The application skills of comedy or sketch language, the skills of making people laugh, and the principle of laughter

Novel is a kind of prose narrative style that reflects social life in many aspects and in depth. As man is the subject and master of social life, the novel reflects social life with the characterization as the center, and depicts the characters' personalities in detail and in many aspects. Because people always live in a certain environment, people who grew up in different environments have different personality qualities, and the temperament and personality of the same person in different environments are also different, so the novel pays special attention to the description of the environment; Because people's personality can only be fully expressed in specific contradictions and conflicts, the novel focuses on describing the intricate contradictions and struggles.

Novel is a window to understand society. Reading and appreciating novels can improve our ability to understand life, society and analyze problems, and improve our writing and narrative skills. Let's talk about the basic characteristics of the novel and the main points of reading appreciation.

First, the basic characteristics of the novel

The novel reflects social life by describing typical characters in typical environments. Characters, plot and environment are the three basic elements of a novel. The people, events and environment written in the novel are all typical. What is typification? Let me give you an example first. There is a big basket of tomatoes here now, big and small, good and bad. When selling tomatoes to customers, people who sell tomatoes always choose the biggest one with the best color and introduce it to customers: "Look at this tomato, which is big and thick, full of color, well cooked and definitely tastes the same." The principle of typification is similar.

The typicality of the novel creation process includes the following aspects: first, the local life scene that best reflects the original face of social life is cut in the background of big social life and is the typicality of the environment; The second is to choose a life story that can fully show the spiritual world of the characters, which is the typification of the plot; The third is to concentrate the similarities and differences of a class of people on one person, which is the typicality of characterization. The typicality of these aspects in the process of novel creation determines the basic characteristics of its theme:

(A) a variety of detailed characterization

Man is the subject and master of social life. If literature wants to reflect social life, reproduce the true face of social life and reflect the essence of social life, it cannot but take all kinds of characters as the main description objects. Novels are the most prominent in this respect. In order to let readers see the spiritual outlook of their time from the characters, the author always tries his best to write the characters vividly and show their rich inner world at the same time. Therefore, portraying characters in various ways has become the biggest feature of this literary genre.

In the novel, as long as it is necessary to express the theme and describe the characters, you can write about the past activities and the present life of the characters. For example, the change of Sha Zilong's personality is written in "Broken Soul Gun": "This gun and this gun have created the word" God Gun Sha Zilong "for him in the northwest for twenty years, and he has never met his opponent. Now, this gun and this gun no longer add luster to him; Just touching this cold, slippery, hard and trembling pole will make his heart less sad. " You can not only write about the external forms of characters, such as their voices, smiles, manners and clothes, but also their inner activities and emotional world. For example, the description of Sister-in-law Qi Jin's psychological activities in the storm: "Sister-in-law Qi Jin remembers that two years ago, she was drunk and once called Master Zhao a' bitch', so she immediately felt the danger of Sister-in-law Qi Jin and jumped out at once."

In addition to direct description, the novel can also describe the characters in many ways with the help of the narrator's language. For example, the novel The Hall depicts the multiple personalities of the protagonist Du Lang.

Because it is the greatest feature of the novel to reflect life by shaping typical characters in typical environments, the central task of novel creation is to shape typical characters in typical environments. It can be free from real people and events, allowing full imagination and fiction. For example, in order to successfully portray the image of the profiteer Du Lang duo, the novel The Bird Catcher is boldly imagined and fabricated.

(2) A complete and complicated story.

People's personality can often be expressed in specific contradictions and conflicts. A novel must rely on a complete and complex story to portray the characters in many ways and in depth. The more intense the conflict, the more fully the character is displayed. Therefore, excellent novels have complete and complicated story lines, which can be used to show the character characteristics in many ways and in depth. For example, in the novel "The Gift of the Magi", two clues are set, one is bright and the other is dark. The bright line shows Della's purity and kindness, while the dark line shows Jim's sincere infatuation. The story is relatively complete, and the light and dark lines are intertwined, which clearly shows the inner world of the characters.

(c) A concrete and vivid description of the environment

A novel must have a specific description of the environment and a description of the characters and stories. Because characters always move in a certain environment and are influenced by a certain environment; Events are always caused by and develop in a certain environment. Therefore, in the novel, only through the specific description of the environment can we show the characteristics of characters and events concretely, truly and profoundly, and can we reveal the reasons and background of the development of character activities and conflicts. It can be seen that the environment is an indispensable factor in the novel, and the specific description of the environment is another important feature of the novel. For example, Lu Xun's novel The Storm takes place in a rural area. If it is in the city, Zhao's seemingly powerful arrogance will be nowhere to go, and no one will pay attention to the old lady's "generation is not as good as generation".

Because the novel has some basic characteristics, such as detailed characterization, complete and complex plot, concrete and vivid environmental description, it has become the most suitable literary style to express complicated social life and is deeply loved by readers.

Second, the classification of novels.

Novels are generally divided into four types: novels, novellas, short stories and short stories. They have their own characteristics in material selection, characterization, plot arrangement, environmental description and expression techniques. Now described as follows:

novel

This novel has a large capacity, contains a lot of complicated contents and accommodates many characters. We should focus on the long-term life course of the characters and describe the various social class relations criss-crossing between them. There are often several groups of different types of characters and protagonists in works, including positive characters and negative characters, and the characters have primary and secondary points. It has a wide range of contents, many characters and complicated story clues. In addition to a main line, there are often several sub-lines. Through the description of various characters and broad social life, we can reveal various phenomena of complex social relations and class struggle, and reflect major events and historical features in a certain period.

Fiction often launches a series of contradictions and conflicts under the main clues, so the theme it reflects is broader and deeper.

② novella

Between novels and short stories, its description of social life and struggle history is not as extensive and complicated as novels, nor does it have many positive characters and complex multiple clues as novels, but it reflects social life more widely than short stories, and the plot and characters are more complicated than short stories, unlike short stories, which only focus on depicting the image of one character and concentrate on reflecting one aspect of social class struggle life.

There is no obvious boundary between novellas, novels and short stories. Those with long length and large capacity are similar to long stories. Short and small, similar to short stories.

(3) Short stories

Short space, few characters, simple plot and concentrated scenes are characterized by:

1, highlight and carefully depict the main characters, generally focusing on depicting one character. Other characters strive to be concise and closely related to the theme, which plays the role of highlighting the main characters, and other characters play the role of foil.

For the main character, we can't write his life, but choose the most prominent part of his experience and personality as the theme, and often introduce or supplement the history of the main character by inserting narrative.

There should be a complete story, but it should not be complicated. Generally, one thing or one thing is used as a clue to run through the whole article, pulling a number of small plots to form a story with a beginning and an end to express the characters and highlight the theme.

3. It is necessary to describe the background of natural environment and social environment, but it is impossible to describe more scenes. Generally, stories and characters are unfolded in one or two or several concentrated scenes.

(4) Short stories

Short stories, also known as mini novels and pocket novels. Compared with short stories, it has shorter length, fewer characters and simpler plot. It only describes a fragment of life, focusing on one person and one thing; Writing only outlines. Words are very similar to sketches. It reflects the timely life, the form is easy to master, and it is very popular with the masses.

Third, the basic methods of character description in novels

There are many ways to describe the characters in the novel, and the common ones are as follows:

(A) the specific introduction of the abstract

A general and specific introduction is a specific description of one or several things of a person, thus giving a general introduction to his life, personality, thoughts, qualities, styles and habits. This general description is generally arranged before and after the appearance of the characters. Please see the romance of the Three Kingdoms for the first time. After Cao Cao appeared, this is the way to introduce Cao Cao:

Cao Cao liked hunting, singing and dancing when he was young. There is a trick, many machines change. Cao Cao had an uncle who saw Cao Cao wandering around, tasted anger and talked to Cao Song (Cao Cao's father). Song is in charge of fuck. Cao Cao suddenly had a plan: when his uncle came, he fell to the ground and had a stroke. Uncle surprised Song, Song looked anxious, and Cao Cao was safe. Song Dao: "Uncle said you had a stroke, and now it's getting worse?" Cao Cao said, "My son hasn't had this disease since he came. I lost my love for my uncle, so I lost my ears. " Believe what he says. After my uncle, I told you, but Song didn't listen. So, fuck it.

The author briefly introduces Cao Cao's treacherous thought and character by describing the fact that Cao Cao pretended to have a stroke and then lied to his father with rhetoric. This general and specific introduction method can get the effect of giving inferences by analogy. As long as the behavior and events are selected accurately and typically, the thoughts and personalities of the characters can be highlighted.

(2) Portrait description

Portrait description is a description of the appearance of characters, including the description of their appearance, posture, expression and clothing. Portrait description is one of the important methods to depict characters. Because a person's origin, status, experience, environment, personality, thoughts and styles may leave traces on the appearance of the characters. Therefore, a good portrait can often clearly show the life experience, ideological character and inner world of the characters from the surface to the inside. Famous writers attach great importance to the description of portraits. Tolstoy made 20 changes to The Portrait of the Resurrected Hero Maslova when it first appeared:

She is a thin and ugly brunette. She is ugly because of her flat nose. (Translation of Documentary Tolstoy Manuscripts)

Tall, with a focused and morbid expression. (same as above)

A brunette with short hair is thinner than fat. Her face is not beautiful, but it has traces of depravity. (same as above)

This is the description of the previous drafts. It is obviously inaccurate to emphasize only the ugliness and depravity of Maslova. If she is really so ugly, how can she attract the romantic Nekhludoff? If she couldn't attract Nekhludoff and was not deceived by Nekhludoff, how could she fall later? Tolstoy was not satisfied, so he revised it:

Beautiful forehead, curly hair, even nose, and beautiful black eyes under two straight eyebrows. (same as above)

This manuscript writes Maslova beautifully. If this is the innocent Maslova in her girlhood, it may be written correctly. However, Maslova standing in front of readers is not a girl, but a degenerate female "criminal" who stands in court for trial. The writer wrote her so beautifully that she couldn't even see a trace of degeneration, which was obviously untrue. Tolstoy noticed this, of course, and revised it repeatedly. It was not until the twentieth draft that the portrait of Maslova was decided:

A short, plump woman wore a white dress and a gray prison uniform ... She wore a headscarf on her head, and she deliberately let a lock or two of her hair slip out of the headscarf and put it on her forehead. This woman's face shows the pallor of a person who has been imprisoned for a long time, which reminds people of the buds of white sweet potatoes stored in the cellar ... Her eyes are dark and bright, although swollen, they still glow (one of them is slightly squinting), which is in sharp contrast to her pale face.

This last draft is not only very concrete and vivid, but also very accurate and vivid. Here, Tolstoy skillfully described two different contrast features of Maslova's portrait. Her eyes are beautiful: "black and bright" and "still glowing". But it is pathological: "edema" and "one eye is a little squint." Her body is healthy: her breasts are full. But it is also devastated: the face is "pale" because of long-term imprisonment. She is obviously a prisoner of pain in prison clothes, but she still has the mind to dress her hair frivolously. This tells readers that Maslova used to be a beautiful and kind working woman, but she was oppressed and insulted by the czar's autocratic system and the aristocratic class and became a female prisoner who was physically and mentally destroyed and poisoned. In this way, the author accurately reflects the life fate and ideological character of the characters only through a portrait.

Describing portraits, the most important thing is to describe the eyes of the characters. Because the eyes are the most expressive and can best convey a person's inner secrets, the eyes describing the characters can best grasp the characteristics of the characters. Lu Xun said: "To draw a person's characteristics with great economy, it is best to draw his eyes. I think this is completely correct. If you draw all your hair, even if it is lifelike, it is meaningless. " ("Southern accent? How can I write a novel? ) This is from experience.

(3) Action description

Action description is a method to express a character's thought and character by describing his specific actions (including big moves and small moves). This is one of the most important ways to describe people. Because the actions of the characters can fully and powerfully show their thoughts and personalities. Such as "The Scholars" for the fifth time, it describes Yan Jiansheng's dying act like this:

..... was so ill that he couldn't speak for three days in a row. People who squeeze a room at night light a lamp on the table. Yan Jiansheng's throat is full of phlegm, but he can't stop breathing. He also took his hand out of the sheet and held out two fingers. The eldest nephew stepped forward and asked, "Uncle, don't you have two relatives who have never met?" He shook his head two or three times. The second nephew stepped forward and asked, "Uncle, there are still two dollars there, I didn't tell you?" He opened his eyes wide and shook his head hard, and his fingers tightened. The nurse hugged her brother's socket and said, "Sir, I think it's because my two uncles are not here, so I remember." Hearing this, he shook his head with his eyes closed and his hand just pointed. Zhao hurriedly wiped her tears, stepped forward and said, "Others say it doesn't matter, only I know what you mean! You ordered two corduroies for that lamp. Don't worry, you may have wasted oil. I'll pick one now. " After that, he hurried to pick one. They looked at Jane, nodded, bowed their heads and died.

Here, the novel specifically describes Yan Jiansheng's "stretching two fingers" and shaking his head and nodding his head before he died. These movements are simple, but very typical. Before he died, Yan Jiansheng didn't care about his relatives at all, but he lit an extra lamp for the bedside lamp and refused to give up his life. This vividly reveals his stingy and money-loving thoughts and character, and can also be said to be a typical summary of the life of landlords and squires.

language description

Language description refers to the specific description of monologues, dialogues or conversations of several characters. As the old saying goes, "What you say must be done". The language of a character is the natural expression of his thoughts and feelings, and it is easy to express his personality characteristics and inner world, so language description is also one of the important methods to describe a character. For example, Wang Sansheng's language description in "Broken Soul Gun":

Wang Sansheng-Sha Zilong's big brothers-opened a venue in the Earth Temple and set up all the guys. The last color of tea is full of snuff. He waved some bamboo Strafe to make the venue bigger. Put down the whip, don't bend your head and turn around, and read two sentences: "Kick the hero of the world, the hero of five fists!" " "Glanced around:" folks, Wang Sansheng is not a busker; I know a few tricks. Walk past darts on the northwest road and meet friends in the greenwood. I'm free now, so I'll pull a venue to play with you. Come down if you like to practice. Wang Sansheng will make friends with martial arts. It's an honor for me to accompany you. Sha Zilong is my master; Authentic! Ladies and gentlemen, does anyone want to come down? " He looked and knew that no one dared to come down. His words are difficult, but Strafe is even more difficult, weighing 18 Jin.

This language description highlights Wang Sansheng's rough, bold and shallow personality.

Language description requires a high degree of personalization, which can "make others see everyone who speaks from the conversation" (Lu Xun: Lace Literature? Reading notes "). As we know, a character's language characteristics are determined by his living environment. Because there is no identical life state, there is no identical personality language. Everyone has his own unique habits, ways, tone and words. Therefore, in order to create a distinctive character image, it is necessary to personalize the character language.

(5) Psychological description

Psychological description refers to the description method of revealing the inner spiritual world of characters and expressing their personality characteristics through the description of their inner state. This description method can show the thoughts and personalities of characters in detail, so it is also a common description method. For example, Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q describes Ah Q's psychological activities on the eve of execution:

Ah Q was ashamed that his painting was not round, but the man didn't care. He has chosen a pen and paper, and many people arrested him for the second time.

When he entered the fence for the second time, he was not very depressed. He thought that heaven and earth in life sometimes had to be caught in and out, and sometimes a circle had to be drawn on paper, but the circle was not round, but a stain on his "line". But after a while, he was relieved. He thought, Sun Tzu only drew a very round circle. So he fell asleep.

This is a very profound psychological description. Ah Q drew a circle on the capital crime and was about to be beheaded, but he still didn't realize it, didn't get angry and didn't resist. Instead, I think that my circle is not round and I lose face, which is a stain on the "line". But later, even this unhappy feeling disappeared, because he thought of his grandson drawing circles, and he looked like a grandfather himself. He won a spiritual victory in fantasy. This kind of psychological description can be said to be incisive, which prominently shows Ah Q's insensitive and ignorant mental state.

(6) Description of scenery

It refers to the way to contrast the mood and character of the characters through the description of the surrounding scenery. As we know, environment and people interact and influence each other. Environment can affect the character's ideological character, and the character with certain ideological character can in turn affect the surrounding environment. In this way, by describing the imprint left by the characters on the scenery, or by describing the relationship between the color of the scenery and the mood of the characters, the character and mood of the characters can also be indirectly expressed.

For example, Russian writer Goncharov's novel Hobreau Muff describes the protagonist's bedroom (as well as the study and reception room):

There is a dusty spider web next to the picture frame hanging on the wall, which is like a toothed ornament and sticks together. Mirrors are not so much used to reflect light as to replace boards; It is covered with dust, so you can write some memos. The carpet was covered with stains. The sofa was littered with forgotten towels. On the table every morning, there are probably containers for food, salt pans and leftover bones from the previous night. There are small pieces of bread or something.

If there is no such food container, no smoking bag on the table, or no owner hanging a smoking bag, then anyone can think that this house is unoccupied. Everything is covered with dust and faded. There is no indication that the man is angry. Especially the bookshelf, two or three books, the pages are opened and thrown away. There are newspapers. There are ink bottles and pens on the desk. The open pages are covered with dust and turned yellow-it seems that they were left here a long time ago. The date of the newspaper is last year. If you insert a pen into an ink bottle, the flies inside will fly in surprise.

The author doesn't write directly about Oblomov's character here, but only about the house where he lives and all kinds of things in it, which vividly sets off his lazy character. It seems that everything in this room is saying, "I am also an Oblomov."

Above, we introduced several common methods of character description. It must be explained here that novelists generally do not use one method alone, but often use several methods in combination. Because only in this way can the characters' thoughts and personalities be vividly and concretely displayed through various descriptions. As for the other artistic forms of the novel, I won't say much here because of the limited space.

Four, the main points of novel reading and appreciation

Because the novel portrays all kinds of characters with typical characters through a complete story and the description of typical environment, and reflects the literary style of social life from a wide angle, reading and appreciating novels can enhance our ability to understand society, life, analyze and evaluate things, and improve our ability to write character narratives. The reading and appreciation of novels have the following points:

(A) Character analysis

People always live in a certain social environment, and their thoughts will always be branded with the imprint of the times. Reflecting social life through characters is an important feature of the novel, so analyzing characters is the key to grasp the theme of the novel. The basic method of creating typical characters in novels is "all kinds of people are mixed together to synthesize one", which makes the characters unique and can concentrate their characteristics. To analyze a typical character, we should not only analyze the * * * of the typical character and the kind of person it represents, but also analyze its own unique personality. The specific analysis method is: pay attention to summarizing the characters' ideological character from their portraits, language, behavior and psychological descriptions, and analyze the feelings and thoughts endowed by the author to the characters from the relationship between people and people and the environment. For example, the nine-catty old lady in The Storm is decadent and stubborn. As long as people like her are still alive, the roots of feudal thought are still there. At the end of the novel, I wrote, "The old lady of nine pounds has passed her eightieth birthday, and she is still uneven and healthy." The author's idea is that feudal remnants will poison the younger generation for a long time, and six pounds of foot binding is an example.

(B) story analysis

Plot is an event described in narrative literature and the process of its development and change, which is generally composed of a series of contradictions and conflicts. There are several points to analyze the plot: first, look at the role of the plot in displaying and portraying characters. Life is full of contradictions and struggles. In the conflicts and struggles, how to treat contradictions and how to solve them are all determined by the characters' personalities. Therefore, we can grasp the character from the performance of characters in contradictions and conflicts; The second is to pay attention to the sharpness of contradictions and struggles. A good novel, no matter what the theme is, no matter how tortuous the plot is, should reflect the sharpness of contradictions. The sharpness of contradictions and conflicts in the story shows the author's profound understanding of life; The third is to see the truth and rationality of the story. The contradiction in life reproduced by art in the novel must or may exist in life, and it is a real contradiction, which completely conforms to the law of people's ideological and emotional activities and the development track of characters. The fourth is to look at the vividness of the plot. Vivid plots are often full of twists and turns, which can be gripping and fascinating, making the theme more vivid and the characters more prominent.

We can analyze the story from three aspects: one is to clarify the structure, the other is to find clues, and the third is to grasp the scene description.

The development of the plot is the embodiment of the occurrence and development of contradictions and conflicts, and we should pay attention to the main contradictions and conflicts when analyzing the plot. At the same time, it should be clear that plot analysis is a means to grasp the character and understand the theme of the novel. Therefore, in the process of analyzing the story, we should always pay attention to understand and appreciate its role in characterization and revealing the theme.

(C) Analysis of the novel's environmental description

People always live and develop in a certain environment. People grow up in different environments and have different personalities. The natural environment and social environment in the novel are the stage of the characters' activities, the basis of the formation of the characters' personalities and the support of the plot development. The description of the natural environment is often arranged to create an atmosphere, set off the emotions of the characters and express the interests of the characters, generally with the author's emotional tendency; The description of social environment helps to show the relationship between characters and their personalities.

To analyze the typical environment, we must first connect the characters with the typical environment, because the formation and change of characters' personalities are always inseparable from the environment; Secondly, we should see the role of characters in transforming the environment. People are always trying to change their living environment, and people's efforts often change the environment. Excellent environmental description is not to provide a place and create an atmosphere for people's activities, but to be closely linked with characters and plots and become an organic part of portraying characters' personalities.

(D) Grasp the theme of the novel

The novel depicts characters and describes typical environment in order to express a certain theme. The author's thoughts and feelings are reflected in the description of characters and environment. When reading a novel, we analyze the characters, plots and environmental descriptions of the novel, with the ultimate goal of grasping the theme of the novel. Only by grasping the theme of the novel can the social value and function of the novel be realized-whether it is inspiring or inspiring; Is it to expose the ugly phenomenon of society or to praise the truth, goodness and beauty in life?