by the ignorance of the masses. But it is impossible to build a work only through such an abstract theme. The structural core of medicine is actually the shocking fact that "the blood of revolutionaries is eaten as medicine by ignorant people". Obviously, in this fact, the theme contains great energy.

Generally speaking, the structural core of short stories is a simple fact (external fact or internal fact) with profound connotation. That is, concentrated conflict. In Rulu's "Wall", the core of the structure is: in the face of the wall that is in urgent need of reconstruction, several experts from the architectural design institute hold their own opinions and argue for a long time; Once the fence is built and praised by others, they will compete with each other and show their abilities, and they will be wise afterwards. The structural core of He's Bagging the Old Man is that an old farmer, who was rich in his later years, originally enjoyed the "five guarantees" and had no worries about food and clothing. He chose a semi-barren hillside to plant bags of corn in order to fulfill a wish before his death: to give his daughter a dowry in difficult times with his sweat.

/question/3 1034477.html？ si= 1