When I was a reader, I really liked reading the summary chapters of various authors. It felt like I was getting closer to the author's inner world.
Now I have started to write a book, and I have also begun to try to summarize it every month, which is quite addictive.
This month, I actually held back a lot of things I wanted to say. Sometimes I felt that there was no point in venting them out, but I was really holding them back in my heart.
Just talk to yourself.
Let’s talk about updates first.
Nearly 190,000 words have been updated this month, and the guaranteed update of 6,000 words per day has been achieved. However, the goal of 240,000 words set at the beginning of the month is naturally far behind.
However, it is really not easy for me to maintain such an update speed this month.
One is because it’s the busiest month at the end of the year and I basically need to work overtime every day.
Another point is that this month I have completed the most difficult part of the book, which has put my abilities to the test.
In fact, lol-themed novels themselves are relatively easy to write, because the plot is naturally fixed, so you just have to advance it step by step.
However, it is precisely because the plot is fixed that it is more difficult to write new ideas.
According to my observation, the lol novels that have become popular in the past two years are either based on imagination and cheats, and are easy-going and funny.
Or, just follow the path of "Who Will We Confront" and follow the realistic flow route of young people's passion.
The former is easier, but it often doesn't last long because there are limits to imagination and jokes, and readers will get tired after reading too much.
The latter is more of a test of your writing skills, and it also depends on whether there are competing products on the market at the same time. It is basically difficult to make two books popular at the same time.
Let’s talk about our book, let’s just talk about the first few hundred thousand words.
In fact, there is nothing new about Golden Finger.
In terms of realism, the beginning is to weaken the details and start with jokes and jokes. Many lol readers who like to read realism will basically leave after finishing the first chapter.
This book has a good start. I personally think that, firstly, it relies on the character design of Jiang Keda, and secondly, because few recent lol novels have a live broadcast start, so it has some novelties.
However, these alone are not enough.
Therefore, in order to increase the readability of the book, I have made some deepening in the two areas of "structure" and "expectation".
I have read some novels with relatively good results recently, and in terms of structure, there are very few lol novels that have hidden clues or ambush writing methods.
The narrative is mostly straightforward and the setting of suspense is minimal.
Maybe readers haven't noticed it, but from the beginning of the story to the present, I have buried three lines in total.
The first one is the anchor line of Jiangsu University of Science and Technology.
The second line is the career line.
The third line is the identity exposure line.
The reason why writing is so difficult this month is that I am advancing these three lines at the same time.
This is already very difficult.
What's even more difficult is that I still write LoL-themed novels, and good-looking game play is fundamental.
It is much more difficult to conceive of an interesting game than to conceive of an urban or fantasy plot.
Because the former only needs to think about the characters, environment, events and exciting points, and sort out the emotional logic and realistic logic.
However, when it comes to game play, there are so many details that need to be considered, it’s simply mind-numbing!
Especially, I am still a new author with little experience. Many times I really feel the shortcomings in my abilities and I can’t help but want to go crazy!
Fortunately, the hardest part is finally over.
Within the framework of the lol theme, all the big tricks that can be played structurally have been played out.
Of course, there are still some hidden points that will be revealed later, but it will definitely not be as scary as the three parallel lines now.
After talking about the structure, let’s talk about the “sense of expectation”, which is something related to the life and death of a novel.
Regarding the sense of anticipation, I read some theories before writing. The real epiphany for me was reading the comic "Tokyo Avengers" this year.
This is a comic that I can read and curse at the same time, and then continue to follow after I finished cursing. If you are interested, you can check it out.
To put it bluntly, the sense of anticipation is the hook that can be buried in the book. The more hooks there are in a book, the more it will attract readers to keep reading.
Taking our book as an example, there are two biggest expectations.
First, Su Chen showed his face and his identity was exposed.
The second is to enter the professional circle.
My own understanding of the sense of expectation is that you need to throw out the sense of expectation at the beginning, but it doesn't end there.
Because in the process of serialization, readers' sense of expectation will gradually weaken as they follow more chapters, so this requires constant foreshadowing in the book to deepen this sense of expectation.
In this way, a book can be followed.
Different books have different expectations. For LoL themes, I think the main feeling of expectation is the use of cheats and the team the protagonist joins in the professional circle.
It's quite limited.
These are some of my early thoughts while writing this book.
Of course, when I talk about insights, I cannot think of how good my writing is. Some readers even laughed at me at the beginning, saying that it was funny to talk about foreshadowing when writing about this kind of subject.
But for me, writing this book is more about practicing writing.
Brainstorming and cheats are the skin of a book, but structure, rhythm, characters, emotions, and imagination are the skeleton of the book.
Beauty is in the bones, not the skin.
In order to be able to go further in the future, I deliberately trained these things. I don’t know if they are good or not.
However, the editor gave me feedback that the writing was pretty good.
The current average order for the book is about 6,000, and the follow-up order is nearly 4,000. According to the editor, if the order is placed in popular themes such as urban and fairy tales, the average order can be as high as 8, 9, 10,000, or 10,000.
It’s not impossible to order.
After all, the lol theme is still too niche and the upper limit is not high.
Therefore, in the future, what I hope is that the average bookings will continue to rise, and I don’t expect anything else.
Frankly speaking, this month, my writing mentality is not very good.
I received a lot of scolding.
When I wrote about the time when my identity was exposed in the Summer Split, many comments scolded me, saying that I didn’t reveal my identity on purpose, so why did I do this?
In fact, I knew that the next day, I would write about the protagonist’s identity being revealed by the factory director at the Summer Games. After I wrote this scene, many people found it very fresh and interesting.
But, how can I answer these book friends? Am I going to say that my identity will be exposed in the next chapter?
Just like when I wrote about the two games between ym and msc, some people said that I was deliberately cheating. Should I tell you that my next chapter will be when the protagonist announces his signing with ym?
Therefore, the writing process made me very unhappy to be honest, and even the rhythm was somewhat affected.
There are many such examples before and after.
The reason why Su Chen didn't reveal his identity at first was actually something I said over and over again at the beginning.
First, I don’t want to affect the life of the school.
Second, I don’t want to tell my family yet that I’m giving up my studies to do live streaming.
Third, I am an ordinary person myself and am not ready to face the public.
Besides, I still have some time to play professionally, so there is no need to show my face.
Some people are still criticizing this.
Others said that I deliberately made everyone unhappy and chilled the readers.
It’s so fucking heartbreaking.
I admire it too.
Even after revealing my identity, I can write very intensely.
For example, it is directly written that Su Chen was disqualified from graduate school by the school, the teacher directly called to question, and the parents were furious because of their son's study.
People in the school also spread rumors to support the rationality of not revealing his identity at the beginning.
Moreover, there are also examples of people who never show their faces in real life, such as Xiaozhi.
Some people just don’t want to show their faces, right?
Of course, these are meaningless actions.
A mature author needs to listen to the editor's suggestions, listen to the suggestions of peers, and adjust his writing according to changes in data.
The only thing you shouldn't do is argue with your readers.
Therefore, in the days after I was scolded, I deleted Writer Assistant and basically didn’t read the comments.
I made a mistake and the order was canceled. I just corrected it. It’s that simple. Even great people make mistakes and get criticized sometimes, let alone me who is crazy about it.
Of course, after this month of experience.
My mentality is much better now.
Yesterday I wrote that the protagonist officially joined YM, and many brothers jumped on the bandwagon, citing many reasons.
In fact, I know that the most fundamental reason is that the protagonist did not go to rng, edg, ig and so on.
Many people come here just for this, which is understandable.
But then again.
No matter which team I join, someone will basically criticize me. In the opening chapter 18, I wrote rng, and a brother chased me and scolded me for two pages, asking if I was stupid for joining rng.
When I went to IG for trial training, some people threatened to give up my school if I dared to go, and so on. There were quite a lot of them.
This is also the problem I have been solving since the beginning, that is, to make readers like the protagonist and be able to bring them into the game, even if they are not in the team they like.
If you have some emotions and expectations for Su Chen, then probably you also want to see what kind of career he will have after entering the profession.
What's more, in the ig trial training chapter, I actually buried all the foreshadowing there.
The foreshadowing of Xiaotian and Zuo Shi started from that time, and many people should have noticed it, right?
During that time, people kept scolding me, saying that writing a trial match was so troublesome.
If you look at the current readers and look back at that paragraph, you will probably know it in your mind.
There are even some points that are left to be revealed in later stories, so I won’t mention them here.
alright!
If you complain or complain, stop here and won't mention it again.
Let me tell you about the two books that I have been referencing when writing these hundreds of thousands of words.
You will definitely not think of it.
The first one is "The Ultimate Demon".
What I learned from it was the method of constantly laying out the atmosphere, and the sense of expectation that Lu Sheng had when he was promoted to the aristocratic level.
The second book is "Urban Cultivation of Immortality" by Jian Shen.
What I learned was to show off and express my emotions.
The aspect of pretending to be cool and slapping people in the face seems not to have been written about in a very systematic way in lol articles.
In fact, what I wrote is relatively compact, just because at this stage of writing, I always felt that Su Chen lacked some emotional explosive points.
Therefore, the "Four Major Clubs Speak Out" segment was designed, which was originally supposed to be a relatively gentle transition.
It can be regarded as taking this opportunity to try to raise Su Chen's emotional explosive point.
By writing this, everyone should be able to see that I am quite attentive.
I read my own book from beginning to end, checking the rhythm and sense of anticipation, no less than four times.
At present, I have caught up with the latest chapter. Including the time it takes to read this chapter, it takes about three hours.
Sometimes, after entering the reader's perspective, I have to say that the opening is indeed quite funny. The atmosphere of the university dormitory and some of the anchor's jokes are really well written.
Then I read it all the way, and when I got to the latest chapter, I felt that I was not enjoying it, and I wanted to update it.
Then I discovered that I am the author myself, so that’s okay...
Probably this is my writing attitude.
The subsequent content will of course be written with this attitude.
Regarding the focus of subsequent writing, I will summarize it at the end of the next month. After completion, I will talk to you again.
I hope that by then, I haven't written a book yet...
Okay, so much foreshadowing, let’s talk about the key points.
On three days of New Year's Day, I'm going on a long trip.
During these three days, there will most likely be a guaranteed update of 4,000 words per day. If you ask for leave, I will send you a single chapter explanation. Please bear with me.