Chapter 7 To Future Writers

The planning of this manuscript was originally a collection of lectures held in 2004 at the Tokyo Bunkyo Ward Citizens Center and the Hiroshima Prefectural Citizens Cultural Center Public Hall. In addition, due to the invitation of many newcomers recently, I held a small question-and-answer meeting in the conference room of Nanyun Hall.Discussed with the newcomers who are aiming to make their debut about Benge or the creation of mystery novels based on Benge. Nowadays, many newcomers who want to debut as writers and continue to write are lonely, have no good partners to discuss, and can't see working editors and writers, so they can't get practical answers.And even if there is a chance to ask them questions, they will basically not ask special basic questions such as what paper to use for the original manuscript and what to use for taking notes.According to my past experience, in fact, many people still don't know this kind of special basic question.In this small venue, it is very necessary and meaningful to have a long talk with everyone.

In addition, I also received some questions about creation on my homepage, and collected a lot of Q&A through the website; after the lecture, I also heard many questions about creation at the venue; Magazines and other media have introduced me and made special episodes about me.In Taiwan, I also received all kinds of questions, many of which were related to creation.All the questions received through the above-mentioned channels have been added to the record of the Nanyuntang Creation Q&A Session.Therefore, the Q&A of this creation quiz was not accomplished overnight. It was originally planned to put the question-and-answer collection after the lectures and present it in the form of an appendix, but after looking at the Q&A collection, I found that talented writers can immediately enter the creation and collect materials after reading the Q&A collection.These words are more important than the content of the speech for the precarious Japanese reasoning field and even the Japanese publishing industry.So the record of the question-and-answer session was brought to the fore, and the transcript of the speech appeared in the form of an appendix.

The content of the speech was an explanation of the slightly special history of mystery novels in Japan, and the importance of the concept of "honga" on top of this.At the same time, there are also the writing experience and methods of inspiration about Benge mystery novels.It is not so much a nutrition book by this author as it is to make people feel happy.This book is a guidebook for writers of original mystery novels. I now live in Los Angeles on the west coast of the United States. Although there are large bookstores here, due to the impact of online shopping, there are fewer and fewer physical bookstores.The streets are full of big malls with DVD rental shops, but not many bookstores.Various past experiences have shown that America's present can reflect Japan's tomorrow.So from then on, I began to worry that Japanese bookstores would also encounter the situation in the United States.

The preferences of the Japanese intelligentsia are constantly changing.In the Edo period, the mathematics book "Dust Tribulation" was the best-selling; then "Mind Gymnastics" was also a best-seller; the end of the last century was the era of the explosion of mystery novels.In the second half of the last century, when there was no war or poverty, people had a strong desire to buy books that could stimulate their minds and wisdom, so mystery novels were all the rage.And once the development of mystery novels is slow and there is a recession, the Japanese book circulation organization will be depressed again.

Today’s young people spend more than half of their pocket money on mobile phone bills, most of their spare time is spent on computer games, and the rest of the time is spent watching DVDs and traveling, and their reading is basically magazines and comics, which they will buy in bookstores There are only bestsellers that have seen promotional information.If things are as serious as they say, then the twenty-first century is indeed on the verge of crisis for the publishing industry for the first time since Edo. The era when people go to the library or bookstore to read their favorite books has passed, and everyone is used to the life of obtaining information through TV.In this era, books are no exception.If you want a book to sell well, you have to appear on TV and arouse discussions. Novels are gradually becoming an accessory to video performance.People are unwilling to read, so no matter how much copywriting is used to promote it in publications, it cannot be passed on to readers.If this pessimistic situation is true, then the situation in the United States is more normal.And the fact that the publications here are still struggling may be something we should be secretly happy about.

Starting from the status quo, today's suspense mystery novels need talent more than ever.As mentioned earlier, this book provides roughly all the information for those who write this mystery novel.Many of these in my questions and answers can serve as references for today's fiction writers. I have done what I can, and now I am waiting for the masterpiece of talent.And it is none other than you, who is reading this book, who wrote this masterpiece. I have served as a judge for the Newcomer Award, and through the Newcomer Award, the newcomers can have a wider stage after jumping over the dragon gate.And I'm right here waiting for you.I hope that my ideas can convey your passion for creation and burst out brilliant sparks.

Finally, a supplement is made to the important elements of the mystery novels that are not fully described in this book, and this is the end of this speech book.Please read these contents carefully, it can be a reference for your future creation. It is the works of American writer Van Dyne that determine the type of pure detective novels in Europe and the United States and influence the current form of Japanese mystery novels.For how to increase the birth rate of masterpieces of reasoning works, Van Dyne conducted in-depth thinking and put forward specific plans with his own works.The specific plan is in "Green's Murder Case" and "Bishop Murder Case".

Green's home is located on Manhattan Island. In 1920, in the spacious and bright Manhattan, there was an enclosed space surrounded by lush trees.Deep in the dark gatepost, there is a stone building entwined with vines.The suspicious-looking people who live there are swaying in the light that streams through the windows.Then, as expected, a strange murder occurred in this building.In order to solve the case, a detective was invited from the outside—a detective who purely used reasoning, and finally found out the criminal.After the explanation of the unclear criminal motive at the beginning, although unexpected but extremely reasonable-this is the story of this form.

As if a new dish is placed in a finished vessel, Van Dyne continues his creation.At the same time, he also proposed not to add ambiguous emotional elements such as love to the works; it is best to have only one prisoner; murder is an absolute element in a novel; readers cannot be deceived; supernatural powers cannot be used and other more detailed rules.This is the code of mystery novel known as "Twenty Van Dyne". The spirit of Twenty Chapters can be summed up as "logical".Van Dyne told the authors that under these constraints, they should be able to present the logic of reasoning more effectively and perfectly.Van Dyne is an elite graduate of a prestigious school and an art critic, so it is not surprising to propose such a structure.Pure mystery, as well as his own book of fine arts, tidied up the genre as adequately.This is undoubtedly a great achievement.

From today's perspective, it is almost comparable to the huge transformation from "ideogram" to "ideogram".It is the ultimate restructuring of the English circle, breaking down and rearranging the independent literary elements discovered by the geniuses in the past, and then abstracting them into modules that can be used by any author other than poets.In this way, a kind of democratic new literature in the field of mystery novels, completely different from Edgar Allan Poe and Conan Doyle, was born in the United States. After that, John Dickson Carr and Ellery Quinn were both influenced by Van Dyne's rules and quickly became masters of mystery novels.Mr. Yokomizo's in Japan also learned this genre very well.

But there is something more important.The Japanese writer Saburo Koga, who was contemporary with Van Dyne, regarded the brand new detective novels written according to Van Dyne's 20 novels as the detective novels of "Benge", and thus invented the special term "Benge".At this point, Japan's "benge detective novel" was born. Koga advocated the "original style of writing" at the time, and believed that the mainstream Ranpo school's mischievous writing style was not the real Japanese style, and writing mystery novels should be as proposed by Van Dyne. However, the Japanese literary world did not form a confrontation between the "original style" advocated by Koga and the "bending style" advocated by Ranpo, but evolved into a confrontation with the "literary school" advocated by Mu Mutaka.The explanation of the reasons and the claim of this frame became difficult for Koga to explain.The crux left here, after superposition of time, made it impossible to explain "what is the real thing", which eventually caused confusion and controversy in the Heisei era. In short, it was Ellery Quinn and others who were one or two generations behind the peak of European and American pure reasoning novels due to the appearance of Van Dyne, but in the final analysis it was the foundation laid by Van Dyne. After Saburo Koga, Japanese writers began to respect the Van Dyne genre and took it as an example.Japanese writers of detective stories are also scrambling to absorb the knowledge of Van Dyne's genre.Since the naturalism literature of Tayama Hanaburo, the Japanese literary world has developed very grimly, and it can be said that it has formed a fortress. Naturalist literature in Japan created a rich flow of works and gave birth to many brilliant works.Natsume Soseki and Akutagawa Ryunosuke of this school have slightly changed this, using egalitarian fantasy as a foreshadowing instead of completely copying the requirements of naturalism.Like Van Dyne's succession to Edgar Allan Poe and Conan Doyle, Natsume Soseki and Akutagawa Ryunosuke made minor adjustments and changes to the original genre. To put it bluntly, it is to cut voyeurism and unfortunate encounters into retail, and use the Japanese's sense of inferiority to do business.A twisted egalitarian fantasy sold on the cheap.There are even works in the form of wideshows.The critics completely ignored such articles and only commented on some Yangchun Baixue's style.The characteristic of Japan is that under the game of throwing and catching under the coercion of the system, people disdain it and have to learn a certain amount at the same time.With all the exhaustion that accompanies this process, the experience of war that eventually hits becomes the backbone of this literature.The sealed Abi called, the magma-like pain in the heart, and the twists and turns of the story are understatement.Half of Japanese literature is losing humor, tenderness and dreams. In other words, the reason why Van Dainliu is calm is because he is far away from the right and wrong in the Japanese literary world.A detective of the Van Dyne genre manages to reason while maintaining humor, fundamentally considering it a game.The crimes they write about are not out of poverty and misery, but more refined and game-like crimes.But in this impoverished Avici hellish country, it is inappropriate and imprudent to practice crimes that are divorced from reality.In Japan, where there is no jury system at all, the private detective itself is a ridiculous existence, and is regarded as something for children.Besides, the police officers in Japan are so superior that it is impossible to say that they are equal to detectives. The actual situation in Japanese literature is that it cannot completely adapt to Van Dyne's genre from beginning to end.Therefore, while absorbing the genre of Van Dyne, the official history of Henggou added the characteristics of Japanese literature, and obtained a compromise of Japanese style.The subsequent appearance of the socialist giant Seicho Matsumoto completely promoted the Japanese style. In this way, the Van Dyne flow, which our country has not been able to follow for a long time, was quickly solved by the pedestrians of Ayatsuji.After entering the Heisei era, Japan's "New Benge" faction finally correctly followed Van Dyne's proposition.Although in the United States, the birthplace of Van Dyne's style, works are gradually declining, but Japan has brought Van Dyne's style to the apex again after seventy years. The new character of Ayatsuji pedestrians has many conditions such as villas, closed spaces, strange occupants, and famous foreign detectives, but these are all available in Van Dyne's novels.The more important element in Ayatsuji's works is the symbolization of characters.It is at the heart of the creation, an element of which Van Dyne was unaware. The new book does not describe the background, personality, origin, etc. of the characters on the stage.Except that they are all written in Japanese, there is no overlap with Tayama Hanabou.As for the description, it completely abandons the negative technique of modern naturalism that uses human beings as pawns.The Van Dyne flow implied by the new book just caters to the computer game feeling that is gaining momentum, so it is very popular. In other words, I think that the new Benge is a large input of the Van Dyne flow that is seventy years late in our country.But it has a completely different process and spirit from Van Dyne, and it is a different type of Japanese-style deletion from Yoko Mizo-ryu, but it has also put in a lot of effort. The Japanese are very interesting.The Van Dyne stream is a non-literary genre, so for the newly flourishing Xinbenge, frivolous people label works that do not mark characters as heresy.The absence of elements such as villas, isolated islands, and secret rooms is allowed in the work, but as long as there are no signs of characters, it will be denied.This is an interesting pressure, and the citizens will create and feel the presence of coercion no matter where they are. For the Japanese film school, Van Dyne is a god and justice. "Benge", as it is literally, was started by van Dyne.So for them, Sherlock Holmes is not authentic.If you hear Japanese Honka-principles chanting "Back to square one," they're not referring to Poe or Conan Doyle, but to Van Dyne.It's a pity that this Van Dyne faction unknowingly runs counter to the real Van Dyne. They think Poe and Conan Doyle are unnecessary, and even have scruples about them.However, the charm of Sherlock Holmes has to be mentioned. He gallops on the prairie, has the foot strength of an athlete, sometimes has the masculinity of punching the prisoner with righteous indignation, and the chivalry of indisputable merit, just like the cartoon of Superman turned into a pommel horse tengu.Sherlock Holmes has a unique charm and style, and it takes a solid foundation to write such an outstanding work. In short, the Sherlock Holmes trend gradually receded, like water seeping into the ground, and people began to look forward to the appearance of the ruthless detective.Detectives add to the charm of scholars after they study hard.Although there are still Ellery and other protagonists of the same level sticking to the original line, most of them have lost their intimacy with readers because they are too pragmatic.It may also be related to this that people don't read much of Van Dyne's novels today. Of course I don't want to be in opposition to the fundamentalists.Although I say that it is necessary to break away from the Van Dine stream, I do not use this to deny the Van Dine stream.This is the same as every change of faction in the past. I think that the axis of creation will be exhausted without diversification. My proposition has not wavered in the past two decades.Later, I also had the idea of ​​returning to the "Wolongting Incident". The Q&A of this creation question meeting was organized by a friend who participated in the meeting, psychiatrist Akira Iwanami, and I am very grateful to him for his help. So, future writers, let's stop here!

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