How to write a novel

The novel as a whole should be centered on portraying characters. Reflect the objective social life through a complete story and environmental description.

Among them, the most important thing is to reflect social life, which is the basic purpose of the novel. This society refers to a society in a broad sense, and the so-called exhibition in this society includes many narrow concepts such as showing social background and revealing the truth. This thing is called the theme of the novel. A novel can't be regarded as a complete novel if it doesn't achieve the purpose of reflecting the society.

The most basic novel has three elements: plot, environment and characters.

Shaping characters is the most basic requirement of novels and the most basic and main means to reflect the objective existence of society. Shaping characters directly serves to show the objective society.

The plot of the novel plays an important role in expressing characters and themes. The plot part can directly serve the exhibition society, or indirectly serve the exhibition society by expressing the characters' personalities.

Theoretically, the plot of a novel consists of four fixed factors: beginning, development, climax and ending. In addition, it can also include two optional factors, namely prologue and epilogue.

In actual creation, these six factors can be used flexibly, and there is no need to stick to format. When necessary in structure, one or several of them can be omitted, such as repetition, combination and dislocation, so as to construct a structure suitable for showing society.

There are several common formats:

First, flashbacks begin with the ending. Second, there is a climax or development as the beginning of insertion. Thirdly, other structural factors except climax are deliberately ignored in writing, and contraction narrative is carried out. There are many such combinations, and I won't list them here. All structural factors can be changed freely, but all structural factors must have at least three signs of actual existence, otherwise readers will easily have difficulty in understanding during reading. .

Environmental factors include social background (narrow sense) and natural background. Among them, social background directly serves the theme, while natural background indirectly serves the theme through the role of shaping characters.

There are two common ways in the narrative of the whole novel.

One is narration in the first person, and the narrator appears in the plot. The biggest advantage of this method is that it is convenient for psychological description to unfold.

The other is the third-person narration, and the narrator does not appear in the plot. The biggest advantage of this method is that it is convenient for multiple clues to cross.

In addition, new literature also has a second-person narrative method, such as some suspense fantasy stories popular in the west now. The greatest advantage of this kind of novels is to attract readers, but in a broad sense, this narrative mode still belongs to the narrative of one person or three people. In the process of creation, the author should also conceive according to the first and third person.

What is a novel?

Balzac: Novel is the secret history of a nation.

Proust: Novels are silent sons.

Kenzaburo Oe: Writing novels is redemption.

Zhang Chengzhi: Novel is a degenerate form.

Ge Fei: Novels are the export of past memories.

Zhao Benfu: Novels are places where you can dream.

Sebo: Novel is a weed. Its real value and the reason for its independent existence are because it gave up success.

After wishing for trees and flowers.

Zhang: A good novel can express the freedom of novel, but it cannot express the freedom of novel art.

This novel, on the whole, is just a story.

Famous writers talk about their "novels"

Hong Ying: My novel is women's own sexual discovery, that is, self-discovery. Or, find out

Own modernity.

Lin Yanni: My novel is a colorful world I made up. It's what I'm interested in and what I'm doing.

"Animation" realm.

Zhang Yueran: Novels are different from essays. My novel is a combination of memory and thought.

Chen Jiaqiao: Of all the great works in history, its greatest significance is to develop new ones in experience.

Perception is to constantly turn some suggestive things into a kind of self-awareness.

This is the pursuit of the novel. Society has given many hints, but I want to make them clear.

As a force.

Han Shaogong: I want to make the novel into a park with many entrances and exits. Readers can choose from any one.

Come in through one door, or go out through any door. You experienced and felt this.

A park, that's enough.

Tie Ning: If a novelist can't be a master, he should at least be a craftsman. What is a craftsman? as soon as...

Craftsmanship, shoemaker, blacksmith, carpenter, they are all great. Pioneering novel creation

It is also one of many processes.

Tea author's view

Lu: A novel is a story discovered by the author selectively, which contains the author's own psychological imprint.

Huang Xiaoyang: Novels are about human nature, and novels are also about achieving divinity.

Red scarf 1976: A novel is to speak in its own language.

Yang Zhongbiao: Novel is the relationship between the writer and the world, language is a tool, structure is a gesture, and details are

Skill and thought are the climax.

Life imprisonment: novel is a form of text organization, which is usually used to tell human stories; Tell a simple story

It is only after human stories are dissatisfied that "novels" really appear.

Tea editor's point of view

Lazy butterfly: A novel is something that people think is true. Novels should be left to their own devices.

Self-destruction, no one looks and dies. Chairman Mao said that literature and art are for the masses. What Yangchun

Snow white, that's a bad writing style that kills people.

Qin Chao: Novel is a kind of fiction, which refines the feelings and experiences of the characters' lives and uses words and characters.

The art of expressing a certain idea or viewpoint in a certain way is essentially fiction and experience.

Emin: Fiction is a condensed society, as Balzac said, "Fiction is one".

The secret history of this country. "Novel can't be completely equivalent to real life, it should be hidden.

Now the author's worldview, around the author's theme, has the material choice of real events, and

And we should follow the basic laws of novel creation and shape representative figures with the characteristics of the times.

Things. To express the definition of a novel so accurately and completely, it should be like this: using images.

Thinking, through plots and details, transcends time and space and mobilizes environment, scene and modeling.

Create personalized characters, reflect rich social life, and show generations in a hidden way.

Literary expression of the theme of the author's world outlook.

The bridge is full of wind sleeves: the novel is an exploration of the essence of life. For me, the novel is a weapon to enter another space.

Equipment.

Mei Xuan Flower Master: Novel is the bridge between reality and ideal, and novel is the truth of art.

Will literature die? Is there a future in writing novels?

"Now the novel, exactly is a what kind of situation? Is it too marginalized? Pure literature seems to be getting weaker and weaker? " In an article published by Beijing Youth Daily, Qiu Huadong expressed the following views on this issue:

1. Now China's contemporary literature has returned to its proper position. In the 1980s, the nature of literature as a spokesman has almost disappeared today, and writers even represent themselves. Today's contemporary literature presents a very rich and diverse landscape, and various aesthetic circles intersect, tangent or even separate, which is the proper feature of literature.

2. Commercialization does not necessarily hurt a writer. Sometimes, readers make writers.

3. Future writers will try more means of literary communication. For literature, today's multimedia interaction and broadcasting are very favorable living conditions.

4. Will literature die out? The answer is no, because we still use language and literature is the art of language.

In this regard, the author of "The Book of Tea" said:

Huang Xiaoyang:

Of course, literature will not die. However, literature has been marginalized, at least, it is increasingly divorced from the so-called mainstream vision. It kept retreating, and finally retreated into people's hearts.

It is necessary to define literature here. Fast food literature is not literature, prostitute literature is not literature, short message literature is not literature ... those are "pseudo-literature"

Literature is the inner need, the door to redemption and the bridge to the other shore. It is the meditation of wisdom, the desolation of life, the dust of history and the feast of language.

It's beautiful. Literature also needs more means of communication. Internet is a good way. There are others.

Red scarf 1976:

I think, since the whole world is spiraling up, so should novels. Prosperity and decline are inevitable in evolution. As for personal feelings, novels are neither ideals nor life. We just take from each other and use each other, as mentioned above.

Master Mei Xuanhua:

"Now, China's contemporary literature has returned to its proper position." Where did you come from? In short, it is the return from "serving the government" to "serving the life". That is, the shift of writing focus.

China's traditional novels advocate that "literature carries Tao", that is, literature serves politics. This understanding is one-sided.

In the mid-1980s, some writers claimed to rewrite the history of literature, and put forward the concept of "new era literature", that is, to shift the writing direction centered on politics to "express themselves" (Zhu Ziqing) to express the writer's personality and personality. Become a real person through writing.

The way out for pure literature. This problem is actually the market effect of refined and popular literature. Obviously, popular literature has more vitality because of its secularization. There are two books on the bedside, one is a world famous book, and the other is Jin Yong's martial arts novel. To be sure, most people prefer reading the latter.

Due to the change of writing direction, there are very few writers raised by the state, and literature has been recognized as a commodity (Su Qing and Zhang Ailing are representatives of Shanghai writers: writing for life), and literature has lifted the mysterious veil and moved towards the common people.

Life is the narrative resource of novels, and narration is the understanding of life. Life goes on, and literature certainly won't die out.

Qin Chao:

Throughout today's literary world, I don't agree with Qiu Huadong's view that "contemporary literature has not weakened, on the contrary, it has presented a period close to real prosperity". As long as we carefully browse the novels currently on the shelves, we can easily draw a conclusion that there are no excellent novels in the real literary sense in today's literary world. What we are seeing now is a false prosperity, which is the result of quick success and quick success and capital drive. But everything is divided into two parts. This capital-driven result, combined with the reincarnation of literature itself and social progress, will inevitably promote literature to return to its original source again. At this time, the real prosperity of a literature is not far off. Therefore, Qiu Huadong's "I, or a writer younger than me, is expected to succeed." I quite agree with this argument.

Emin:

First of all, we must distinguish between writers and writers.

A true writer is a person who looks at the world with his heart, perceives the world with his soul, faces the temptation of fame and fortune, endures loneliness and poverty, adheres to his own principles and writes in a down-to-earth manner. The biggest difference between a mediocre writer and a real writer is that they will understand and analyze the market, but they will never be led by the market. They may make a living by selling words, but they will never make a living by selling words. What they write combines the market, but it will eventually lead the trend and guide the market.

In our impetuous society, as long as there are these solid literary guardians, literature will have a future and tomorrow.

From the heyday of Tang poetry, we can easily find that the development of social economy, the prosperity and stability of society and the prosperity of people's lives are also closely related to literature. Perhaps, at least the problem of food and clothing has been solved, and we still have leisure to care for flowers and plants and recite poems.

Deng Xiaoping once said: Development is the last word. The trend of rapid economic development has swept through every corner of this country. In this big social background, it is understandable that people are impetuous and pursue interests, which is an inevitable experience in all social development processes. After this period, we have entered a prosperous society, and literature will eventually move towards a prosperous tomorrow. Perhaps, this period can be called a pre-dawn darkness in the process of literary development, a darkness that is extremely close to light. I believe that western developed countries have also gone through such a period.

Compared with the 1980s or before, today's literature has got rid of many shackles and gained freedom, without having to undertake too many missions that should not belong to it, and it is increasingly showing a diversified trend, which is believed to be more prominent in the near future. There is no doubt that the future of literature will be more brilliant.

For the diversity of current literary communication modes, it can be said that it is a literary event. Many traditional paper media are more and more kitsch by the market, while many pure literature websites are relatively less impacted by the market, and some are pure literature. More and more pure literature lovers gather in the network and become the most solid guardian group of literature, which is the blessing of literature.

Economic development is the hope of literature, pure literature lovers and literature websites.

I agree with Qiu Huadong that literature will not die as long as words and languages exist.

Yang Zhongbiao:

Qiu Huadong is one of my favorite young writers. Is there a future in writing novels today? I agree with many points in the article. In recent years, there have been many discussions about what is "pure literature" and "marginalization" of literature, and everyone has been arguing endlessly.

I want to ask, is there such a thing as pure literature? What purity is "pure"? It's like the white wine we usually drink, with an alcohol content of 38 degrees. Can you say it's not liquor? Comparing 58-degree liquor with 65-degree liquor, isn't 58-degree liquor wine? I think the ethanol content really reaches 96%. It's not white wine, but industrial alcohol. You know, literature has never stagnated, and it has developed many new styles to meet the needs of readers at different levels. As Mr. Qiu said, "Contemporary literature is not weak, on the contrary, it presents a period close to real prosperity." We might as well call contemporary literature "pan-literature".

The problem of "marginalization" or even "extinction" of literature has long been mentioned-Czech writer Milan Kundera, China writer Ye, Han Shaogong and others all pointed out the crisis of literary innovation and the possibility of literary extinction more than 10 years ago. But they mainly talked about the level that innovation is not easy or even impossible. Literature in the essential sense is never the center. Using the topic of "centralism" to discuss literature is itself a mockery of literature, which is a basic common sense that has been reversed but constantly taken as a fact and constantly quoted. Looking back, Tang poetry and Song poetry are not in the center, Ming and Qing novels are not in the center, and only the so-called revolutionary literature has entered the center. Therefore, those attempts to pull literature into the center are short-lived. It is when literature is really "marginalized" that literature has broad living space and prospects.

Lu:

Will literature die? I agree with Qiu Huadong on this point. Literature is not so easy to die. Some people say that learning to die is alarmist. For Qiu Huadong, "contemporary literature is not weak, but presents a period close to real prosperity." I think he is too optimistic. Personally, I think the current literary prosperity is a false prosperity, in other words, a false prosperity. Prosperity is only the appearance, but the essence is far from real prosperity. The root of this phenomenon is that China's screenwriters are so clever that they only know how to follow suit. Few of them really write for their own hearts, and their pens just swing blindly for the benefit. But in any case, China's literature will not die out, because there are always a few writers who insist on writing with heart, and the life of literature will be maintained and continued in their works.

Life imprisonment:

There is no need to care about the future of novels and the fate of literature. Since there are always people who write real literary works, literature will continue. It is boring to talk about the loneliness of contemporary literature or the popularity of some literature. Some types of words are doomed to be lonely; The popular word is "fashion", which goes beyond the word itself, such as "revolution" and "politics" literature a long time ago, such as "rogue/rogue/slag literature", "female body literature" and "juvenile rebellious literature", all of which are brand labels of the times.

How to write a novel?

Lao she:

There is no certain way to write a novel. My words are for reference at best.

Most novels have stories, so if we want to write novels, it seems that we have to find stories first. What kind of story are you looking for? Judging from the novels we have read, any story will do. Both love stories and adventure stories are acceptable, which means that ghosts can also tell stories about foxes. There are so many stories, we don't have to worry. But in the story of the ghost fox, the ghost fox has been treated as a living person since ancient times; Even if the purpose is terror, the author wants to intimidate people. If someone writes a book about the growth and habits of foxes, which has nothing to do with people, then this book becomes a research report about foxes, not a story about foxes. It can be seen that the novel is the concern of human beings for themselves, the consciousness of human society and the record of human life experience. Then, when we choose a story, we should estimate the value and enlightenment of this story in life; Obviously, we should put the ghost fox aside-even if we want to regard the ghost fox as a fable, we should know that fable and reality are difficult to reconcile, and it is better to be more sincere and moving than to write life from the front.

When choosing stories according to the above principles, should we choose complex and surprising stories or simple and ordinary stories? In my opinion, let's choose the simple and ordinary one first. The story is simple, and there are naturally not many characters. It is certainly better to write one or two characters well than to write twenty or thirty people who have no achievements. When writing a novel, if the screenwriter is not good at describing the scenery, he can not write the scenery, and if it is not longer than writing dialogues, he can write fewer dialogues; However, people are indispensable. Without people, there would be nothing, and there would be no novels. Creating characters is the primary task of novelists. Writing a complex and vivid thing clearly without creating characters is at best an excellent report and cannot be a novel. So I said, write simple stories first and pay more attention to the characterization. Let's see, the interlude of British Dickens' novels is the most complicated in the world, but who can remember those intrigue stories after reading them? Dickens still has many readers today, and he is still regarded as a great writer. Is it because his story is complicated? Don't! He created many people! His characters, such as our Li Kui jy, Song Wu, Daiyu and Baochai, are immortal. Paying attention to characterization is the most economical.

Why choose an ordinary story? The surprise of the story is a kind of dazzle, which often makes people only pay attention to the wonderful story itself and ignore the relationship between the story and life. Such a story may be funny for a while, but it will be boring after a while. Let's see, how many detective stories are published in Britain and America a year, which one has no thrilling story? But how many of these novels have become real literary works? This kind of soul-stirring is stimulated by big gongs and drums, rather than touching people who don't know the taste of meat in March. Novels should be moved, not vain. So, first, the surprise of the story is not as kind as people and things; Second: the story is surprising, and it had better be meaningful. If we can tune out an ordinary story and see its unique meaning, then people will feel the same way, and it will have a great sense of motivation and cause universal resonance. Novel is an explanation of life, and only this explanation can make novel a leader of society. Only such an explanation can save the novel from vulgar taste. The so-called "shady spectacle" and other things, its purpose is only to expose ugliness, not to grasp the causes of ugliness. Although it can make readers happy for a while, the world may not be like this, and you can laugh it off with cynicism. What's more, the author only has some experiences of whoring and gambling, and has not pursued deeper significance from these experiences, so their words only guide Y to persuade gambling, and will never make people noble. So I said, let's choose ordinary stories first, because it is enough to make us pay attention to everything and form the habit of exploring all hidden truths. With this habit, we can not only have nothing to write, but also get rid of vulgar tastes. Objective facts are just facts, not novels in themselves. Observing those facts in detail and then making subjective judgments is our interpretation of life and guidance to society and novels. We should take complicated and surprising stories with reservations. If we can't find a consistent truth in complexity and a reasonable explanation in surprise, we'd better not start work, because keeping a lively and surprised heart will reduce our interest. Besides, even veteran masters often suffer from too many stories and too many characters; Even if there are some extremely successful places, all the unbalanced adjustments are still in vain.

As I said before, writing a novel must first choose a story. This may be a bit unreasonable, because in fact, the motivation of our good novels sometimes comes not from having a story, but from having one or several people. If we meet an interesting person, we will probably want to write a novel based on this person. However, whether there is a story or a character first, people and things are always inseparable. Probably few people in the world have nothing to do, and few people have nothing to do. When we think of stories, I'm afraid we will think of people. When we think of people, we think of things. In my opinion, the problem is not the order of people and things, but how people and things match. In other words, people and things are just our reference materials, which must be mobilized and used by us to become novels. For example, we heard a story today in which the protagonist is a young man. However, after consideration, we think that if the owner is an old man, we can give this story more motivation; Then, we might as well make some changes for it. By analogy, we can change everything about stories or characters at will. It's like saying that those stories or characters that attract our attention to write novels are only our main reference materials. With this reference, we should take out all our life experiences as a reference and do everything possible to enrich the main reference, just like planting a seed. We must carefully adjust the humidity, temperature and sunshine ... to make it sprout and grow leaves. In short, we must pretend to be artists, and all the information is in our hands; What we want to write is not a report, but a work of art-a work of art is written all our lives, not just taking a picture of something four inches or eight inches. Our responsibility is to create: under the guise of a thing or a person's idea, the emotions and feelings that will happen are decided by ourselves, implemented by ourselves and realized by ourselves. We are not slaves of anything and anyone, but masters of everything.

When we meet a story, we have to travel in it by ourselves. Don't rush to write. After traveling, we can find that it has many imperfections that we need to supplement. At the same time, we also feel that there are many things that we are not familiar with or know. We want to talk about a hero, but we don't have to teach the hero a pistol. Then try to understand the pistol quickly. There is no other way. Novelists are department stores with life experience. The richer the goods, the more prosperous the business.

After the trip, we can see where to make up and where to ask. We must go further and seriously pretend to be the people in the story and imagine everything in everyone's shoes. Yes, what we are going to write may be a short fact. But if we can't know everything in detail, the paragraphs we want to write can't be true and vivid. We have said a thousand words for a person in our hearts, and we can also correctly represent him with one sentence when we put pen to paper. Only with extremely rich information and profound understanding can we talk about tailoring. We know ten points before we can write a fairly good score. Fiction is wine, not wine mixed with water. From history, nationality, society and culture to occupation, appearance and habits, we should think about it. Only when we describe a person can we write succinctly and accurately. What we write must be affordable for the people we want to write, and the people we want to write are the inevitable party we want to write. In this way, our novels can be wrapped in meat, and the meat is covered with skin, which is naturally related and there is no trace of fiction. This novel should be as perfect as a flower, not as "gorgeous clothes" in Huang Er's play.

The same is true of speaking and scenery. On the one hand, the words of the characters in the novel are responsible for the development of the story, on the other hand, they are also the expression of personality-people will say anything when they meet anything. In this way, if we don't need any surprises, we will naturally be moved. Because the dialogue in the story is based on ourselves and our accurate observation of people, plus the crystallization of our imagination of the characters in this story. Let's say a word for him, just like what someone in society would say if something happened. Such a sentence is sometimes extremely ordinary, but it is always touching.

We don't write about scenery specifically to look good, but to add flavor to the story. The scenery is the clothes of the story, just like a widow in Tsing Yi and a girl in red pants. Our scenery should match the characters in the story-a place where emotions can be moved. Every grass, tree, insect and bird in the novel must have its meaning. Superstitious people are unhappy when they hear crows. A sentimental person will cry when he sees a fallen leaf. Knowing this, we can search for information anytime and anywhere to prepare for the application. When describing, it can be as big as the meaning of life, as small as a bug and a butterfly, and it is fun to pick it up at will.

What I have said above is a general report on the stories, characters and scenery in the novel, and I can't elaborate on it in detail due to time constraints. If there is me, as you said, it seems difficult to write novels? It may not be extremely difficult for me to answer, but it is not easy!

From the Complete Works of Lao She, Volume 16.

I have a little supplement to the above.

When writing mini-novels, it is impossible to express a lot of things you want to describe completely in words like writing ordinary novels. These things are generally hidden in every sentence of mini-novels; When writing, we should cherish pen and ink like classical poetry.

Quote a few famous sayings about writing mini-novels:

Know from the micro, from near to far.

Although the pattern is small, the structure is ingenious.

A few strokes, read and laugh.