How to write a short story well

The short story is a language art form that grasps the whole locally, reflects the whole and intercepts the cross section of life. Its changeable, active and colorful stylistic features determine that its creation needs to mobilize artistic talents and application skills. This article starts with the character-oriented, organizing the story; Structural arrangement; Use typicality to create typical characters; Natural description and social description; Detailed description and narrative perspective comprehensively summarize the main points of novel writing in the traditional sense. Novel writers can master some short story writing skills in detail. This article is published in two parts: the upper part and the lower part.

First, we should be good at taking people as the standard and carefully organizing the plot

Plot is indispensable in any novel. Wang Meng, a contemporary writer, once pointed out: "The so-called novel without plot actually replaces the general plot with some small plots, and a novel without plot is absolutely impossible." Some critics said that his novel was "without characters, conflicts and plots", and he replied, "Isn't that almost the same as a painting symbol? In fact, I haven't written any' three noes' novels, but I have written novels with characters, conflicts and plots. "I don't believe the so-called novels without characters, conflicts and plots, and I have never done that."

why is the plot indispensable? Plot plays an important role in the novel in at least the following four aspects: ① All kinds of materials of the novel are often organized through the clues of plot development, "a proper plot can weave a lot of messy ideas, observations and acquired knowledge" and "it can be used as an organizing yeast". (A Tolstoy) (2) The character of a character should be expressed through the plot. Only with the development of the plot can the character's character be embodied and developed. (3) The plot of a novel is often loaded with certain social and historical contents, and the theme of the novel is often expressed through the plot. (4) The plot of the novel can arouse readers' vocal and evaluative emotions, enhance the artistic appeal of the novel and attract readers.

before the 19th century, the plot of the novel was the story told by the novel. Novels at that time, often based on characters experience, laid out one event in sequence, and the events laid out in sequence constituted the plot of the novel. Since the 19th century, novels have developed greatly, which is different from the traditional "story style". The two concepts of "story" and "plot" have a new definition. A "story" generally refers to a series of events arranged in chronological order. And "plot" generally refers to a series of events arranged according to causality. Foster once pointed out in "Aspects of the Novel": "We define a story as a chronological narrative of events. Plot is also a narrative of events, but the focus is on causality. The king died, and then the queen died' is a story,' The king died, and the queen died of grief' is a plot. In the plot, the time sequence is still preserved, but it has been covered by causality. " That is to say, the story emphasizes time sequence and the plot emphasizes causality. According to this definition, a story may constitute the plot framework of a novel, but the plot is different from the story. Taking Lu Xun's Storm as an example, the work arranges the plot around the storm of braiding, beginning with the troubles of seven pounds, then writing about the panic of seven pounds and couples, and then describing everything returning to its original state. This is a story; At the same time, the novel vaguely runs through the sigh of the old lady of nine pounds. It's hard to accept the story of "one generation is worse than the next", but it's an organic part of the plot of the novel, which shows that she is indifferent and indifferent to the storm and its recovery. This plot blends seamlessly with the plot of Qijin couple, revealing that zhang xun restoration is just a farce. After the Revolution of 1911, the rural areas in China are still declining, and farmers are still ignorant and backward.

In modern novels, the single method of completely describing the story by the narrator is abandoned, which often breaks the story of sequence structure. However, the use of various techniques makes the work still maintain the continuity of time series and the integrity of the plot. That is to say, it can be regarded as a psychological novel that mainly expresses the "stream of consciousness". On the surface, time and space are reversed, the past, present and future are mixed and disorderly, and the atmosphere of the times, places of people and specific environments are interspersed and reflected. However, according to the flow of consciousness of the characters in the novel and the causal relationship of the events, the plot is still complete in the change.

When writers write novels, there are generally two tendencies in plot setting: "strengthening" or "weakening". In novels with "intensified" plots, authors often use sharp, thrilling and bizarre plots to express their characters, and the authors often temper and test the characters in sharp and harsh contradictions, resulting in a tense, intense, ups and downs atmosphere and dramatic climax. The advantage of this kind of novel is that it is attractive and gripping. The disadvantage is that too much emphasis on coincidence has lost some sense of reality, which makes people look like "drama", too dramatic, and often loses the sense of openness and farsightedness of life. Sometimes, too much emphasis on the plot will also make the characters do nothing under the arrangement of the plot, making it difficult to express their character. Novels with "diluted" plots do not write so many coincidences, accidents, contradictions between life and death, and great suspense, but strive to write about the richness and simplicity of life itself and the meaning in the ordinary. For example, in Sun Li's Lotus Lake, several rural women wanted to visit their husbands in the troops in the lake on the pretext of sending clothes. On the way, the boat rowed halfway and met Guizibing. They hid in the lotus lake, and the Japanese boat caught up. The men were lying in ambush in the lake and sinking the Japanese boat. The author wrote about the war in only a hundred words, but paid attention to the beautiful natural scenery of Baiyangdian water town and the description of the beauty of women in the water town. A novel with a diluted plot has the advantage of maintaining the natural nature of life, but it is easy to write loosely and boring if it is not handled well. Strictly speaking, the so-called "enhancement" and "dilution" are just different aesthetic pursuits of the author, and do not determine the quality of the work itself. A good plot, whether "diluted" or "strengthened", should be true, vivid, write the characters' characters and show certain social life contents. No one wants to see a false and old story. No one wants to see a plot that is superficial, divorced from the reality of the characters and can't reflect the content of social life.

In general, writing short stories is often based on specific life feelings. In real life, the author was moved by some events and some characters, and felt that these feelings could be written into a short story, so on this basis, a relatively complete plot was extracted.

in writing, the common methods to refine the plot are:

(1) enriching the flesh and blood according to the trunk

The author found an event in his life, which is relatively complete and meaningful. The author often does not make major changes to such events, but fully mobilizes his own accumulation to enrich and enrich this event. For example, Wang Meng once pointed out that the story outline of this novel was heard, "In order to fire a worker or punish a worker, more than 2 people came to be lobbyists in just a few days." When the author wrote, he only changed the number of lobbyists to 199, and the story outline did not change, but fully mobilized his own life accumulation to enrich and plump the story.

(2) Make a new face and make it more important

The author saw or heard a story in his life and found it interesting, but a specific link was not ideal enough, so he changed it slightly. Such as the creation of Nikolai Gogol's Coat. On one occasion, Nikolai Gogol chatted with some friends and heard a joke. A poor little official loved to shoot birds. He saved 2 rubles and bought a good shotgun. But when he went out hunting by boat for the first time, the shotgun was blocked into the water by reeds. The little official was very sad. When he got home, he fell ill in bed and couldn't climb any more. Fortunately, his colleagues pooled their money to buy him a shotgun, which saved his life. Nikolai Gogol later wrote "Coat", using this joke, he changed the shotgun into a coat, changed the reed into a robbery, and changed the fate of a small official into a tragedy, thus making the story more real, typical and ideological.

(3) Grafting, kneading and synthesizing

Many people and events that the author will hear or see at different times and places will be integrated into an organic whole through processing and transformation. For example, the short story "Selling Donkeys": Sun San's old man strayed into the crematorium, which is an unlucky omen and his doubts about policy changes hit it off. He decided to sell the donkey. Unexpectedly, after the market, he met Lao Shang, an old veterinarian. He not only cured the donkey's illness for the old man in Sun San, but also cured the old man in Sun San, and finally decided not to sell the donkey. According to the author, this story is a synthesis of two life materials. Eight or nine years ago, I heard a story in small talk, saying that an old man in a certain place fell asleep on a flatbed because of drowsiness on his way back. The donkey pulled him back, and happened to meet a donkey cart on the way to cremate him, and the donkey that pulled the old man followed him all the way into the crematorium. The old man was so angry when he woke up that he gave the donkey a beating. When he was ready to go home again, he was not afraid of being kicked on the forehead by a frightened donkey and died on the spot. As a result, he was really cremated. Another material for life was obtained by the author when he was squatting. He met an old vet, who was born in a rich peasant and had many mules and horses in his family before liberation. When the livestock is ill, he likes to observe it carefully, ask people who know how to do it, and then explore the treatment himself. Over time, he has accumulated a lot of medical skills. After liberation, he specialized in practicing medicine < P >, and later served as the stationmaster of the commune veterinary station, which was quite famous and cheerful. His medical skill has many unique features, such as treating livestock's crotch. Instead of acupuncture and massage, he stood diagonally opposite and whipped suddenly, so that the livestock's center of gravity was pushed back and the crotch was reset by his own strength. These two stories had nothing to do with each other, but the author transformed and integrated them to form the plot of the novel.

(4) linking fragments according to emotions

The author has accumulated many vivid details and fragments in his life; But there is no direct causal relationship between these details and fragments. At this time, the author often links it into an organic whole through his own thoughts and feelings. For example, Shi Tiesheng's My Distant Qingping Bay is written in this way. From the local point of view of the novel, one piece seems to be incoherent and scattered, but on the whole, it has a sense of wholeness. According to the author, when he wrote this novel, he didn't make up the story intentionally, but let the details flow out from his heart one by one according to his emotions.

(5) According to cause and effect, loop deduction

In life, the author found a certain segment, a certain scene and a certain detail interesting, but felt that it lacked relative independence and was not full enough. Therefore, according to the possibility, suggestion and stipulation provided by this fragment itself, we can trace back and pave the way for its development so far and guess the result of its development. For example, Gao Xiaosheng wrote "Chen Huansheng Uptown". According to him, what initially caused his creative motivation was that he lived in a senior hostel and saw the difference between the senior hostel and the temporary poverty of farmers. It would cost a farmer nearly ten days' salary to stay for one night. He felt that it was too wide, so he wanted a farmer to stay in a senior hostel for one night, so that he could experience, perform and compare on the sofa, senior bed and carpet. So he decided to let Chen Huansheng, the head of the funnel, live in it. However, Chen Huansheng can't enter the city under normal circumstances, so the author asked him to go into the city to sell oil ropes after the policy was opened. The oil-selling rope still can't be hooked up with the senior guest house, so it is necessary to be introduced by a person with status, which leads to Secretary Wu; So why did Secretary Wu introduce Chen Huansheng to a senior hotel? There must be a special reason here, so I tried to make Chen Huansheng sick. Moreover, the disease must be severe and get better quickly, so he was arranged to have a bad cold. Why does Chen Shousheng have a bad cold? Because he didn't buy a hat. Chen Shousheng lived in a senior guest house, and Secretary Wu was anxious to go to a meeting, so Chen Shousheng could simply stay in the guest house and have plenty of time to experience the "senior" life. From the process of the author's conception, the causal deduction method is adopted.

(6) Inference and speculation based on personality

The author has a mature character image in his mind, and puts this character in a specific interpersonal relationship and environment in his mind. According to the character's own personality, he guesses what the character will do and what he will do, thus conceiving the plot of the work. For example, in Chekhov's Death of a Small Official, it is written that a small official accidentally spilled some sneeze foam on the general's neck in the front seat when he was watching the play. He was so frightened that he repeatedly apologized to the general and was finally scared to death. The plot of this novel is completely derived from the character's personality. Another character, if it is Zhang Fei or likui jy, will definitely scare the general to death; In the case of Ah Q, I'm afraid that after being scolded by the general, he would secretly scold "my son beat Lao Zi" in the classroom and seek relief. However, the fate of a small official who grew up in the slave-like Russian society in the 19th century is not only fear and loss, but also death. The development and security of the plot of the novel is the result of the development of the character. Generally speaking, there is a difference between deduction based on character and causal deduction. The causal deduction we usually talk about refers to the obvious and direct causal chain from cause to result or from result to cause. It is often simple and single-line, and a clear result can often be derived from a certain reason, which does not contain many complicated reasons and changes. However, human character is a very complex synthesis, which is always full of various contradictions and struggles, often changing from time to time, from person to person and changing rapidly. There is no fixed pattern and procedure, and it is more rich and complex than simple causal logic.

No matter how you refine and weave the plot, you should handle the relationship between the characters and the plot. The usual textbook defines the plot as the history of the character's development, which is actually right and wrong. If "things start with people" and "things show people", the plot will naturally become the history of character development; If we make up the plot, we will focus on the interesting and legendary events, and we will fall into the evil barrier of "plot for the plot's sake", which will hardly become a "history of character development" and give people a profound aesthetic feeling. Therefore, a good plot should be the history of character development.

Second, we should be good at arranging the structure of novels

Short stories are a kind of language art that sees the big from the small and reflects the whole from the local. They should be strict in selecting materials and dig deep. Although they don't necessarily need major social themes, they must reflect great social significance. At the same time, it should also be ingenious and meticulous in structural arrangement. . .