This is a very long post, because there are a lot of things I want to talk about seriously.
As we all know, when I write novels, I like to establish the theme of a story in advance. Just like the theme of "The Overturned Tower", it is called "Hero".
This is not a description, but a discussion.
I must correct a concept that may be misunderstood - I did not first think of a story, determine a protagonist, and summarize it as the word "hero". Rather, I first thought of this keyword and then started thinking about how to elaborate it.
, discuss the word and build a complete story from it.
This creative habit came from the later period of my creation of "Mercury Blood".
At that time, I was deeply aware of the shortcomings of my abilities. Not only the shortcomings of creative ability, but also the shortcomings of reading and knowledge.
Under the advice of a friend, I developed a habit since my freshman year: study for two hours every day to allow myself to acquire new knowledge.
This kind of learning has continued to this day. Except when I am sick, and on the day when a new game I want to play is released - I will continue to study for more than two hours a day. This habit has lasted for almost eight years now.
No matter what I am doing, these two hours of study content must have nothing to do with the work and study tasks I am currently doing. For example, when I was in school, my "study time" might point to a certain movie, a certain
This novel, a certain poetry collection, but no matter what I am reading, the purpose is not "entertainment", but "learning".
When reading a novel, I have to take reading notes, record sentences, break down the outline, and make character cards. When watching a movie, if I think the movie is good, I will try to make a beat chart for the movie and discuss it.
Find the specific meaning of a character or plot in a certain scene, find the driving force of a certain character, and the rhythm and speed of a certain plot.
At that time, I deeply felt the lack of knowledge, so I helped my classmates to study the Erya general education course for free - it was an online open course that every student had to take every semester. I was in this process
I learned a lot in middle school, which had a considerable influence on my later creations.
After I learned to a certain level, I started to use these two hours for writing training. The model I adopted was the "three-word training method", which is to open a book at random, turn over three pages, and put yourself in this
Construct a new story from the first three words you see on the three pages. Make the story as short as possible, have twists and turns, and be interesting while still containing these three words.
This kind of training lasted for about half a year, and it can be said to be very effective. After I finished writing "Mercury Blood", the three books I wrote, with a combined content of 6 million words, all exceeded 10,000 orders.
Four and a half million of them are original novels and have been successfully completed.
And this training model makes me particularly good at short story structure.
For example, the nightmare dungeon in "Player's Super Justice"... In fact, all nightmare dungeons for players, including the "Gallery" dungeon, do not have any outline. I decided on the name and introduction of the nightmare the night before.
of improvisation.
Including the pre-determined "theme" of each book, including the title of each volume of each book, and the name of the nightmare, these are all constraints I set on myself. This constraint can actually activate my imagination.
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The motivation for creating "Toppled Tower" also came from this kind of study day after day.
I saw a book at that time called "Metamorphosis of Science Fiction: The Poetics and Literary Genre History of Science Fiction". Its author, Darko Suenwen, is the founder of the cognitive alienation theory of science fiction. I think it is a contemporary science fiction literature.
The group of people with the highest level of expertise among researchers.
He proposed a theory, which is "cognitive alienation." Suenwen's concept of alienation is derived from Shklovsky and Brecht's "defamiliarization" theory. What is Brecht's "defamiliarization"?
Klovsky's theory is an upgrade, while Suenwen's theory goes a step further.
In this theory, the world created by science fiction novels is actually the alienation and defamiliarization of real life, and it is a roundabout way to perceive reality.
Han Song, an outstanding contemporary Chinese science fiction writer, once said that one of the meanings of science fiction works is to provide early warning of threats that humans may face in the future. Science fiction researcher Song Mingwei believes that the world created in science fiction novels is exactly a certain idea in our hearts, a certain
The embodiment of this kind of thought, through defamiliarized cognition, in turn confirms something that we have turned a blind eye to, and criticizes it accordingly.
From this perspective, although science fiction novels are different from fables, their cognitive process is realized through fables. One of my favorite science fiction works, "Poetry Cloud" by Liu Cixin, is an extreme fable.
It is a science fiction that is romanticized and romanticized. The connotation it highlights also comes from this core.
Because of this, from "Dune" we can see the plunder and control of oil countries by big powers, rather than "an interstellar age full of superpowers and feudal countries"; from "King of Light" we can understand the role of religion
The essence is just an absurd illusion, not just a "myth stitched with modern terms"; what "Three-Body" discusses and criticizes is human morality itself, not "aliens with advanced technology invading the earth"
simple story.
The essence of science fiction is not technological fantasy, but scientific fantasy. It is fantasy literature with scientific thinking. Under the cloak of science, it still has a soft humanistic core. Ultimately, its essence is still fantasy literature.
The difference between science fiction and fantasy is that its core is human curiosity about the unknown and the scientific spirit of "if this happens, what will happen". It is not a cold accumulation of elements such as steel and computers, spaceships and aliens.
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Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." There is no doubt that modern technology has touched this edge.
It is becoming more and more difficult for people to understand the most cutting-edge science and technology. We need some bloggers, some up owners, and some professionals with the ability to explain, to use less rigorous metaphors to make people understand as much as possible in a way that ordinary people can understand.
What exactly are they doing? The general public's understanding of a certain cutting-edge technology is usually simply "I don't understand it, but it is very useful/it is not useful at all" after an explanation.
From this point of view, people who blindly worship technology are the ones who have the least scientific thinking.
The rapid development of science and technology in China and the popularization of Internet knowledge have allowed for a breakthrough in the type of imagination - no longer "space navigation", "discovery of new worlds", "artificial intelligence" and other commonplace topics, readers' acceptance of science fiction
It is also becoming wider.
But at the same time, with the popularization of science and technology, face recognition, Skynet positioning, scanning codes and even face scanning for shopping, drone delivery, autonomous driving, smart homes, Alpha Dog... many of them only existed in imagination before.
Everything has become a reality. It will also become difficult to create further science fiction within a cognitive and understandable range.
This is a challenge. It is not a challenge to contemporary science fiction authors, but a challenge to the entire science fiction category.
Readers who are familiar with the science fiction circle must be aware of the vigorous New Wave movement in the science fiction circle at that time.
In my opinion, the existence of the New Wave movement itself is a rebellion against the golden age of science fiction in 1940 - science fiction should naturally have new categories, and newer categories should continue to appear as the times develop.
Many science fiction readers believe that the genre of science fiction has a "main line" and that what they like to read and admire is the orthodoxy. However, this kind of criticism is often a meaningless attempt to maintain one's own aesthetic status.
criticism.
Category differentiation is undoubtedly conducive to the development of the industry. Science fiction literature is originally a kind of young literature, a kind of literature full of young people's imagination. When it will be understood by young people as "an old thing",
That's when its vitality begins to wane.
We can't just enclose our own territory, but demand common ground while reserving differences. As teacher Liu Cixin said, we must broaden the scope of science fiction literature.
According to strict classification, "Toppled Tower" should belong to "Kochi", which is a science fantasy work, and at the same time it has some socialist blood. The core inspiration of this book comes from the popular works of the 1990s.
The rules of the board game "Shadowrun" are very classic cyber fantasy rules. Of course, the specific settings are not the same, they are just sources of inspiration. I have already sent the settings related to the work that can be disclosed in this book, and those who are interested can feel free to
Pick.
For example, many readers may not know that the inspiration for "Mercury Blood" is actually the Tower of Aion... When I saw the hourglass-like world map, I thought this is so cool. And then rationalizing it,
With the prototype of the "Eggshell World" setting, all subsequent settings are based on this.
Many people think that the inspiration for "Player Super Justice" is Black Contract, but I have not actually watched that show. Its real source of inspiration is a game called "Soul Sacrifice".
The burden and inheritance of the curse, the curse is power, the loss of control of desire, the two-in-one of the brave man who saves the world and the demon king who destroys the world, each other's exterior and interior, and the time loop that repeats but can connect the whole story. This is me
I want to tell the core in the book "Player".
Another inspiration for this book is "Animal Rhapsody" and "Kit Kat Taxi". Some old tabletop gamers may know that although Shadowrun has a cyber theme, it is a typical Western fantasy world of trolls, elves, and orcs.
.In order to maintain the gameplay, many things are not discussed. Because this rule is also a cognitive alienation from classic fantasy rules-such as dnd and wod.
At this time, "Animal Rhapsody" and "Kit Kat Taxi" gave me another inspiration: if you want to dig deeper into the core of humanity, then highlighting "human nature" itself is a correct strategy. Just like if you want sweetness, you must
To add a little salt, the way to highlight human nature can also be accomplished by strengthening "animal nature".
I was still thinking about a very important issue, that is, the core of the cyberpunk genre must be tragedy.
Space opera and cyberpunk can be said to be opposites. It can be said that if civilian manned spaceflight is developed first, the world will enter space opera; if virtual reality is developed first, the world will enter cyberpunk. And space
Opera is outward, conquering, positive, expansive, and romantic; cyberpunk is inward, introspective, and self-cancelling.
Of these two themes, one heralds "war and conquest" in geopolitics, and the other is "influence and rewriting" in ideology. This is the inevitable normal state of the world that has emerged since the Cold War era.
Therefore, it can be said that it is almost impossible for cyberpunk not to be a tragedy. Even if the creation of themes within the system is completed and a happy ending is obtained - even if the wasteland tower is blown up, so what?
There are still so many companies. People are still the same people.
On a larger scale, the blown up wasteland tower may be a sign of the fire of resistance. It may signify the possibility of change in the future...but it is only a possibility. Readers who have watched excellent TV series such as "The Age of Awakening",
You may realize that this section of Cyberpunk 2077 is closer to "the last ditch effort of the confused" and "the release and satisfaction of violent desires" than the real "enlightenment" and "tinder".
The end of comedy is always tragedy. In a cyberpunk world, even if people gain consciousness and successfully rebel against the company by almost impossible means - but so what?
The fuse that triggers social conflicts in cyberpunk is limited resources and population expansion.
As overall resources are further depleted, new allocation methods will still lead to new unrest.
If the ultimate problem of "resources" cannot be solved, and if humans cannot get out of the planet, then in the distant future, the very distant future, there will still be new tragedies that are inevitable.
But the setting of "spiritual relatives" gave me another idea. A setting that can make a reasonable transition from "cyberpunk" to "space opera", a setting that allows people in the cyberpunk world to truly get "
The plot of "Possibility" - let's not mention it for now. When you finish this review, you can turn back to this paragraph.
Of course, the tragic nature of the cyberpunk genre has not changed.
Because in that case, the essence of this book is no longer cyberpunk. So I call it "cyberfantasy" as a distinction.
The inspiration for the first volume of this book comes from a song by yoasobi called "Ultramarine". I think the lyrics of this song are very suitable for Russell, so it is also very suitable as the theme of the preface.
And the popular science about the card "ll-Ensemble Bluebird" in Yu-Gi-Oh! - When I learned that "Siberian Bluebird" is also called "Little Liuli", and among birds such as "Liuli Songbird", only males are
When it was colored glaze, I felt quite shocked.
This shock flows out into words and becomes the main story of this volume.
Because I thought to myself, I have to shock you. Just treat it as a popularization of useless beans knowledge.
As for the inspiration for the second volume, it is the article "Purple and Black" in the collection of fantasy short stories "Purple and Black" written by fantasy master K.J. Parker.
There is a passage in it, which I can roughly recount based on my impression: “Reserve purple ink exclusively for the use of the emperor and officials, so that you can tell the authenticity of the documents you receive at a glance. This idea itself is not right.
Problem, but someone in the Logistics Department discovered that all officials can be effectively controlled in this way - just don't give enough purple ink to officials they don't like or have different political views. The quality of the purple ink is not up to par,
Or the excuse that the ship transporting purple ink sank into the sea. In this case, they have no rights, but they can't do anything because they cannot sign a legally binding document that is recognized by others - a document written in purple ink.
"
Of course, this itself has nothing to do with the story of the second volume. But this interesting idea gave me another inspiration...I will continue to retell it at the end of the second volume.
In the future, the end of each volume will describe the inspiration and creative ideas of this volume as a way to discuss and share with everyone.
That’s about all the small talk.
I believe there are very few readers who have the patience to read this.
But I am grateful to all the readers who can calmly read it. Since you can read this, I think we can also resonate with each other.
I sincerely say that while I am working full-time and having a mortgage, as an author with a background in fantasy, I cross-border to write such a subject, a subject that is both science fiction and unit drama, a dual niche... If we say
, this is not based on some ideal factors, then it means that I am out of my mind.
I don't think it's shameful to show off one's ideals, just like Zi Lu Shou Niu. Now that Internet literature is commercialized, I still hope that the creators of Internet literature have literary ideals.
To put it bluntly...how many young people are still willing to engage in literary creation in modern times? Can they still survive? Are those engaged in this industry young people with literary ideals, or are they depressed and frustrated?
Corrupt scholar?
When the literary masters of the previous generation give up their writing due to aging, who should take over for the future literature of this country?
How can something that even the young people in this country are unwilling to watch become an international and historical classic of the times?
When I was a child, I admired Liu Wenyang and regretted his untimely death. The stories written by young creators are difficult for mature creators with life background to write, and they should be indispensable in the entire field of literary creation.
of a link.
We should not make a sharp distinction between Internet literature and literature, but we should not do nothing to allow the vast majority of Internet literature to directly become "historical" and "classic" ancient literature. At the same time, we should not do anything to
Pretending to “de-entertain” online literature is as foolish as my uncle’s “de-two-dimensional” approach.
Compared with the works of more than ten or twenty years ago, "Lord of the Mysteries", "Sword of the Dawn", "The Last Fire", "Death on Mars", "Afterglow" are excellent online works of the new generation.
, can already take into account both literature and entertainment. Readers also prefer stories that touch people's hearts and have a complex humanistic core. This is the optimization of the market.
This must be a process of gradual change and gradual evolution.
Its end will not be in the hands of the writers of the previous generation, nor in the hands of the writers of my generation. It will always get better, and we are on the way.
With the development of online literature, one day classics such as "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" will be born from online literature. And all we can do is to build such a soil and wait.
With such flowers blooming.
My creative ability is far from comparable to the above-mentioned outstanding authors, so I have no choice but to boldly show off my ideals - but then again, it is better to have ideals to show off than to have nothing to say or no dreams to sell.
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It will be released tomorrow, at least an update of 10,000 words or more!
I hope you can place an initial order and support Ah Mao.
