Ah! I'm done.
I stumbled, confused, and even limped through more than a million words. So I can say that I have "finally" finished it.
When I first wrote these one million words, I felt like a teenager with his head covered, rushing into the world of martial arts with a naive mind. I was too young and underestimated the difficulty of writing a novel. It was the same as Qin Lu rushing into the world of martial arts with a sword and 103 copper coins. So when writing, I often felt like squeezing toothpaste, and it was painful most of the time.
The process was painful. But when I finished writing, I was reluctant to give it up, and I felt that I hadn’t finished yet. I still felt that there was a lot more to write about. In fact, this was because of my lack of experience. I didn’t think about these things when I was planning. When I was finishing it, I found that each of the characters in life could be given a better stage and a better story.
But why didn’t you continue writing
One is that in the previous layout, the world structure, story system and practice system have been broken by me, and I can't write anymore and I am at a loss;
Another thing is that I don't like the writing style of stacking boxes, where one box is stacked on top of another, endlessly. No matter what novel it is, when the martial arts level goes up, it's all about the great way, the master of the universe, the long river of time, or the battle between various universes.
… Of course, there is also the reason that I don’t know how to stack boxes yet. After all, I can’t even write such a simple force system. So I’m jealous.
Ha ha ha ha…
Speaking of stacking boxes, there are several novels that left a deep impression on me. When I read "Snow Eagle Lord" many years ago, Tomato was just stacking boxes one on top of another, endlessly, which made my head hurt and my heart tired.
When I watched "Perfect World" at the same time, it was also a box. The lower world of Perfect World was originally perfect (I personally think), but when I went to the upper world, I kept pursuing the world view, which became bigger and bigger, and the world view collapsed, and the combat power also collapsed. At that time, Chen Dong had a description of combat power that left a deep impression on me, "Sweeping the falling stars", which appeared many times. I don't know how many stars there are in that world for them to sweep.
There is also a novel, "Versatile Mage", the story of which takes place in China, on Earth, but it is written in a grand and epic way.
Compared with Chen Dong's "God's Tomb", there is no stacking of boxes, but it is also written in a grand, epic and tragic way.
It can be seen that you don’t need to stack boxes to write a grand narrative.
… Or maybe I just haven’t reached their level yet and don’t understand stacking boxes.
I thought I would be like Yu Hua, leaving the pain to the readers and the happiness to myself. Unfortunately, I am not like that. I did not finish the story easily. I felt very complicated. In general, I am a person who is slow to express emotions but very rich. So it is foreseeable that I will feel very uncomfortable in the next few days.
That's the problem. I used to think I was a certain kind of person, but by writing this novel, I proved that I'm not.
For example, I thought I was a heartless person who could kill any character with a knife without frowning, but that’s not the case. I felt uncomfortable when I killed a character that I spent a lot of time and effort to describe. For another example, I thought I would be able to write a cold-blooded and ruthless protagonist with ease, but that’s not the case. I created a “saintly lady” Shiyin and a “suck-up” Qin Ran.
There must be quite a lot of readers who would say, "The story has just begun! How come it ends?", "There is still a lot to be written? Isn't this a bad ending?", "Maybe the author doesn't want to write anymore!", "The story is not explained clearly!", "The author digs one hole after another and doesn't fill it! What a pitfall the author is." and so on.
Following up on the above, let me make a few more arguments here.
One sentence is, "This novel was not a novel about fighting monsters and leveling up from the beginning." What I want to write is the daily life between the master and the apprentice, and then insert major events between the daily life. In the major events, the relationship between the master and the apprentice improves. The so-called major events are the Devouring Demon Willow, the sect competition, the crisis of Beichu, the crisis of Daojianmen, and the "Yuan" organization. The corresponding relationship progress is getting to know each other, knowing each other, falling in love, getting married, and having children. The sentence I said when it was a million words, "It should be over when the hero and heroine get married", is actually true. If I didn't have a brain injury when I was writing, it would have been over at that time. It is a relatively pure daily life novel.
The reason why the novel was not finished at that time was:
Since it was my first time writing, I didn’t consider the specific content of the major events, the mutual influence of events and the world; nor did I consider that a flash of inspiration or a brain twist might occur while writing, causing the story line to go off track.
Let me give you two examples. One is the Devouring Demon Willow. I never thought about the specific impact of a level nine demon beast that has lasted for thousands of years on the world, so I never thought about the reactions of various sects and countries to it. I didn’t think it through and had no concept, so the section about the Devouring Demon Willow was written very ugly. Another example is the story line of Xuan Qin. I was quite confused here. It was originally a story about a man and a woman going down the mountain to show off. It was very simple, but I suddenly thought of the Immortal Dynasty, Zhao Zheng, and the man’s clone assisting him. Ah, the story was instantly distorted. In fact, the “Yuan” organization was also distorted.
Another is the sophistry, "This is an everyday story."
Look at the title of this book, it's about daily life! A friend told me, "Daily life means extracting a part of the story from a normal running world. When you write this part of the story, the world is still running. The world does not revolve around the protagonist." I think it makes sense. So I prefer the writing method where the protagonist triggers the event, rather than the writing method where the story carries the protagonist.
The story of Qin Ran and Shi Yin is just a part of this world. I separated the story of "Qin Ran and Shi Yin falling in love" for everyone to see, but this world is not affected. They later fought monsters and upgraded to become immortals, but I did not separate it. Similarly, Long Qi Qi, Tu Shan You You, Tian Wen Jin, Lu Jun Xing, etc., they have their own stories, and I did not continue to write them. The story buried one "pit" after another for them, which is not a pit, but an explanation for their follow-up. What will happen to them after they leave the story of Qin Ran and Shi Yin
…and that’s also because I still can’t write about killing monsters and leveling up.
I didn't continue writing this story, on the one hand because of the reasons mentioned above, and on the other hand, it was obviously a problem of ability.
I have many shortcomings, which I believe everyone can see, so I will list a few of them here:
The first is the problem of combat power collapse, which is very obvious in this book.
I thought about it carefully and there are two reasons.
One is that I haven't figured out the combat power system. I have some understanding of the cultivation system, but I haven't figured out the specific combat power performance of the cultivation system.
For example, what kind of combat power will one gain after practicing Qi, how will the combat power of the Golden Elixir change after practicing Qi to the Golden Elixir, and what is the difference in combat power between the Nascent Soul and the Golden Elixir? I haven’t figured these out.
Also, the specific differences between the various professions were not clearly written. This led to the fact that I originally wanted to write about many professions and enrich the world view, but in the end I only wrote about sword cultivators and alchemy cultivators, and even failed to write about qi cultivators and formation cultivators clearly; this also led to Qin Ran's cheating in the formation becoming bigger and bigger, so big that it was inexplicable.
Another thing is that I didn't understand the enemy clearly. People don't project emotions onto people they don't know. For example, using a knife to stab a character that no one cares about is useless. It's only useful to stab a character that everyone likes. The same goes for fighting. Everyone needs to know the protagonist and have enough knowledge of the protagonist, and to know the enemy and have enough knowledge of the enemy. Only in this way can you feel the real fight. Otherwise, why do people always say that the villain is as important as the protagonist? In this way, whether the protagonist wins or loses, the reasons and feelings will be clear. I didn't understand it clearly, so my fighting power was vague.
For example, when Shiyin first fought against Yuanying, I wanted to express that Shiyin was good at fighting and fearless, while the enemy was good at saving his life and not good at fighting. When they fought, Shiyin would win one or two rounds, but not the final victory. But I didn't express it clearly, neither side did, and there was no follow-up to the battle. So it created the illusion that the foundation-building battle was defeated by the Yuanying.
I have thought of two solutions to the combat power problem. One is to just go for it and recklessly sort out the combat power system before writing. The other is to abandon the combat power system and either not write about combat or just write about superpowers.
The second problem is that of character creation.
The most regrettable, undoubted problem with the character creation in this book is that I did not portray Shiyin well, causing many people to hate her, and I feel very sorry for her.
In my imagination, Shiyin is a lively, lovely, cheerful, generous, brave, clear-cut girl (I dare not say kind). Even if you don't like such a girl, you will never hate her. Unfortunately, I didn't write it well.
I feel like many people didn't notice that a 16-year-old girl followed Qin Ran up and down the mountain for four hours without complaining; nor did they notice that a beautiful girl went to dig a mud pit when Qin Ran asked her to do so without complaining. They also wondered, where is the fact that the heroine was born into a military family reflected
The character I am most satisfied with is actually Zhuifeng.
I feel that I have written about the changes of the little tiger from infancy, childhood, adolescence, and youth. He was a timid and silly child, but he became smart and brave when he grew up. It goes without saying that he is brave, but he is also smart. When Li Ang was fighting for the blood of the Qilin and the battle between the sects, he had his smart side.
However, character creation, personality core, and specific expression are long and arduous tasks that require gradual exploration.
The third problem is the rhythm of the story.
I always felt a sense of urgency when writing this story. Not the kind of urgency that comes from a fast pace, but the urgency that comes from not being able to explain things clearly.
In fact, it is the same problem as the battle system. The events and characters are vaguely written without in-depth writing, which leads to the story following the outline. The story is not a story, but a task. If the story is written in an expanded way, and the characters and events are clearly laid out, it will be much better.
This is the big issue I think of. But when I look at myself, I always subconsciously beautify myself. And you, as readers, always see it more clearly than I do.
If you see my question, please feel free to give me some advice.
If you see my strengths, tell me and I will keep them.
Help me grow, so I can write better stories for you. Hahahaha… (dog head)
Next is crowdfunding time.
Some people ask me about my new book? When will the next one be published? You don’t understand. I don’t have the ability to write whatever I want to write. I am still in the novice stage. What I write depends on what the editor says.
In fact, I have already written four beginnings for the editor (one is about traditional cultivation of immortals, one is about LOL fan fiction, one is about sweet campus love, and one is about weird immortals), but only the weird immortal received the reply of "write two chapters and see".
So I want to ask everyone, if there is anything you would like to see and think I can write about, you can reply to me here.
Who knows, maybe one day when I become a god, I will write about the ideas you gave me? Hahahaha… (dog head*3)
(Serious face) I will take advantage of the Spring Festival to try to write the beginning. If I’m lucky, I can publish the new book after the New Year.
What we can foresee is that my next book will be very good, because I feel that I am an author whose ability is on the rise (smug face). It is worth your attention.
ok!
I have said a lot, but it seems that I haven’t made myself clear, but I will stop here.
Finally, thank you all for your company and tolerance!
We have a long way to go, we'll meet again if we're lucky! (Bow)
Wish you a happy new year!!! (Salute)