Happy New Year, 2025 Summary |
First of all, I wish everyone a Happy New Year, wishing all you food-and-clothing parents and reader masters good health and family happiness.
Secondly, I originally wanted to finish writing the eighth volume before the Spring Festival, but there are truly too many miscellaneous matters before the Spring Festival, needing to pay New Year's calls and such. My family hasn't even bought New Year's goods up to now. So I have to ask for a leave of absence, and will resume updating on the third day of the lunar new year.
I also know there has been controversy over the recent plot. At the beginning of writing 'Qing Shan' (Green Mountain), when chatting about this story with author friends, I knew that a story that suppresses before raising will definitely suffer from controversy before the result appears. This is also something that can't be helped. However, these controversies will have a resolution at the end of the eighth volume. Of course, the next stage will also see controversies of the next stage, which are unavoidably inevitable during serialization.
Taking this opportunity, I'll also chat about everyone's recent controversies.
Controversy 1: I saw many book friends saying this book was written for a script, in order to sell copyright. Previously I actually didn't really want to argue, after all, arguing can never distinguish right from wrong, and I've already suffered losses on this matter. Later I thought about it, we can discuss this topic in depth, it's also quite interesting.
First, answering the book friends' question: It's correct, but also incorrect.
Why say it's also correct? Because when writing 'Qing Shan', I did indeed use some ways of writing scripts.
I watched an interview with a successful author. He said that because he had been a screenwriter, he instinctively used a screenwriter's mindset to conceptualize stories when writing novels. For example, which filming scene does the story happen in, how to complete the staging, how characters twist and turn...
Film is precious, characters can't speak nonsense, language must be concise.
Writing like this is actually very strenuous. One has to design one scene after another in one's mind. For example, when Zhang Xia barged into the White Tiger Hall, I had to imagine her standing on the stone steps under the lanterns. In front was the pitch-black Western Capital Circuit Military Commissioner's Commander's Residence, behind were the dense and dark martial marquises, to the left and right were burly halberd-holding armored soldiers. Standing there she also had fear, but she had to make everyone believe she was the envoy from the Upper Capital, and also give Jiang Xianzong enough psychological pressure. So she had to act, she had to be unhurried and composed.
Then I followed her perspective in my mind into the Commander's Residence, seeing an architectural style vastly different from the Ning Dynasty. It was no longer a hip roof with one main ridge and four descending ridges, but a gable and hip roof with one main ridge, four descending ridges, and four corner ridges, which had a more oppressive feeling. The colors were also no longer the gorgeous scenes of the Ning Dynasty, but more monotonous and more solemn and chilling.
I followed her as she barged into the White Tiger Hall, standing in front of Yuan Xiang's envoy who was half a head taller than her. Maintaining her Aura, she quoted classics and historical records to defend her identity as the envoy from the Upper Capital, forcing Yuan Xiang's envoy to give way to her. Because Chen Ji had to protect the envoy alive, she had to persuade Jiang Xianzong to stand on the side of the Jing Dynasty's Imperial Power. If she couldn't overwhelm Yuan Xiang's envoy, to some extent it would make Jiang Xianzong feel that Imperial Power also became weak in front of Yuan Xiang, changing Jiang Xianzong's decision.
Finally, I saw her win. Yuan Xiang's envoy worried about being impeached by the Imperial Censors, so he chose to retreat and avoid her. Then I followed her approaching the White Tiger Hall, seeing the horizontal inscribed board and the antithetical couplets, as well as Jiang Xianzong behind the desk.
The eight folding vermilion doors of the White Tiger Hall closed behind her, and the candle flames inside the command hall wafted up black smoke that circled among the dougong brackets.
She had to start a psychological game with Jiang Xianzong. Could she persuade Jiang Xianzong? She wasn't certain either, but she had to think of a way to persuade Jiang Xianzong. Her words had to be powerful enough to gain the upper hand bit by bit in the psychological game. But speaking more means making more mistakes, speaking less means making fewer mistakes, so she also had to cherish words like gold.
The plot of this segment of the story was like this in my mind, so constructing the realistic scenes cost a lot... mm, maybe energy that was originally unnecessary in past writing.
Polishing dialogue and plot structure is a very strenuous and unrewarding task. It also requires sufficient restraint, not having too much analysis, nor should there be too many psychological activities.
When writing 'Qing Shan', the character dialogue always upholds one principle, which is "if a sentence is not as powerful as silence, then don't write it."
This is what I have always persisted in.
Hemingway said that writing should be like an iceberg, only exposing the most important one-eighth above the water surface, and leaving the rest to the readers' imagination.
In the past when writing 'The King's Avatar', 'The First Sequence', and 'Night's Nomenclature', I would always worry that book friends wouldn't truly understand what kind of story or character I wanted to write. So I wrote their psychological activities clearly, and also wrote many annotations to interpret the plot and complete the logical endorsement, so that book friends would complain less about problems of illogicality.
But when writing 'Qing Shan', I subtracted many characters' psychological activities and author's voice-overs, attempting to let the book friends decide for themselves how exactly to view this character. For example, Mister Feng, this typical character. Some book friends feel he treats human life like grass, and shouldn't be forgiven for his Reckless Abandon just because he harbors lofty ambitions; there are also book friends who feel this character has a lot of personality charm, and is a truly capable role who is Both Good and Evil.
No matter how book friends view him, it actually doesn't matter. Just like how the Ning Dynasty commoners and characters in the book view him, there will be people who like him, or dislike him. This right to decide inherently belongs in the hands of the book friends, instead of the author forcing the readers again and again to like or hate him, that has no meaning.
Additionally, in the past I hoped readers would like every character, making every character look very smart, capable of calculating without omission. But now I won't do that. I have started to accept that readers will hate a certain very important character. I will think more about how this character should actually choose in their current predicament.
Of course, I am not as good as Hemingway, nor as good as many successful authors, but I rejoice that I still hold a proactive mindset to learn new writing methods. As for success or failure, this is also not something I can evaluate myself, of course it's the readers who have the final say. So when everyone says my writing power is insufficient, I admit my insufficiency, and when everyone praises me, I'll also be happy.
But this way of writing does indeed make this book look like... writing a script.
Then let's talk again about why I said the guess "Qing Shan is precisely for selling copyright" is incorrect.
Some book friends say, Zhouzi is just to sell copyright, in order to imitate someone... Things outside this kind of plot, I think I can still respond a bit.
First, before writing 'Qing Shan', I never worried that my copyrights possessed the possibility of not being sold, nor was it in my scope of consideration. Because my copyrights truly have none that can't be sold. Of course, this is also the underlying confidence for writing 'Qing Shan', letting myself be a bit more capricious.
Secondly, actually before 'Qing Shan' was published, platforms and film/television company purchasers had already seen the manuscript. The previous plot and visual sense are undoubtedly very suitable for adaptation, until Wu Yun appeared... When Wu Yun appeared, on that very day three financial backers privately messaged me saying having a cat is not very easy to adapt into a drama, requires special effects, requires... can it be deleted?
But when 'Qing Shan' itself was conceptualized, Wu Yun was an extremely important character, impossible to delete. If deleted, it wouldn't be that story anymore. So I could only politely refuse. I also said this before, 'Qing Shan' first had the ending, then had this story. Or rather, first had the ending, then had the conclusion of the eighth volume, then had the entire story. So the conclusion of the eighth volume and the ending are both very important to me (precisely because of this, when rescuing Bai Li, this segment of plot is of course also very awesome, but still a bit sorry to the suppressing parts earlier, because the story of the eighth volume hasn't finished yet, there will still be ups and downs).
Of course, the result of capriciously keeping Wu Yun is that those few financial backers left me, LA. Several who appointed anime copyrights and film/television copyrights before the book started silently stopped contacting me, LA.
Of course I know this is making things difficult with money. When the current 'Qing Shan' film/television copyright owner came to communicate, I also had good intentions to remind them. I said the cat is not easy to adapt, many companies said it couldn't be adapted, letting them carefully consider whether to adapt or not. But they said it could be solved, I said then that's quite good...
Also thanks to the trust of the current copyright owner, Xin Guang Pictures, allowing me to peacefully write this story according to my original inspiration, without interfering with my creation.
Talking about these is actually wanting to explain to book friends that this writing method of 'Qing Shan' is not guided by money or fame and fortune. I truly want to write a story I feel is not bad, writing a few (or dozens of) characters I want to write.
Although the writing method is controversial, and the writing power might not be good either, the original intention has no problems.
Controversy 2: Is Zhouzi writing in the female frequency (novels targeted at females)?
Yes and no. This ambiguous answer I believe many book friends will be dissatisfied with, but actually I haven't specifically thought about this question.
In the society we live in now, people are accustomed to tagging many things or themselves. For example, I am INFJ, the newspaper seller is INTJ. This way it seems easier to identify oneself, and also more convenient for others to identify you. Tags will say some words for you that are usually hard to speak about.
Male frequency and female frequency also seem to be like this. Everyone very simply divides a story into being written for boys to read or written for girls to read, thereby making it convenient for book friends to distinguish categories for reading.
But my books have actually always been somewhat gender-neutral. Not intentionally gender-neutral or anything, just that when conceptualizing this story, I didn't hope everyone had to revolve around the protagonist. The Master also has things the Master wants to do, Liang Gou'er also has Liang Gou'er's unspoken difficulties, Prince Jing has Prince Jing's ideals, Feng Wenzheng has Feng Wenzheng's ambitions, Emperor Ning has Emperor Ning's predicaments. There are hypocritical people, sincere people, smart people, and also stupid people, big figures, and also minor figures, pure love warriors, and also ambitious schemers. There is love, and also hate.
As for why Chen Ji is so infatuated, it also might not be a psychological problem, but a physical problem. Of course this involves spoilers, we'll talk about it later.
Including often seeing book friends say, how come fantasy/xianxia developed into political maneuvering, and such.
This question actually stumped me. When publishing a work, one truly can only choose a genre category like fantasy or xianxia or urban. But when writing, I actually didn't think about these questions. The conception of 'Qing Shan' at the beginning of creation took character relationships as the core, simply telling an entanglement of love and hate under this story background, Jianghu grievances, writing about the plot of where characters go and what they do under the torrents of this era. Specifically how to define whether it's exactly xianxia or wuxia or fantasy or spy war, I myself haven't thought it through properly either.
It's probably just, the plot developed to here, and these things naturally happened...
To say it's political maneuvering, but political maneuvering isn't the core either, because that's only things Chen Ji must experience, it won't do not to write it. To say it's fantasy/xianxia, it's also impossible to constantly battle. Just like my own life, I also find it very hard to define whether it's exactly a grassroots counterattack or a romance, or a career drama. Is it a comedy, or is it a tragedy? Because it's very complex...
In short, whatever everyone feels it is in the end, it is what it is. It doesn't count even if I say it.
When writing, I didn't define in advance what exactly it is. But I think, at the moment I write to the ending, I will have an answer, and everyone will also have an answer.
Controversy 3: Update issue. Last year was truly a double blow of physical issues and psychological issues, but I actually was always doing my best to recover double updates. As a result, hasn't it only been double updates for a few days, and encountered the Spring Festival again...
In the new year, I will do my best to recover double updates. After all, when writing 'Night's Nomenclature', I was also a person who updated twelve thousand words daily...
Alright, that's enough said. Wishing everyone all the best in the new year, we'll meet on the third day of the lunar new year.
Sorry.
Sorry again.
Thank you everyone.
Thank you again! (End of Chapter)