Chapter 143 Answering questions from China Central Radio and Television University

In advance, I must first declare to everyone that what I am talking about here are all my own experience in the process of creation.These experiences may not be useful to everyone.Because everyone's life experience, creation experience, and various situations are different, everyone has their own experience and experience in creation.I am also learning from the experiences and experiences of others. Question: Could you please talk about how to observe life? Answer: Writers should adopt a positive attitude towards social life: one is to understand it and understand the complex situation of the entire social life; the other is to experience it.In fact, the whole process of a writer's in-depth life should be to understand, experience, think, and then enter the performance.My understanding is this. In the past, the so-called in-depth life was to go to a place for a long-term stay. I think this kind of long-term life has its benefits.However, in view of the fact that our country’s current social life is relatively complicated, and various systems and industries are widely infiltrated with each other, the way of understanding life should not be fixed, it should be comprehensively understood.For example, if you want to understand rural life, you move to live in a village. I don't think the situation you learn in this way is necessarily typical.This is a bit different from the 1950s. At that time, you went to a village and learned about the whole process of mutual aid and cooperation, and it was generally the same in other places.Now that the agricultural production responsibility system is implemented, it is different in mountainous areas and plain areas.The same is true in factories and other aspects of life, and the situation is different from one factory to another.Interpenetration of various systems is now more common.I once wrote an article on issues at the intersection of social life.I think that if you want to write about the countryside well, you also need to understand urban life; when you write about the city, you need to understand the rural and wider social life.I always feel that our works that reflect factory life have a relatively narrow life aspect.Why did this happen?Because most of it is about the life inside the four walls, or even a very narrow range of life in a workshop, which also reflects the narrow vision of the writer himself.Why do works with good industrial themes, such as Su's works in the 1950s and 1960s, and works during the economic recovery period, have a very moving power, and have attracted people from all walks of life to read and give praise?Because these works not only include factory life, but also describe other aspects of life; the characters in the works are connected with various aspects of society to express, and even under certain circumstances, the production process of the factory is not expressed at all.It is about the factory, but its scope of activity is all over the city, such as "The Jurbin Family" and "The Ershov Brothers", which reflect industrial themes, it largely puts the characters in the whole city. In the middle of social life, put it in the middle of this city life to express, and social life has also entered the scope of the factory.This kind of understanding of life is completely different from just understanding the life within the four walls. You should regard the life within the four walls as part of the life you understand, and you should broadly understand various phenomena of social life.For example, a worker is by no means just dealing with machines. He has family members, relatives, and friends, and he has connections with all aspects of social life. complex social life.If one day we write industrial-themed works that are pulled out from the four walls and connected with the life of the whole society, then the works will have a different look.Why are Jiang Zilong's works popular?It is not because it has broken this boundary to some extent. He writes about a relatively broad social life through factory life, which gives people a sense of majesty.The same should be true for writing works on other subjects.This is my first point.In addition, it is based on a broad understanding of social life that writers should experience it.The so-called in-depth life is not just a story - some stories can even be transformed into a novel - I think this kind of in-depth life is useless.

Writers must experience life, and this kind of experience must arouse their own heartstrings, instead of standing aside to observe, understand, interview, and record stories. The works written in this way will inevitably be dry.Shi's idea is that the so-called writing about the most familiar life and the most familiar characters is to write about the most familiar experience.This kind of experience does not mean that if you write a thief, you have to steal people, it is a very long-term accumulation.It is not just the experience of the external form of life, but the experience of emotions and feelings, the most subtle psychological experience, and these things are the most important and touching places in your works.The few works I have written are the result of my own long-term spiritual experience. The stories in the works are complete even before I start writing, and they can be fictional.But your feelings and experiences can never be fabricated.

It must be something you have personally experienced and felt, so that it can be real when you write it, and can make your fictional story a factual story.If there is no real psychological and emotional experience, if you are "separated" from the object you describe, then the original story will be written as a fake.So my understanding of in-depth life: the first point is to be broad, and the second point is to experience, not only the experience of the external form, but also pay more attention to the experience of psychology, emotion, and emotion. Integrate it with the experience of your own feelings and emotions.My "In Difficult Days" is about the state of hunger in 1961. You have to experience it yourself. What is "hunger"? When you are in a state of hunger, what is a potato digging out of the ground? Feeling?If you just write about the mood of other people digging potatoes out of the ground when they are hungry, it will not work from the standpoint of the third party.You have to have this kind of personal experience yourself, or transplant it with the mood of obtaining precious things in difficult times, so that you can write authentically and write differently from others.Let me use this small example to illustrate: pay attention to your own inner experience.Some people have a very narrow understanding of going deep into life, that is, to understand and record some materials, without paying attention to their own experience and feelings, which is not acceptable.In fact, the life shown by the writer is, to some extent, the life you have experienced yourself.The protagonists of the works of many great writers are, to some extent, the writer himself or his knowledge and experience of life, which is the reason.They imbue their own experiences into the protagonists they describe, so that they are deeper and more real-this is of course not writing their own reportage.From the protagonist in "Morning in a Place", to Nekhludoff in the novel, to Levin, there is Tolstoy's own shadow.Of course, your own experience is not only applied to one person, but can also be divided and applied to various objects you describe.Because the works have such requirements for us, I think that writers should be in a state of vigilance all the time in their lives. Something may be very common and ordinary to others, and it will not cause any spiritual reflection or refraction. , But for a person who is engaged in writing, he should arouse the police and automatically let his mental state enter the process of experience, and each such accumulation is a very precious thing.After a long time, your experience of various things has accumulated very profoundly, so that you may write more important works.It doesn't mean that you can write important works by storing a bunch of stories in your head.The above is my own experience and may not be useful to everyone.

Q: Please talk about the writer's sense of history. A: I think that some of our writers now take a less serious attitude towards the history of our country, society, and nation, including good, bad, smooth or crooked history, which is not acceptable.Of course, all kinds of people in society can have different views.But as a writer, we need to take a serious attitude towards the history of our country, society, and nation, including good and bad, including the history of the "cultural revolution". This is what we need for writing.We should understand it, analyze it, and even take a serious attitude towards mistakes.

Some people in society ridicule, satirize, and ridicule the wrong things in our country, society, and national history, and conversely dismiss the good things.In my opinion, this is a very serious topic for writers: one should take a serious, scientific and serious attitude towards mistakes, analyze and study them.A writer should adopt a "condescending" attitude towards history to understand it, analyze it, and study it.What I mean by saying this is because everything in history affects our real life today, which cannot be escaped.I think that while paying attention to real life, we should have a deeper understanding of the history of our country, especially modern history, because each of us is a product of a certain history. If you don't like something, you have to "like" it even if it is wrong, because you can express it only after you know and understand it.Some of our young writers now only focus on the future and foreign countries, but they don’t know much about the history of their own country. China—The state of Chinese consciousness flow may be different from that of foreign countries.Therefore, we must attach importance to history, and take a serious attitude towards history as we do towards real life.The reason why some works are relatively shallow is that they fail to consider and experience the content of life expressed in a long historical process.We should pursue works that have a huge echo, and this echo should resound through the past, present and future, and this echo can only be produced on the basis of a broad understanding of our country's history and real life.

Q: In the process of conceiving a work, what should I pay special attention to? A: Let me talk about two problems that I feel often arise in the process of conception.One is discussing the matter as it stands, grasping a problem, and wandering around in this small circle.What I mean is that if you grasp a subject matter, even if it is a small subject matter, you should consider it in a broad social and historical background, even if the background is not only in China, but also in the whole world.That is to say, after you have grasped a subject, try to put it in a very broad background to consider its meaning.The other one, when considered in the entire history of literature, is from two angles.Of course, my requirements are relatively high, and I can't do it myself, but we should do our best to do so.When writing to a certain level, in order to make a breakthrough in your own work, you should be stricter with yourself.Why are the short stories of some great writers recited all over the world?It is because it tries to summarize the broad social and historical background as far as possible, and has universal significance, rather than going around in small circles based on facts.In my opinion, a good work should be good in our eyes and good in the eyes of the whole world. It can be accepted and has an impact on the whole world.This is the case, for example, with some of Tolstoy's works.Of course, after we think about it in this way, it may be a nonsense work in the end, but as long as you think about it this way and work hard, then, nonsense is nonsense!What I mean is to try to make the work have a greater meaning, even if the final work is still small, it doesn't matter, we must develop such a habit of conception.

Let me talk about it later, in the process of conception, artistic fiction and artistic imagination should be fully developed.Sometimes, there is such a situation: you grasp a subject matter, it looks very good at first glance, and can be written into a work quickly, and even the editorial department may adopt it.However, don’t be too busy. Since you have such a foundation from the beginning, don’t rush to write it and hand it over to the editorial department. You should try your best to expand the subject matter and think again.You can repeatedly shuffle, rearrange, and reorganize the themes that you have arranged and combined to see if it can become another thing.Fully develop artistic fiction, artistic imagination, toss a few more times, maybe your work will become better, we have to develop a habit: toss yourself more, don't let yourself slide over easily, even though it is very painful experience.I have been tossing and tossing about writing for three years—this work was written in 1981, but I started writing it in 1979.I was very nervous going into the creative process, but when it was written, I tore it up because, well, I wasn't satisfied, even though it might have been published at the time.I even wiped it from my memory, never wanting to think about it again.I tried to write it again in 1980, but I didn't think it was enough. The relationship between many characters has not been intertwined. For example, Liu Liben has three daughters in the current work, but at that time there was only one Qiaozhen.Later I messed it up, thinking about whether there could be two or three, and what are the added characters for?They should all have some kind of meaning in the works, and these need to be thought over and over again.There is always a point in the ideation process when you feel more satisfied.We have to toss a few more times. The writer is actually a chief director. You have to arrange the relationship between the characters you designed a few more times, especially when you move it to the "stage", match the lighting and scenery, and the position of your characters. , Is the relationship between them appropriate?These have to be considered and adjusted to make your "stage" look impeccable.Don't rush, why?Because, in the final analysis, our works should be such works: to turn ordinary events and ordinary characters in life into events and typical characters of great social significance. This is the whole work of writers, so don't rush.This process is very troublesome. It is necessary to fully develop the artistic fiction in order to make the life reflected in the work more real, more typical and more meaningful. Only in this way can a profound theme be formed.For example, in Tolstoy’s, it turned out that what Tolstoy heard was a very simple story about a woman who wanted to divorce her husband, and there were only two or three characters, but Tolstoy developed full artistic imagination, artistic It is a fiction, casting his eyes on the entire Russian upper class at that time, and on various fields such as politics, economy, law, morality, religion, philosophy, etc., and connecting all the characters he is familiar with with the divorce incident of Anna.If the writer does not have such artistic imagination and artistic fiction, then he can only write a story about a woman's divorce, and there will be no such thing.The same is true, Stendhal heard about a criminal case - we can find many such criminal cases in the Public Security Bureau, and some stories are complete, as long as they write it out in one night, they can be published in newspapers.But Stendhal has done a huge job here—fiction, including the French society and the upper class at that time into this criminal case to make a fiction, making an ordinary criminal case into a huge social significance.I guess that Tolstoy and Stendhal had tossed fear not once or twice in the process, and Tolstoy made six or seven sketches about the relationship between characters, and each time was different from each other.Therefore, if we are not just playing around, but want to seriously engage in creation, and continue to do so, we must pay serious attention to the two major aspects of artistic imagination and artistic fiction in the process of conception.Of course, we are all just starting to write, but it is up to us to recognize this and find ways to pursue it.As for whether it can be pursued, that is another matter.But whether you pursue it or not is a very important question. When you start writing by hand, try to think as much as possible. According to your life experience, try to think in various aspects as widely as possible. Some thoughts can enter the work, which is the core of the work. Extraneous thinking is necessary, and it provides something to test your work against.

Q: What should be paid attention to when selecting materials? A: When you encounter a subject, you should immediately consider: What is the significance of this subject?Does it have a place to dig?And these must be based on an understanding of literature and history and an understanding of life.If you have what we mentioned above, then you will be sensitive to the subject matter. When you encounter a subject matter, you will immediately realize whether there is anything to be excavated here. Although it is huge and thrilling, but If you can’t enter into literary creation, then you can quickly throw it away and switch to other subjects.The selection of material is very important. If it is something meaningless, you can bury your head and write it for several months, exhausting you to death, and it is still meaningless.Therefore, you must be sensitive to the subject matter, and even some things that others seem to pay no attention to, because you find that there seems to be something remarkable in it, when others have not noticed it, you quietly pay attention to it.Sometimes, when someone else wrote it, I was surprised: I saw it too, why didn't I want to write it?Just because the above conditions are not met, a truly great writer can perform thrilling stories in ordinary daily life.From the perspective of literary history, if he only finds the stories of Liting from his life, no matter how many he writes, he is still a second-rate writer, such as the author of the Sherlock Holmes detective case.Indifference and indifference to life is fatal to a writer. A writer may look calm and stern on the outside, but he has a huge passion in his heart. Don't lock your heart very deeply, it should be open and sensitive, and you should think more about things that others don't take seriously.

Q: Could you please talk about your "In Difficult Days" and other works when they were conceived? Answer: Many of my works are because they aroused my strong emotional vibrations and vibrations, so I considered expressing my emotions and feelings, and then I started to find suitable ways to express my emotions and feelings .For example, in the difficult period of 1961, when I was in elementary school.My second relative was an old farmer who couldn't read a word.There are a dozen or so people in the family, who have nothing to eat and nothing to wear, and only one needs a quilt. They are completely in the state of "beggars".When I was seven years old, my family had no way to support me, so my father took me all the way to beg for food, and begged to my uncle's house, where he gave me to my uncle.The experience of living in poverty at that time left a very strong impression on me. Although I was only seven or eight years old at that time, that impression will never be forgotten.At that time, my father told me that he took me here to have fun and live for a few days.I knew that my father was going to throw me here, but I pretended not to know and waited for this day.That day, he told me that he was going to the last set and would come back in the afternoon, and we will go back to our hometown together tomorrow.I knew he was going to sneak away.I got up early in the morning, and my family didn’t know. I hid behind an old tree in the village, and watched my father sneak out of the village like a thief with a bundle in his arms through the misty morning mist, and crossed the big river. , got on the road and left.At this time, I had two options: one was to yell and rush down, desperate to go back with my father—I was only a seven-year-old child at that time, hundreds of miles away from my hometown, in such a completely strange place.I thought of the woods in my hometown where wild pigeon eggs were dug out, and the hillside where firewood was cut. I was very sad, thinking that my father had betrayed me...but I gritted my teeth and held back.So, I thought that I was old enough to go to school, and when I got home, my father couldn't afford me to go to school.Although tears flowed down my face, I gritted my teeth and did not follow my father.My uncle is also an honest farmer, and his family is also very poor, so he can barely pay for me to finish the elementary school in the village.I was in elementary school when I was in trouble, and sometimes my uncle couldn't even provide me with food, so I managed to finish elementary school by myself.When I was taking the junior high school exam, my uncle had already ordered me not to let me take the exam.But some of my close friends dragged me into the examination room.I think, even if I am not allowed to study, I have to prove that I can pass the exam.I took the junior high school entrance examination in 1963. In the works, I put the background in 1961, and I took the high school entrance examination.At that time, there were thousands of candidates, but only a hundred or so were accepted, and I was admitted.It was still very difficult in northern Shaanxi in 1963, but it was even more difficult in our family.After I was admitted to junior high school, my father found the labor tools for me and told me to chop firewood.I threw the rope and hoe in the ditch and ran to school.My father didn't bring me food, and a few of my good classmates in elementary school helped me finish junior high school. The whole third year of junior high school was just like what I wrote in "In Difficult Days".At that time, my class was a top class, and most of the students in the class were the children of cadres, and I was the son of a farmer. I suffered discrimination, cold reception, and warm and precious friendship.All of these left a very strong impression on me. Although this kind of emotional accumulation is far away, I always want to express it.In this way, I started to conceive.How to behave?If it is meaningless to write it as it is, or even counterproductive, I will consider: in such a difficult environment, what is the most precious?I think that is when others help me when I am in trouble.I remembered that at that time, my classmates (not female classmates of course, I wrote them as female classmates to make the work more colorful) saved food for me to eat, and many other things.In this way, the theme of the work is formed: in difficult times, people's hearts are so noble and beautiful, which in turn reflects today's real life, because today's real life just lacks these; Real life today is refracted.Through these, nostalgia for the past, and think about the relationship between people in our real life today.At that time, despite the poor material life and the gap between rich and poor, people were not spiritually indifferent, mutual friendship and care still existed, but what about today?Material life has improved, but the relationship between people is a little indifferent, and the heart is a little far away.So, even though I am writing about difficult times, my intention is obviously to reflect the real life of today.Maybe ordinary people don't see it so clearly, but writers must think about these, which must be considered in conception.At that time, when I wrote this work, I had an idea: to write about a feeling that is more beautiful than love.The theme is just that.Then think about how to arrange the plot.

When I was conceiving, I had the habit of putting things with strong contrasts together to form a contrast—the person who cared about me was the richest in the class, forming a contrast between the poor and the rich.If you consider the overall color, this side is bright, and the other side may be dark or a kind of projection. The theme, characters, and plot must form a strong contrast.This, too, was like this when I was conceiving.For example, Gao Jialin is very strong, but his father is weak.From the tower base to the tower tip, this contrast must be very strong, and every part must form a strong contrast.In this way, contradictions, conflicts, colors, and contrasts are naturally formed.Of the two women, Liu Qiaozhen is as pure as gold and as tender as flowing water, then Huang Yaping should be another type - if she is a city Liu Qiaozhen, then it is meaningless.Of course, all these things must be built on the basis of life.Even taking the theme as an example, a certain contrast must be formed, which is also dialectical.For example, from a social point of view, how does society treat depressed and lost young people correctly? Conversely, when society cannot solve these problems, how should young people themselves treat life and life correctly.This creates a cross-contrast.Even the plots have to be compared, for example, the first half is about the village, and the second half is about the city, which also forms a kind of contrast.Of course, this cannot be a mechanical understanding. What I mean is that when conceiving a work, in order to make the contradictions and conflicts more typical and concentrated, contrasts should be made in all aspects so that the contradictions can form conflicts.

Q: Is the so-called "suspense" in the work important? Answer: It is very important.Some works are "revealed" at the beginning, and readers will know the ending after reading one or two chapters.And you should have written it as In this way, there is a big turning point unexpected by the readers in the middle, and you can't let the readers feel this kind of change from the beginning.We must be good at concealing the development of plots and the development of conflicts.Some people lack these, so the works are very revealing and cannot catch people.If your work has many ups and downs, then when the first one is over, the reader's heart will be completely captured.For example, in "In Difficult Days", when the female classmate cares most about the protagonist, he thinks that his self-esteem is hurt the most.This ups and downs grabs readers to read on until the last ups and downs: readers think that he is definitely going back (there may be smart readers who feel that he will stay), but unexpectedly there is a fundamental change in the end. The works I write are often like this. The characters and plots take a 360-degree turn, and they often return to the original place in the end. It is in the process of this turn that readers think.Of course, this is only one method of conception, and other methods are also possible.The author should be good at concealing the meaning of the work and the relationship between the characters, don't get angry all at once, and only reveal it when it's time to reveal it.Of course, the conception of a work is a relatively complicated process, and everyone has their own conception habits. This is just my habit, and I cannot ask others to be the same.In short, the emergence of contradictions requires several more turns, not just one turn, which reflects the complexity of the contradiction itself.When considering a problem, you can consider it from this aspect, or you can also consider it from the reverse direction. Q: Can you talk about your experience in exploring the themes of your works? Answer: This question is very complicated, and the theme cannot be discussed in isolation. It must be integrated with the characters and the plot.When a writer conceives, the theme, characters, and plot are carried out simultaneously.If you can't write contradictions, you can't write characters, and you don't have a theme.Our current habit of thinking about works is often to have an idea first, of course, sometimes it is necessary to have no theme first.When we think about the habits of works now, we often need to have a thought first, of course, sometimes we need to have a thought first.The key is the relationship between the characters and the plot. If you handle the relationship between the characters accurately and have a typical meaning, then your theme will also have a typical meaning.If everything else is untenable, just a right or sharp thought will not do at all.The depth of the theme is inseparable from the depth of the characters and the depth of understanding of the entire social issue. Q: After the work is conceived, how do you choose the "cutting" part? A: For me, how to choose the beginning of a work is very difficult. Sometimes I write dozens of beginnings, but I am not satisfied.This "cut" is like the first note of the piece, which determines the key in which the work will be set.Generally speaking, short stories put the "cut-in" part in the second half of the contradictory development of things, and write about the part of life that is close to the ending, and insert the previous occurrence and development into the writing.What I mean is that the entry point of the novella is later than that of the short story. Generally, the part where the development of contradictions is about to reach the climax is selected as the entry point of the work.For example, before Gao Jialin was dismissed as a teacher, he also had a lot of life experience, but the work should take Gao Jialin's dismissal as the entry point.Because Gao Jialin's resignation has entered the climax of the development of contradictions, how he teaches, it is meaningless to write this in his works.No matter how good Gao Jialin's teaching is, if you write it into the work, you can read it, because there are no contradictions formed, and when Gao Jialin's teacher is resigned, all kinds of contradictions will appear suddenly, and it is close to the end part that determines the fate of this character.Of course, the work should be like this.When the epilogue writes about the low of the climax, it should hint at a new beginning in life.This is what Balzac did.But this is by no means to continue to write, but it must have some kind of hint.For example, when Gao Jialin threw himself on the ground and shouted, readers may feel a new beginning, but you don't necessarily have to write any more.Some works feel very narrow without any hint, as if the strings were broken suddenly with a sudden sound.The last note should be long and trembling, not snapping the string with a sudden sound.The broken effect is not good, just like a good song, it should be lingering, lasting for three days. For the next development of things, giving some kind of hint at the end will make the work more profound and the artistic conception wider . Q: During the creative process, are there any moments when you can’t make up your mind? Answer: Often.For example, the old man Zhong Deshun, I love him very much, I imagined that he should be romantic, just like the scene written in Aitmatov's novel: under the moonlight, he is driving The carriage, singing old songs, staggered across the vast prairie... When he appeared in the work, I didn't expect to write him better. Before I went to the city to dig out the dung, I Feeling pain, there is no way to write him down.Although other characters are beating in my pen waiting for me to write them, I can't write Deshun Laoliu. I always feel that he should have something to show here.I had a very miserable day on hold.At this time, I felt the optimistic attitude of the working people towards the land, life, and life. The chapter on digging the dung not only wrote about the old man in Deshun, but also brought other characters, such as Gao Jialin, into the fold. That chapter is a very important detail of Gao Jialin's character.At the beginning, I didn't pay much attention to the character of the old man Deshun, but in the end he became a very glorious character in the work.Although I haven’t finished writing the passage that the old man Deshun said at the end of the work—it’s written a little more “literally” and should be more “soily”, but I didn’t expect him to come up with some “questions” in the end. It surprised me.Therefore, when you feel pain in your creation, don't think it is a bad thing; this pain sometimes produces things that are more glorious than things that are produced in smooth times. Q: Did you change the original idea with the development of the plot and characters? Answer: Yes.As is often the case, there may sometimes be better discoveries that supersede the original conjecture. Q: So do you have an outline before writing?Has the outline changed? A: I had a rough outline, but when I entered the writing process, it might not be completely overturned, only the big outline remained, and all the specific assumptions may have changed.Once the characters get up, your original idea is useless, but the big outline often flows according to the context of your original idea.