The novel has three main characteristics: first, characterization is the main means to reflect or express life; Second, there are more complete and vivid plots; Third, there are specific and typical environmental descriptions. Therefore, characters, plot and environment are called "three elements of novel".
The types of novels can be divided into novels, novellas, short stories and mini-novels. In writing, these four novels have different requirements. Short stories, for example, are relatively short in length and capacity, generally less than 20 thousand words and more than 2 thousand words. The characters are concentrated, the story is simple and the structure is compact. A typical side or fragment of life is often intercepted and described in a concentrated way to remind the meaning of social life. "It often has only one protagonist and one clue; Often only write what happened a few hours or a few days later, but let readers think of more future things. " (Mao Dun) Because of its glimpses of the whole leopard, Lu Xun compared it to "one carved column and one painted base" in Great Galand. For example, his Diary of a Madman, Storm, Blessing and so on. Another example is mini-novels, which are relatively short, tens of words, hundreds of words to more than 1000 words. The plot is single and there are few characters. It is based on a little thing in daily life, which includes praise or criticism or philosophy. For example, the Treasure Girl by hoshi shinichi, a modern Japanese writer, and the mini-novels by some contemporary writers in China. Novelist Sha Ting said: "I think the main difference between novels is not the number of words, but the method of expression." This statement has great guiding significance for beginners; If you want to write different kinds of novels, you must study them carefully and master their different expressions.
In writing, there are two specific ways to typify the characters in the novel:
One is to generalize, imagine and make fiction on the basis of a certain prototype in life, so as to shape typical characters. For example, the madman in Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman is based on one of his cousins. Lu Xun combined his daily experience in the dark society, transformed the content of the image of a madman, endowed the characters with profound social significance, and thus shaped the artistic image of a madman.
Secondly, on the basis of extensive concentration and generalization of many characters, typical characters are created. This is Lu Xun's method of "eclecticism and integration into one". When talking about characterization, Balzac pointed out: "In order to create a beautiful image, take this model's hand, another model's foot, this model's chest and that model's bone. The artist's mission is to inject life into the molded human body and turn the description into reality. If he just wants to copy a real woman, then his works can't arouse people's interest, and readers will simply throw this unadorned truth aside. "
Most of Lu Xun's characters are like this. He said: "There is probably some truth in what I have seen and heard, but I will never make full use of this fact, just take one end, transform it, or expand it until I can almost fully express my meaning." The model of the character is the same. No one is committed to this. Often the mouth is in Zhejiang, the face is in Beijing and the clothes are in Shanxi. This is a patchwork foot color. "("How do I start a novel ")
There are many excellent short stories in which the characters can't point out the prototype of life. It can be said that it is more difficult to shape the typical characters in this kind of works than to shape a prototype character. However, a true novelist must master this method of portraying typical characters. The above two typical methods of creating characters can sometimes be used in a work at the same time, that is, one method can be used to create a certain character image and the other method can be used to create another character image.
In shaping the characters in the novel, we should also pay attention to the following three issues:
(1) The characters in the novel are different from the real characters. He is the author's fiction, and this fictional character comes from the novelist's mind, and he is a "fictional" character with the author's flesh and blood, soul, personality and temperament. The characters in the novel live in the novel country, which is a world where the narrator and the creator are one. Foster, an English novelist, pointed out in All Aspects of the Novel that the characters in the novel have different characteristics from the real characters in the five main activities of life, such as birth, diet, sleep, love and death. As long as he knows them thoroughly, as long as they are his creations, he has the right to write how he wants. This shows that the characters in the novel are different from the real characters in life, because they are created by the author through imagination and fiction. To learn novel writing, we must first understand this problem.
(2) The relationship between the novel characters and the author is both contradictory and unified. Mo Bosang tells us in On Novel Creation that no matter what kind of characters the author writes, "we express ourselves after all", and "if we want to make the characters different, we have to change their age, gender, social status and our' self' living condition, which is naturally formed and has insurmountable organ restrictions." "This is a clever way to make readers unable to recognize this' self' under the various masks we use to hide it."
At the same time, Mo Bosang pointed out: "If we fully observe the characters, we will definitely determine their personalities quite accurately, so that we can predict their actions in different situations. If we can say,' A person with such a personality will do such a thing under such circumstances', we must never come to the conclusion that we can identify all the most secret activities in the character's own thoughts that do not belong to us, all the mysterious desires generated by instincts different from ours, and his ambiguous impulses determined by his organs, nerves, blood, skin and our special physique. " That is to say: the author creates characters according to his own artistic conception, but the characters remain independent from the author; The author repeatedly conceived art, modified his own character, and asked the characters to live and stand up, typical and individual; Once a character's character is formed, once he is alive and stands up, he will stubbornly think, speak, do, act and express his inner feelings according to his social status, living environment, ideological character and personal temperament. At this time, he often argued with the author to remind him how to describe him. In this case, the author's pen has to follow the characters' own actions to write. Of course, this kind of situation will only appear after the artistic conception is serious and profound, and it is impossible to write real novel characters hastily.
(3) The personality characteristics of the characters in the novel need to be reflected through real details. In novel creation, detail description is of great significance to the personalization of characters. The truly typical details are action, language, psychological activities and so on. Writer Serina Liu realized from his creation: "The details in a work are the soul of a work of art just like the cells of a living person, and the height and depth of the work are determined by the details." "It is difficult for a detail to constitute a novel, but it is often the lead or foundation of a novel." ("The first difficulty to overcome")
When learning novel writing, we must try our best to find such details-seemingly inconspicuous but important details. Because it is a typical figure in a typical environment, it is completed by many appropriate and powerful typical details. Only by organically linking and organizing many typical details can we achieve the purpose of describing typical characters from typical environments.
In addition, some writers often analyze characters by writing biographies. This kind of biography helps the author to master the character, and it can also be used by beginners when writing novels.
Verb (abbreviation for verb) conceives a story and arranges the plot. "Story is the root of a novel. No story, no novel. This is the highest element that all novels have. " (Amy Foster's novels) "The skill of a novelist lies in telling stories first." (Elizabeth Bowen, novelist's skill)
What's the story? "This story tells events in chronological order-Chinese food after breakfast, Tuesday after Monday, decay after death and so on. As far as the position of the story in the novel is concerned, it has only one advantage: it makes readers want to know what will happen next. ..... Although the story is the lowest and simplest literary style, it is the highest factor in the very complicated body of the novel. " ("Aspects of Emerson Foster's Novels", page 22)
However, beginners must understand that the story of a novel is very different from that of a general sense. The stories in the novel are all fictional, but this kind of fiction-fiction, because of the author's full imagination and clever organization, readers will feel more real and credible than the events in real life. Of course, thinking with imagination and making up stories are definitely not groundless. It is based on the contradictions and conflicts in real life to form the plot of the work. It selects the events that can best express the character's character from the complicated contradictions and conflicts and various life events, and forms an expressive plot after refined processing and transformation. This refined processing and transformation is the process of plot typification. It tells us that it is the basic principle of novel conception to make up stories according to the extracted themes and characters. To learn to write a novel, you must understand the plot and its difference from the story. What is the drama? Gorky believes that "the third element of literature is the plot, that is, the relationship between characters, contradictions, islands, antipathy and general interrelationships-the history of different personalities, typical growth and composition." (Dialogue with Young Writers) In other words, the plot is a series of life events around the characters' personalities and the relationship between them. Ai Mo Foster pointed out: "Plot is a higher-level aspect of the novel", "Plot is a logical aspect of the novel" and "Plot should also describe events, but it only emphasizes causality." ("Aspects of Novel")
The plot of traditional novels generally includes five links: breaking the topic, beginning, development, climax and ending. The plot arrangement of contemporary novels is no longer restricted by these links. If some of them haven't solved the problem, just write the beginning directly. Some can hint at the end in the climax.
When writing, the plot usually consists of scenes and clues. Scene refers to the specific contradiction and conflict in the novel at a certain time and place-the relationship between characters, which is a more concrete picture of life than events. Clues refer to things or events that run through the activities of characters to complete the development of the plot. Short stories are mostly a plot clue, and there are also two, one is the main line and the other is the sub-line; One is an open line and the other is a dark line. You need an "outline" to arrange the story and plot. Generally speaking, the Outline includes: 1, the list of main characters; 2. The gist of the story; 3. Important scenes; 4. The theme of the work; 5. Chapter structure. Although this kind of "memorandum" outline will be revised in actual writing, it is much better than no outline, especially for beginners to write novels. 6. Being good at telling a good story includes three elements: first, it must be simple; Second, it can arouse readers' wide interest; The third is to have a good start. The so-called good beginning is not only a question of structure, but actually a question of how to intercept the fragments of life and properly "cut in" the novel, and a question of the overall conception of the novel. A good beginning must be straightforward, introduce the characters and unfold the story. As for the ending, it is equally important in short story writing. This is because a good ending can improve and deepen the ideological significance of the work and strengthen the appeal and artistic effect of the work. At the end of an excellent short story, we should also pay enough attention to the narrative skills of the whole work-writing skills. Wang Meng pointed out: "The thinking is similar, relying on writing. Writing is more than just recording what you want. Fixation and writing are the most important stages of creation. It is in the process of writing that your thinking activities, emotional activities and inner activities are unprecedentedly active. " So, how to describe it? You can write like a chapter-by-chapter novel or like a letter; It can be described coherently or intermittently ... It should be noted that the narrative of short stories is very free.
How to arrange time in narrative is a technical problem, because: "Time is an important part of the novel. ..... time is as important as stories and people. " (Elizabeth Bowen, novelist's skill)
Pay attention to the following three points:
(1) The Novelist's Clock: One of the keys to storytelling is to be able to tell everything at the same time, not only to be proficient in history, but also to be familiar with the present and gain insight into what may happen in the future. In the author's narrative, all known and expected time is focused on the immediate events. In this process, the "Novelist Clock" reported different times at the same time. This kind of time shows that no matter how the story is conceived at the beginning, narrative always connects all the time like a flower tube. The simplest narrative is to mix all kinds of feelings, memories and guesses. One of the ways for a novel writer to arrange stories is to adjust the time ratio of each event. An important event can be written longer than the actual process; And the long history can be summarized in one paragraph. This narrative flexibility is one of the main means used by the author of the novel: to express the relative importance of each event with the proportion of time. In a way, novelists can turn time on or off like a fan when writing. Since every story needs a special way to calculate the time according to its own priorities, how the author calculates the time is very important.
(2) Time life and value life: In narration, the author of the novel sometimes sets the clock fast, sometimes sets the clock slow, and sometimes moves the pointer backward or forward, but no author can completely ignore the time sequence. Foster said in novels: "In novels, loyalty to time is extremely necessary, and no novel can get rid of it." This is because "daily life is also full of timeliness ... no matter what kind of daily life, it is actually the synthesis of two kinds of life-time life and value life-and our behavior also shows double loyalty. I only watched her for five minutes, but it was worth it. This simple sentence contains this dual loyalty. The story is about time life, but in the novel-if it is a good novel-it must contain valuable life. "Therefore, the narrative story can't live in a natural era, but should pay more attention to the value life of society, manage it with ingenuity and write a good value life.
(3) Micro-narrative and macro-narrative: The narrative of the novel should give readers a sense of history. Therefore, novelists should be responsible for history while arranging their stories in a specific time range. In other words, every detail of the novel scene, every fragment in the dialogue and every action of the characters in the book should conform to the background of the novel. In this way, there are micro-narrative and macro-narrative in writing. The so-called micro-narrative refers to "a series of events organized in time series"; The so-called macro narrative refers to "a fragment of history". These two narratives enable the author to correctly handle "the relationship between time arrangement, novel structure and historical prospect in the novel category." (Jonathan Leiban, Modern Novel Writing Skills)
(4) Three basic choices: In the arrangement of processing time, the author usually has three basic choices: First, according to the principle of "time consistency", the events in the novel are roughly the same as the reading order. The second is to tell the story by shortening or summarizing the time, omitting the years between the beginning or the end of the story. In this way, the reading time of readers is inconsistent with the action time of characters in novels. Third, the narrative is carried out in reverse order, and the reading time and action time are sometimes consistent and sometimes inconsistent.
(5) Narrative distance of time: Time not only plays the role of "director" but also plays the role of "suspense" in the novel. "In a novel we call serious, we also feel, or should feel, that the clock is ringing hour by hour and the calendar is turning page by page. In addition, time firmly binds readers to the grand' now'-you can call it a scene if you like-and these' now' are connected by some intermediate plots. We can travel through time, but now we must firmly grasp us at this moment. " (Irina Captier, Lova Bai Bowen, "The Skills of the Novelist")
Third, the writing of mini-novels.
Miniature novels are also called short stories, ultra-short stories and one-minute novels. In the past, it existed in the form of various short stories, but its later development made it an independent literary style, and its nature was defined as "a marginal modern emerging literary genre between marginal short stories and essays". Tolstoy said: "Short stories are the best school for training writers." (literature)
Japanese writer Hoshi shinichi pointed out: "Works similar to ultra-short stories existed a long time ago. ..... However, the official appearance of the name ultra-short story originated in the United States. " Most people admire the American writer O 'Henry (1862— 19 10) as the founder. His nearly 300 works have vivid plots and humorous styles. Among them, "The Gift of Maggie" has moxibustion crowds. It can be said that the ultrashort story has three elements: novel conception, rigorous plot and novel ending. In other words, within 1500 words, everything that an ordinary novel should have should be summarized. It can also be said that the mini-novel is a kind of sensitivity, which captures the novel from a point, a picture, a contrast, an exclamation and an instant-a kind of wisdom, a kind of beauty, an intriguing scene and a fresh idea.
The writing goal of mini-novels is four words: micro, new, dense and strange.
First, micro. Said space is small, not more than 1500 words. Therefore, we must pay attention to the conciseness of words when conceiving and writing, and do not allow redundant words and sentences in the works. Such as Mark Twain's "A Page in the Husband's Spending Book". The full text is only seven lines, but it has the whole plot of a novel.
Second, new. Refers to the novel concept and fresh style. Shinichi Hoshino tried his best to pursue "novelty" one minute after writing the novel. He wrote: "Some critics confuse my novels with American short plays, which is inappropriate. I was influenced by American short stories. But I didn't completely rely on it, but played my own unique style and skills. My novel emphasizes a' new' word, giving readers new themes, new knowledge and even surprises them! " To this end, he often uses fairy tales, fables, science fiction, reasoning and other techniques to reflect his unique feelings in real life and express fresh themes through unrealistic themes or realistic brushwork, such as his "Bao Xiu". Of course, the idea of mini-novels, like other forms of novels, is sometimes not clear at a glance, and sometimes it is not a theme, but diversified, which is ok. For example, Frederic Brown, a famous American science fiction writer, wrote an article entitled "The Shortest Science Fiction in the World": "The last man on earth was sitting alone in his room when someone knocked at the door ..." This is very unique and thought-provoking.
Third, secrets. It means tight structure. Structurally, the author of mini-novels should try his best to compress and concentrate the time, place and characters as much as possible, so that the structure of his works is concise and exquisite, just like micro-carving crafts. Therefore, we should work hard on material selection, tailoring and typesetting.
Fourth, odd. It means that the ending should be novel, ingenious and unexpected. The characteristics of miniature novels mostly lie in a "strange" word. Many excellent works by Chinese and foreign writers are often breathtaking in the end. For example, Shao Baojian's "Forever Gate" ended unexpectedly.
To treat the characteristics and skills of mini-novels, we should first understand and master them, practice hard at a higher starting point under the guidance of theory, and then use them flexibly, even without contact, so that they can play a role at any time in the subconscious. You can also imitate it. Copy forms and skills, carry forward the essence, induce them, strive for innovation and express their ideas. The above characteristics, especially "learning from others", have met some structural requirements of mini-novels. Here is another model for beginners to learn.
The mode is as follows:
From "love at first sight". There are three ways:
▲ Arouse suspense and interest. For example, the sentence at the beginning of "Clouds" is somehow uninteresting, and even the top of the mountain is covered by a cloud.
▲ Cut to the chase and enter the plot. Often the beginning is a dialogue between characters.
▲ Implicitly speaking, the winding path is secluded. Often describe the scenery, set off the bedding, have care and bedding.
There are three basic types of intermediate structures:
▲ twists and turns.
① Single-line twists and turns, full of twists and turns. For example, Wang's "Puffer Fish" describes the process of a farmer who committed suicide because of poverty in the social background of the 1920s and 1930s: he got back the poisonous fish and saw the children in high spirits; Afraid of seeing the horror, I came back to see my wife and children waiting with a smile; Eat and die, but because the fish has lost its toxicity, it will still be painful to die.
② Two lines intersect and are connected internally. One person and two things, or two people; It can be two bright lines, or one bright and one dark, which set off each other. For example, in Xiaoxing's Summer Diary, the father made up fake materials and the son wrote fake diaries. After the father beat and scolded his son, he had to smile bitterly when he wanted to write materials again.
(3) Repeated circulation, seeing differences is the same. For example, in "Wonderful Cyclic Inequality", there is only one vacant seat on the bus, and the conductor does not let the old lady sit, but let the "head" sit. After the driver got on the bus, he drove the "chief" away and let the manager sit down. The manager's mother-in-law is an old lady. Another example is "All Blind". A pair of young people are madly in love, get married and divorce, and see a pair of blind people holding each other's hands.
(4) Before and after the contrast, bimodal confrontation. For example, after an amateur author wrote "Change", he published two manuscripts in a row, and the unit leaders held different attitudes.
(5) If you want to improve, you should suppress it first, and if you want to suppress it, you should improve it first. The former takes "Yang" as the main body, but he first wrote on "inhibition" and suddenly turned to "Yang". The latter is the opposite. This has produced unexpected plot development and strengthened the artistic effect of complementary opposites.
▲ Re-meaning and re-meaning. Miniature novels should be big with small hints to achieve the sublimation of meaning; To talk about the meaning beyond the image, the implication will arouse the reader's imagination. Mainly used: ① symbol. A concept or another image is implied by concrete objects, but it only plays a structural role, unlike the central image described in poetry. For example, in Muzzle, when a reinstated leader shot his prey with a gun given by others, he learned that the "muzzle" that came in through the back door was also aimed at him. Pun. For example, I can't figure it out, which says that college students who don't work hard for ten years are not as good as college students with poor jobs, so they can't figure it out. 3 metaphor. For example, in "Explosive Banquet", it was written that the little grandson set off firecrackers at the banquet, and the new manager whose grandfather was under forty set off firecrackers: "You didn't become a county magistrate until you were eighteen! Dad became a factory director in his early thirties! " 4 ellipsis. This is a blank metaphor. For example, in Falling Fruit, the old doorman was beaten before the fruit on the jujube tree at the door was ripe after retirement. He wrote to the factory director: "Even dozens of gluttons can't be managed, but the factory is still in charge." Then, the plot of the factory director's campaign to rectify the factory atmosphere was omitted, and it was written that the master received a pack of red dates the next year.
▲ Adopt the specialties of other styles and artistic schools.
The ending should be clever and "look back and smile". There are three main types:
▲ Make the finishing point, echoing from beginning to end. For example, "Floating Clouds" failed at the beginning, and there seems to be a cloud on the peak, and the cloud at the end is gone.
▲ Come to an abrupt end, implicit and meaningful. For example, a 200-word calligrapher asked the director to write two good words at the calligraphy exhibition, namely "agree". Faced with amazement and demands, he had no choice but to say, "The number of words that can be written well …", which ended with endless charm and great artistic ability.
The above two endings can only arouse the readers' short-term excitement, and the best ending is:
▲ Surprise and excitement. That is, the "O 'Henry Ending" is characterized by "cleverness". The whole layout serves the ending. The reader thinks that the plot evolves eastward, but the result is westward, shaking the burden and showing the cards. This ending breaks the usual structural technique of plot development, gives people a sense of freshness, deepens the theme and increases the capacity. The well-known "The Gift of the Magi" is like this. A poor couple took pains to give gifts to each other during the festival, but it was useless to take them out at last: one sold a gold watch to buy a comb for his wife, and the other cut off her long hair to buy a watch chain for her husband. Another example is the "Window" in Australia. The patient by the window paints the beautiful scenery outside the window for the patient in the corner every day, adding luster to the pale life. But the corner patient from ruin found a good position by the window, and when he looked up, it was just a high wall outside the window.