Questions and answers after reading "Warbreaker"

Since I spent 12 hours reading this book, even if his writing is not perfect, I will learn from his bad lessons. So I thought about it all night, why does he give me these bad feelings, what is the bad feeling? How can I avoid this?

1. Why does his character feel both vivid and flat to me? (I saw in the short review that some people said the characters were vivid, while others said the paper figures. Why are the opinions so divided?)

Answer: The character in this novel seems to only live when we read about him, and when we cannot see him It stopped when.

One thing to say, when I read this character, it was actually very readable. But when I started to watch the next character, the previous character seemed to have gone to bed. When I saw him next time, it seemed that he had done nothing and had no subjective initiative at all. For example, after the eldest princess escaped, she was always on guard against being captured by Filament. Filament was still squatting on the princess at the rescue point. But after the eldest princess encountered the Battlebreaker and was rescued, Dengfila seemed to disappear in an instant. The eldest princess can walk around arrogantly, persuading people not to fight, and Deng Filament suddenly doesn’t care about her, and what has he gone to do? Deng Filament didn’t give enough supplements the next time she appeared on the stage. It seems that he is attached to the eldest princess, but he is a key villain. He should be like the moon, invisible during the day but still running independently. For another example, the impression given to me by the Goddess Weaver is that all her value is to introduce the settings of the returner god system by chatting with the protagonist Guang Ge. When she does not appear on the stage, I have no idea that she is there. What to do? The most I can imagine is her lying on a recliner, eating fruit, and wearing scantily clad clothes to flirt with other gods. The author spent a lot of space writing about her, but then she was caught off guard and her throat was cut. This kind of treatment made me feel very bad. This is different from the character in "Ice and Fire" whose life is unpredictable and who is suddenly given death. It is also different from the character in "Demon Slayer" who fights to the death and fights with swords, because her death hardly advances the plot! If you deal with it this way, even if you don't starve to death for a pair of kings in Landlords, you will starve to death for a pair of two! I think the characters should be treated more carefully and their value should be maximized.

2. Why does it feel lonely after reading it despite its large length?

Answer: This novel is like a drawer with a mezzanine. It’s quite a big drawer, but it only contains a few things. The worst thing is that the mezzanine is still empty.

For example, the god system composed of returnees, priests and servants has many gods, but in such a 320,000-word page, other gods show very little, and the impression of the entire palace is very vague. If Without my own independent external knowledge reserve, I cannot figure out how this governing system operates completely. This is very unreasonable. To compare with the "Kirinyaga" I watched a few days ago, even a short story in "Ki" can vividly describe the life of the tribe and the witch doctor, as if I also lived in this tribe. It was because of his knowledge of effective information, how he buffed the scarecrow, made ointments to deliver to the sick, used sheep intestines to divine fortune, discussed matters with the chief, prayed for rain, and so on. These details may be detailed or abbreviated, but they all make me feel real.

There is no shortage of details in Sang Pang, but many of them are ineffective (the new details in Guang Ge’s daily life are very good, his dreams, he absorbs the spirit breath of children, he looks at paintings and divination, he listens to people’s arrangements) The team came to complain. These are its unique world view settings, which are valid information details (but this is not what I want to talk about). Invalid details such as what fruits you eat, what acrobatics you watch, what clothes you wear, and what you match when speaking. Body movements can help shape the environment and world view once or twice (for example, there are grapes in their world). If you do it every time, it will be very verbose, and it will be as if you haven't seen it. Online novels don’t cheat on manuscript fees like this. There are also some witticisms in the dialogue, which can help to shape the characters occasionally, but the endless puns and cold jokes will only make people feel boring. Especially since the whole article is full of invalid information, and the valid information is like decoration, this puts the cart before the horse.

3. Why does the story give me the feeling that the setting is greater than the content, the setting is complicated and difficult to understand, and it has no great appeal?

Answer: The first requirement for a new worldview setting is to be self-consistent, the second requirement is to be able to explain it clearly to readers, and the third requirement is to make reasonable use of this new worldview to write novel and interesting stories. content.

1 Self-consistency, the author himself said through the words of the characters that we have not yet understood the spiritual breath. Therefore, there are still some shortcomings in this setting, and it cannot be said to be completely self-consistent, which will be very uncomfortable.

So much so that in the last 150 pages, a phenomenon that goes against the previously established concepts suddenly pops up, and then the explanation is, "Oh, because we don't fully understand it yet." To put it mildly, I can only respond with a wry smile. To put it bluntly, I feel like I am being treated like a monkey.

2. It is not satisfactory to clearly explain the new world view to readers. The timing of the author's release of effective information is very strange. The reader follows the limited vision of the princess and goes through the long process of most of the book from unknown to known. Preserving suspense may retain readers, but releasing information so slowly will also make Readers find it boring and contrived. In particular, the information released at the end is not slowly released step by step through some signs, but an explosion of information when certain characters suddenly have an idea, or a person who knows the facts comes. The information explosion is like a manual and a bamboo tube. The reader spends most of the time being led by the unknown, until suddenly the setting is plugged in. This is not a clever approach. The natural reveal setting should be integrated into the words, deeds and experiences of the characters and flow out naturally. Of course, the author has also made such efforts, but the handling cannot be said to be perfect, and part of it is very blunt and clumsy. The other part is extremely verbose.

3. Generating interesting stories under a novel world view can be said to be the worst thing the author has done. The stuff surrounding the Aura setting could have been more interesting and rich. If nothing else, let me just say this: there are many people with dozens or hundreds of spiritual breaths who can go in and out of the palace to observe the gods and the royal family, right? These people are all awakeners, right? The princess has heard of Tetelil in her homeland. A lot of wakers, right? However, throughout the entire article, I only saw the awakener World Breaker, and the eldest princess is still a new awakener. Where have the other awakeners gone? When and where did they make and sell the Fateless? There should be such an organizational department, right? During the palace coup, we couldn't see what any characters other than the core characters did. It was as if the world only had the core character group, and the rest were background panels and NPCs. The world view settings that have been created with great effort have not been fully utilized at all, let alone the value of every setting and foreshadowing has been squeezed out. What a waste, what a waste! Careless, too careless!

A good setting should string together a story network, studded with sparkling pearls. The setting of this story is greater than the content, and it is like several large balls of thread entangled together, sparsely hanging. with a few plastic beads.

The greatest charm of a story with a new world view lies in the new experience derived from its world view, just like a parallel universe simulated by resetting the parameters of the universe. The stories that happen in it, and the thoughts of intelligent creatures, Behaviors are completely different due to different worldviews, rather than a boring manual that talks about the content of the new worldview itself. This is my understanding. Telling a story that incorporates the background of a new setting is very laborious, but simply setting it is much simpler. Therefore, a rigorous author who cherishes his reputation will not just slap his head on a random series.

4. Why can’t I remember this story after reading it?

Answer: An interesting soul is better than a beautiful skin.

This book does not have a clear spiritual core throughout the text. For example, love and friendship in "Harry Potter", competition and survival in "Ice and Fire", inner struggle and choice in "Lord of the Rings", tradition and development in "Kirinyaga". What is this book? I can't think of anything, anti-war? Survive and grow? Or looking for yourself? Or is it an epic? Neither is obvious. I think the author did not give it a mature and complete spiritual core when writing this story. After reading it, I didn’t feel like I gained anything spiritually. I just felt that at least six hours were wasted. Readers who use it to kill time may come back satisfied, but readers like me who hope to learn something from it and get something to think about will be itching to hate it. But reflecting on how to avoid making my readers itch with hatred can be considered a gain!

(Other problems include the tepid writing of dramatic conflicts and a serious lack of positive descriptions. It is unreasonable for the laziness of the ruling group to still be able to run the country. I can only remember when I close the book. The characters eat, drink, wear beautiful clothes, and have fun. These are superficial things. The eldest princess's experience is the most sincere and touching part of the book. In addition to changing her thinking and gaining a sense of responsibility, the little princess's growth is also the most superficial. Naive and love-minded, she was helpless in the face of death. She begged the villain not to kill her, or to wait to be saved. If Guang Ge had not sacrificed himself, both the God King and the little princess would be in trouble.

But at the end of the book, the growth of the little princess is highly praised from the perspective of the eldest princess, which is nonsense)

Finally, the title of the book "War Breaker" almost only appears on the last one or two pages. I I don’t think this is the sublimation of the theme or the finishing touch. I just feel that I was fooled by this fragmented story.

If I were to write it, I would remove a lot of endless dialogue to make it concise, and I would add more information about the secondary characters to make the world more comprehensive and three-dimensional, such as the size of the story that was disconnected after the beginning. What did the father of the princesses do? For example, what are the other gods doing, what are the priests doing, how does the country operate, what are the citizens doing, and when event A occurs, what are the other characters doing and how are they affected. I will add some thoughts on religion and philosophy on understanding the world. For the information that readers need to know, I will not deliberately hide it and keep it mysterious, make the suspenseful characters mysterious, make the growing characters childish, nor will I kill the characters arbitrarily and forget them. The characters will not be forcibly reversed for dramatic effect, or I will give enough foreshadowing in the previous article.

Oh, my poor Blue Finger, if you were kidnapped by the author Sang Fat, just blink your eyes, and you would be inexplicably pushed to the position of the final villain without any foreshadowing. I will also write in detail what I think is important and what readers want to know about the plot, rather than just summarizing it. Even if I'm not good at war scenes, I have to try hard, ask others for advice, and practice over and over again. Finally, I will compress the book from 320,000 words to less than 200,000 words to avoid writing too much nonsense and unnecessary side plots, and use my pen and ink carefully. This is the minimum respect for the reader's intelligence and time. It’s also a show of respect for the characters. I will respect everyone who loves these things and watching them come alive on paper.