Chapter 4 Chapter 2 Writing Theory

speak of One of the most famous chapter-length novels of gods and monsters in China is "Fengshen Bang".Taking Tang Xuanlei as the main character, "Fengshen Bang" takes Zhou Wuwang's extermination of Zhou as the subject matter of the performance. Although it lacks authenticity, it is somewhat attached.Huanzhu Louzhu's novels of ghosts and ghosts are completely divorced from the official history, and are completely based on his own fantasy.Using the scope of gods and monsters for comparison, "Fengshen" and "Journey to the West" are still small gods and monsters, while "Shushan" is the big one.After watching "Shu Mountain" and "Journey to the West" and "Fengshen", I feel that the use of ink and ink in "Journey to the West" and "Fengshen" is not free enough, the range of mysteries is not wide enough, and the application and arrangement of magic weapons are not novel enough; all in all, I feel a little restrained.At the same time, I also feel that "Shu Mountain" is not without a sense of informality, and it is unavoidably a bit chaotic.His pen for writing novels is like an angry horse, who has been whipped, the horse neighs, and immediately dances its legs, as fast as electricity, and rushes towards the future of thousands of mountains and rivers. I just feel that the smoke and dust are rolling all the way, and the dust heads can't stop rolling towards the high mountains and deep waters.The impatient person said: "Horse, horse, stop the gallop, and rest your feet." The horse was in full swing, slid along its legs, still raised its mane and hooves, and went up to the high, deep, middle and deep place, Juechen gallop away.

Huanzhuzhuzhuzhu is really a great writer. Judging from the literary spirit of his works, tens of thousands of words poured down in one breath. There is indeed a grand and magnificent posture of the Yangtze River, raging waves, and torrents.It is not easy to perceive the vast and vast atmosphere in other chapters of novels.However, he doesn't have much of the detailed expression of Cheng Cheng's careful consideration in other novels.Although the works from "Shushan" and the following are in the chapter style, the signs of chapter chapters are very vague. Most of the first chapter and the next chapter are cut off abruptly, and there is no intention of "blocking" the small works.In fact, one episode can be said to be equal to one episode, but formally there are several episodes in one episode.Probably because of the above relationship, when reading his text, he swipes the pen smoothly, very courageous; looking back at him, he has some words carefully, and the scratches are quite deep, which seems to be very cautious.

Writing novels of ghosts and ghosts is entirely based on mystical imagination. In terms of both quality and quantity, no matter before or now, there is nothing more colorful than Huanzhu Louzhu. Although "Journey to the West" and "Fengshen" are also gods and monsters, their nature is still quite different from him.Furthermore, the mountains, rivers and topography in "Shushan" and other works are inseparable from the recent reality, and the research of modern science is often used through his magical pen, which is even more different from the previous ones. Where ghost novels are different.

As I said before, Huanzhu Louzhu's ghost novels are mixed and impure in nature, not only in philosophy, but also in deeds.Often at critical junctures when gods and monsters are overwhelming and uncontrollable, very realistic materials are inserted, which must not be regarded as gods and monsters.There are good articles in it. I really like the passage in the first chapter of the thirty-fourth episode, which talks about the two daughters Xie Lin and Xie Ying destroying the demon boy who played tricks on Chuanjiang tracker.Selected to be excerpted below: Like the above paragraph, it is completely realistic material, faithfully described, and it is very touching.Anyone who has been in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and has entered and exited Sichuan through the waterway must understand that this is not a lie.This is a great article!

However, such realistic materials, once embellished with the pen of Huanzhu Zhuzhu, become supernatural.He has his "history", he has his "story", he has his "reason", he has his "reason", and he speaks clearly and logically, so that you can see it pleasingly.There is a passage in Chapter 2 of Thirty Episodes, as follows: The enemy of the red-haired ancestor above is called the old man Kuzhu. This is a paragraph sandwiched between lively texts describing fighting techniques, almost "explanatory" texts.The story is not in a straight line with the "Tracker" section quoted earlier.After his explanation of the real situation of the dangerous shoal in the Chuan Gorge, it is also "plausible".Therefore, in Huanzhuzhuzhu's writing, "Gods and monsters are not necessarily gods and monsters"; in reverse, it means "there are no gods and monsters that are all gods and monsters".

Huanzhuzhuzhuzhu’s works capture the magic of readers, and they often use horrific descriptions to oppress readers’ emotions: "Is it scary enough?" "Not enough." "The ones who are afraid are still behind!" When the extreme tension is described, it really has the magic power to overwhelm you.However, no matter how rich the fantasy in your mind is, how overflowing the mysteries in the stories are, and how unbridled and fierce the writing force is, under the long narration of millions of words, you must always take one step at a time like climbing a mountain on flat ground, step by step. Forced, faster and faster, never slack half a step, making the tension between the words infinitely progress, in fact there is no such kind of writing power.Although the Master of Huanzhu is extremely capable of doing this, it is inevitable that there will be times when the tightness turns loose.

At that time, after the bloody turmoil, the wind and rain will suddenly be cleared up, and a "other world" will come.Or talking about love, or appreciating the moon and tasting flowers, there are also good articles in it.I think there are often good articles about his landscape writing. They don’t have to be viewed side-by-side with the stories of gods and monsters, but they are still very moving. Now I record a part of the second chapter of the first episode as follows: The scene description above is completely the scene of the human world.In all the works of Huanzhuzhuzhuzhu, this kind of description is not as good as the description of landscapes with the nature of gods and monsters.In the description of the ghostly landscape, in addition to blending what is obtained from the usual observation of the real situation, it must be matched with the fantasy in the author's mind.An excerpt from the first chapter of the twenty-five episodes is also excerpted below:

Like the paragraph quoted above, it has shifted from the world to the world, and the flavor and description of the reality are completely different.Although it is nonsense, it is impossible for an author who is not a writer with hills and valleys in his chest and a pen full of smoke and clouds to write it. "Shushan" and various episodes contain many descriptions of imaginary landscapes. The passage quoted here is not the best work, and I am too lazy to look through the books carefully. When it comes to the description of love disputes, in the book, the author seems to be particularly focused on the story of Ouyang Shuang and Huang Wanqiu's two daughters competing for their lover Xiao Yi. .The original text is too long, if you cut out a section, you won't see much meaning, and the rest of the short parts are not harmful, and I'm too lazy to search, so I won't list them here.

According to my point of view, in Huanzhuzhuzhu’s novels, horror is the first, scenery is the second, and love can only be the third.However, there is a common point in love between men and women: he writes about Buddha, immortals, demons, and demons, so much so that when he writes about saints and sages, he treats them equally in love disputes, and they are all under the word "evil fate". Giving it to the "mandate of heaven" is not particularly contemptuous of a certain aspect, and it combines saints, sages, immortals, Buddhas, and demons into one.Judging from the surface of Huanzhu Louzhu's novels, he is an "ascetic" person, but if you look for it from the evolution of the novel, you can find a "love supremacy".Therefore, in his works, the "love" of men and women and the "desire" of men and women are regarded as two extremes, which can be absolutely separated and not mixed.And the point of divergence between the two roads of heaven and hell starts from this juncture.This theory of alienation of spirit and flesh is still consistent with the philosophy in all his novels.The main meaning of his novels is to affirm that the "soul" is supreme, and even write the soul as something that can recognize its traces. The soul can exist after the death of the body. .When the two sides are fighting, the "primordial spirit" rises from the body cavity, or the body cavity has been destroyed by the enemy, the primordial spirit escapes and finds a good "hut" to be revived, these are very common things in Huanzhuzhuzhuzhu's writing.From this, it can be deduced that his "view of love" is naturally on the opposite side of the theory of the unity of the soul and the body, and the conflict between the soul and the body is used as the philosophical basis for describing the love between men and women.He does not sing the praises of the combination of "the order of the parents, the words of the matchmaker" in the novel. On the contrary, the encounter of the couple is in line with the way of free love.The difference is that his works, no matter where they are in reality, have a kind of surreal power shrouded in the void, and the evolution of reality is controlled by the nameless power of surrealism.Therefore, the free love in his works is formally excluding the third party to join in and make a reluctant match. If you look to the root, it belongs to "fate".

The text in the first chapter of the twenty-five episodes quoted in the previous section is of course also a kind of illusion, but it is still a description of the static beauty of the scenery. It is closer to the reality that we can see when we travel in mountains and rivers, it is an illusion rather than an illusion.Master Huanzhu created bizarre and bizarre illusions in his novels, and described them in horror, adding to the color of gods and monsters in his novels is his best and most touching "stunt".It would be impossible to write without a mind like his, which is full of "mysteries and fantasies".In the second chapter of the fourteenth episode, "An Le Island was caused by a volcanic eruption, resulting in a tsunami and land sinking", is really in full swing, and the vivid brushwork is clearly a fiction of Xiangbi, as if there is a truth that has been heard and seen.An excerpt follows:

Like the paragraph above, its intention is not to exaggerate the soft beauty of nature, but to exaggerate a kind of violent power in nature.There are quite a few writers who have benefited from this kind of terrifying illusion in Huanzhu Loulou's novels of gods and monsters.In the seventh chapter of the fourteenth episode, he has a descriptive text with the North Pole as the location.He said that at the North Pole, there is a land called Yueer Island in the water. There is a deep and wide fire cave on the island. There are many "magic treasures" with incredible power hidden in the cave. Several swordsmen went there to explore and obtain treasures.It is written in the book: Fantasies about the Arctic region are very rich in Huanzhuzhuzhu's mind, and very hard-working words often appear in his novels.Moreover, not only are some plausible descriptions of illusions, but there are also records of the nature of textual research (I don’t know whether there are Taoist classics as evidence)--of course it is also a lie, but it is also very interesting, and it is very interesting.Here is an excerpt from a passage that is still about the Arctic: Like the above paragraph, of course, it cannot be checked with "historical relics" as a criterion, so I won't say much here. In addition to the creation of illusions, the creation of illusions also contributes to the creation of an atmosphere of terror.Here I attribute the natural aspect to "environment", and the biological form to "phase".There are often monsters, strange birds, strange fish, strange insects, monsters, strange air, strange wind, strange rain and strange clouds in novels.Strange fog, etc. appeared, and the form was not comparable to the live broadcast.Now we only talk about weird people, that is, so-called monsters.When he writes about "decent" people, their appearance and actions are quite similar to ordinary people; when he writes about "cult" people, it is different, as soon as they appear, they give readers a sense of terror.The second chapter of the thirty-fourth episode describes a seductress named Wutoupo, whose image is as follows: According to several readers who have read it, they feel that the most terrifying and moving character description is the green-robed patriarch in the book.I mean the same thing.Huanzhu Louzhu's writing about the green-robed ancestor is not only terrifying in image, but even more terrifying in character. From rampant and domineering to failure and death, there is no part that is not written with nervousness, which is simply "horrible".When it comes to the moving power of character description, the original horror of form is by no means as "profound" as the horror of character.The thrillingness of the green-robed ancestor is entirely due to his violent personality, and the description of the brutal behavior performed by the violent personality has little to do with the image.The original text is no longer reproduced here. In the previous section of "Gods and Monsters and Not Gods and Monsters", I have already mentioned the place where the Zhuan Zhulou's novel "is not strange, strange but not strange", and what I said belongs to the narrative of "deeds" in the novel. About "magic weapon".In fact, many "spells" and "arrays" are ever-changing, and their mysteries and magic are often strange but not surprising. The description in this aspect is different from physics and metaphysics.Similarly, in terms of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, they are based on physics, and they are only superficial theories that water can extinguish fire, fire can boil water, and so on.The most magical part of the book that attracts readers is the description that belongs to this aspect.Through the brains and pen and ink of the master of Huanzhu, an unbelievable story of ghosts and ghosts is produced.For those superficial physical functions, readers consciously have experience and impressions in real life. Therefore, even though Huanzhu Zhuzhuzhu wrote the sea and the sky, he can still have a sense of intimacy, and it is not absolutely against nature.When he deifies water, fire, wind, thunder, ice, snow, rain, hail, mountains, clouds, fog, sun, moon, iron, magnetism, earth, wood, stone, etc. The nature of a natural object is still completely preserved, and there is absolutely no "slander". There is a limit in "absurdity", so that readers are willing to accept his absurdity.Here, we might as well set a certain writing principle for the supernatural novels of Huanzhu Louzhu as follows: Incorporate the role of physics into the application of metaphysics; in other words, it is the metaphysics of physics and the physicalization of metaphysics. Mixing physics and metaphysics is the reason why Huanzhuzhuzhulou's novels are mysterious."False" is called "truth", and "truth" is turned into "mystery", so it seems to be true, doubtful and illusion, "non" comes from "is", "illusion" comes from "truth" Transformation, the mysterious role in this novel, produces the magic power to attract readers.In the novel, Huanzhuzhuzhu hates the "demonic way" very much. In fact, the fascinating power of his novels also has the effect of the demonic way. Smile. Magical treasures and formation diagrams based on metaphysical principles are close to the talk of quack warlocks, burning alchemy and refining medicine, invigorating the soul, nourishing yin and yang, and dividing the body and spirit.That's not necessarily physical.If it is attributed to philosophy, there is no system to find, so it can only be regarded as metaphysics. Now from the forty-eighth and forty-ninth episodes, the physical basis of spells is listed as follows: Upright sword celestial beings Su Xianxiang, Chen Yan, Li Hong and others broke through the thirteen evil formations on Treasure Island, and drove "Dunguang" all the way to the North Sea. The crystal wall tunnel of gold and silver sand stands on the tunnel, rushing in through the tunnel, and inadvertently alarmed a narcissus who was submerging in the sea: the apprentice of the jellyfish Jixuan, named Jiangyun Master Lu Xun, so that caused a struggle.The magic weapon that Lu Xun cultivated is called "Guishui Thunder Bead". It is said that it is extracted from a large amount of seawater essence.The shape is like a blister, white and transparent in color, the larger one is two chi in diameter, and the smaller one is the size of a wine glass.When practicing the method, there are countless groups of white shadows, with faint water clouds inside, spinning like flying, with different speeds. The author of Huanzhu wrote that the power of Guishui Thunder Pearl is as follows: Since Guishui Thunder Pearl is so powerful, how can it fight against the enemy?It is written in the book: The situation of the struggle between the two sides is as follows: At this point in the struggle, the chance of victory or defeat has been seen, but the principle of mutual restraint between water and fire is by no means so simple, and then the battle situation changed again.It is written in the book: The struggle process in the original book is of course not as simple as the paragraphs quoted above. Here I only want to show the physical role of water and fire, so I won’t say much.A few excerpts now belong entirely to metaphysicians to show. A passage from the third chapter of the fifteenth episode, which breaks through the Shensha corridor of Ziyun Palace, says: Also, in the eighth chapter of the sixteenth episode, Yi Jing first explored the magic wave pool, and there is a passage saying: Also, in the second chapter of the thirty-three episodes, the demon corpses in the phantom wave pool are fighting with the invading enemies. There is a passage that says: The paragraphs quoted above are all based on "two instruments", "five elements" and "five phases". "Bagua", "Nine Palaces", "Da Yan" and so on are all abstract "empty words" and have no experience in our actual life, unlike "Guishui Leizhu", "Qingyang Jinlun", " There is a physical basis for the power of "Tianyi Xuanbing" (the ice melted by the spell of jellyfish in the book, named Tianyi Xuanbing). Huanzhuzhuzhu's novels have a strong Chinese flavor no matter in terms of writing style, structure or thought.Although he quoted the principles of sound, light, electricity, magnetism, etc., it is still very simple and simple. He dragged science into metaphysics, and did not accept science positively. The quality is the same as "Chinese style". Especially in terms of writing style, he is as conservative as he is, and there are not many gentlemen who write novels today.He will never find half a sentence of Europeanized syntax, and there are almost no new nouns.It is not pure classical Chinese, nor is it pure vernacular. Classical Chinese and vernacular are often mixed with each other, with short sentences and simple rhetoric. "Long Eyebrow Real Person Collection" (the first edition in September 1937, which can represent its recent style) wrote in the third chapter of the first episode: This paragraph of words is simple and close, which can be regarded as vernacular, but it has been quite "classified". At the beginning of the third chapter of the first episode, he wrote: Almost nine-tenths of this is classical Chinese, but it is written very plainly, flowing down naturally like water, without traces of artificiality, and classical Chinese has become "vernacular". The sentences in Huanzhuzhulou's novels are mostly four to six or seven characters each, and there are not many sentences beyond the cross.Within a sentence, he doesn't mean to make a turn; unlike some gentlemen who write Europeanized Chinese articles, a long string of dozens of characters makes a sentence, and the meaning is nine twists and turns, which makes people used to reading old Chinese novels. Those who cut to the chase with syntax feel out of place. When it comes to structure, the host of Huanzhu only pays attention to the "joint" of each section and the next section of the story, and does not seem to pay much attention to the deliberate management of "looking forward and backward" between the beginning and the end of the whole story.He pays attention to the linear structure, so one section is tense and the other section is tense. After watching the front section, you must look at the back section.Don't pay attention to the "criss-cross and horizontal" structure.Therefore, his works are often like the Yangtze River, pouring down.People who read it have a feeling of wanting to stop, and those who write seem to have a tendency to want to stop. In terms of attracting readers, Huanzhuzhuzhu's novels are very similar to storytellers who speak "Pinghua" in the bookstore."Artists" who speak plain language often don't always tell the whole of the book they are talking about.For example, "Three Kingdoms" can start from "Changbanpo", "Shuiyou Zhuan" can start from "Jingyanggang", and "Three Kingdoms" talks about "White Emperor City", or "Water Margin" talks about "Zengtou City" , Let’s not talk about “cutting books”.Therefore, there is no need to study the complete structure of the book at all.On the contrary, whenever a book "falls back", it must be "sell it", and "close" this one and the next one like a lock and key, so as to catch the audience.Huanzhuzhulouzhu's novel ends at the end of each episode, and it is often the same. The end of the first episode of "Long Mei Zhen Ren Special Collection" is as follows: "You must know that Chang Mei Zhen Ren learns from a teacher, Zheng Yin meets a witch by chance, makes a big fuss in West Kunlun, refines blood nerves together, fights double pills with two swords, and is the son of the god of crossing blood seven times. , there are many thrilling, novel, evocative, and painful plots, please wait for the next episode to break them down."