Chapter 21 After the second book of "The Big Wave"

According to the original plan, it was only planned to be written in two volumes.But when the first volume was published, some friends kindly criticized: "After reading the first volume, it is like watching a big drama that is not well choreographed. But when the stage is full of characters, coming in and out, it is hard to tell who is the protagonist and who is the protagonist." It’s a supporting role. Even after the scene, I didn’t see any slow singing and dancing, which is leisurely and fascinating.” Some people criticized: “It’s not a play, but like a chronicle of the Sichuan Revolution in 1911. The characters lack flesh and blood. Angry, and the real situation of the society at that time was not adequately reflected. Calling it a novel, you should work hard to process it.” The third type of friend said: “The novel is a novel, but it is very loose and the structure is not good.”

My friends' criticisms are very pertinent, and I am grateful! The general reason for my committing these mistakes is that there are too many materials, and the cutting and alignment are inappropriate; the characters are almost indistinguishable from the master and the slave, and the development of the plot has unclear levels; Where there is visualization, there is no visualization.For example, in the first half, it reflects some social life at that time without haste, and some more details are written (some friends also criticize that too many details are written, which inevitably smells of naturalism).But in the second half, the gay club movement, which has entered the mainstream, completely writes about the debates at the venue from the front, and only uses very little pen and ink to write about social activities outside the venue.It had been arranged to write about the various activities of the Women's Gathering, Actors' Gathering, and Children's Gathering to increase the atmosphere, but in order to save space, I used a lot of foiling techniques (this is a technique worth learning in Chinese classical novels) ), one case was omitted; even the struggle between the revolutionary party, the constitutionalists and the reformers, which caused the differences between the comrades' association, was not described vigorously (only some supplementary descriptions were made in the second part), so that it was dryly made into a skeleton , and lack of vitality.

Therefore, at the beginning of March 1958, when I started to write the second volume, I felt deeply difficult.If it is written in the same way as the second half of the first volume, the failure will of course be even more severe, and the result will definitely be a dismal memoir.If you let go of your hands and write it as a novel, then you can write 300,000 to 400,000 characters, and you may not be able to write about the independence of Chengdu, the formation of the Han military government, and the beheading of Zhao Erfeng by Yin Changheng; how can you write before and after the unification of Sichuan , those intricate, conspiratorial tricks, fully expressing the difficult and thorough truth of the old bourgeois democratic revolution?Moreover, at the end of the first volume, the bloodshed in the Taiyamen is not comprehensive enough, and that incident can only be regarded as the beginning of the chaos in Sichuan.The people must go to Sichuan West Ba, the people rose up, and the Comrade Army took advantage of the situation and continued to clash with Zhao Erfeng's army, which made the ruling class of the Qing Dynasty scrambled. The strong army deployed defenses on the Sichuan-Hubei border, leaving Wuchang empty. The revolutionaries raised their arms and fired the first shot of the revolution on October 10th.This is a crucial political movement, and of course it will affect the social life and people's ideological trends at that time.You write about political changes, can you not write about changes in life and thought?You write about the pulse of life and thought, but can you not write about the pulse of politics and economy at that time?You must try your best to write the whole picture of the era, so that others can understand the truth of the history at that time from your pen.This is my understanding, and I made another plan for the writing method of the second volume.

Coincidentally, since May of 1958, I have been ill again.When I was seriously ill, the doctor strictly told me not to work, but to go to the park and sit quietly.It is inconvenient to go to the park; it is impossible to sit quietly; taking this opportunity, I brought out several Chinese and foreign ancient and modern tomes that I had read before to review.From this, I got a lot of inspiration and knew how to deal with the details.Fang does not think it is cumbersome and annoying; how should the interlude be arranged, sometimes it is logical to insert a small paragraph, and then review the main text, sometimes occupying a chapter or a few sections, it seems incoherent, but it is more in the main text. The pen, on the contrary, looks more glorious and moving.And the narration should also depend on the situation. Sometimes it is better to use a clumsy pen to narrate directly; .Although what I said above is only about writing skills and expression methods, it helped me form the outline of the second volume.Think silently, and write a second volume that is about the same length as the first volume, but it can only be written about Duan Fang leading troops into Sichuan and fighting with Zhao Erfeng; bleed.In terms of time, it was not long after the Wuchang Uprising on October 10.There is still a long way to go before the independence of Chengdu, the formation of the Sichuan military government in Chongqing, the killing of Duanfang by the Hubei army in Zizhou, the killing of Zhao Erfeng by Yin Changheng in Chengdu, the reunification of Sichuan, and the failure of the old bourgeois democratic revolution. pages.Could it be that I said before that only the first and second volumes were written, and that "the rest of the land is there" and "it's settled", so that the following themes are left to be cut off?I don't think so, and I'm afraid dear readers will not think so, either?Therefore, I Caishangzhi Writers Publishing House changed the current second volume to the middle volume, and then wrote another second volume.Unexpectedly, in October of this year, the Writer's Publishing House sent a letter saying that according to my information, whether a second volume can be accommodated is a big problem.It is better to use the current one as the second part of the first volume, then the second volume is not limited to one.Then, they wrote again, saying that it is better not to divide the volume at all, and just divide it into the first, second, third, and even fourth volumes; and when the volume is ready to be reprinted, it will be changed to the first volume.Ah also!This proposal is so clever!Why can't I think of this stupid guy?

Besides, this second part should have been written by the end of 1958.Even because of illness and poor mental health, I wrote more than 100,000 words in more than seven months, but more than half of them became waste products.After continuing to write in January this year, only less than 80,000 characters have been sorted out, and the remaining 180,000 characters are all rushed out this year.It's true to say rush, sometimes I rush to the dead of night and feel dizzy.It is said that it is a gift for the National Day, and I hope that all manuscripts will be delivered by the end of August.I myself have made up my mind to contribute this meager force to the party and the country.It's just that my writing level is not high. For each chapter of the manuscript, I have to write at least two articles, and sometimes I also write three or four articles.And the writing ability is not strong, so I have to concentrate and write for five or six days. Even if I don't delay due to work, I have to make an excuse to take a break.So by the end of November, although the full manuscript was ready, it was still a half-finished work; I still hope that dear readers, with the enthusiasm of criticizing the first part, will not hesitate to give solid advice so that I can start writing. In the third part, it was improved.This is by no means a modest statement as usual, it is my sincere statement.It's for me!