Prose: how to make brevity possible

I always think that the size of prose and the length of words are usually not the key and decisive factors to measure the overall quality of prose works. For example, Churchill's World War II is a magnificent masterpiece, which can win Nobel Prize in Literature, while Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus is only two or three thousand words, and it is also a masterpiece in the history of modern western prose. Shi Tiesheng's Me and Ditan, which is more than 14,000 words long, is becoming one of the representative works of China's prose in the new period, while most of the chapters in Lu Xun's Weeds are concise and ultimately worthy of the immortal classics of modern literature. The above facts have been proved by Chinese and foreign prose creation and acceptance practice, and there is no need to entangle them. Only in recent years, domestic prose creation has shown a tendency of rambling, procrastination, long writing and aestheticism. In this case, emphasizing the simplicity and essence of prose works and shrinking the dragon into an inch will play a role in correcting the current disadvantages and reversing the atmosphere. Then, how can prose works be precise and short in a strict sense? And what aesthetic characteristics should a truly excellent short prose have? This paper wants to take the essay writing works of Red Bean magazine "National Short Prose Creation Competition" as an example to talk about these two issues. In my opinion, in grasping and pursuing these two aspects, essayists should not only follow the general principle of simplicity and cherish ink like gold, but more importantly, start from the reality that short essays are narrow in length and limited in capacity, and make efforts in topic selection, artistic conception, way of thinking and expression, highlighting and strengthening some artistic elements that are both related and different from ordinary prose writing, so as to form their own works. First of all, as far as the choice of theme is concerned, the essayist should insist on seeing the big from the small, slicing from the small, paying attention to picking up the microscopic scenes of life and the detailed experience of life, and doing exquisite hair growth and dyeing. Undoubtedly, as an artistic reflection of life, themes vary in size. Generally speaking, different themes always correspond to works of different lengths and scales. Short prose is a canoe in the ocean of literature, which is naturally more suitable for carrying small or fine things in life. Once the essayist realizes this, he actually has the necessary stylistic awareness. In this respect, there are Guo Kaihe's Mud Fun, Wu's Flowers and Mala Tang, Wu's Hug, San Wu Tian, Li Lei's Thousands of Feet, Wen Ping's Beauty of Fallen Leaves and so on. These are closely related to micro-life. It should be admitted that such an organic combination of style and theme has laid a solid foundation for the success and even perfect artistic expression of the works. Secondly, as far as artistic conception is concerned, the essayist should be good at refining the appropriate "literary eye" when writing short prose, seize the bright spot full of connotation or the special object full of connotation, and implement the layout of winning by technology. It should be admitted that the artistic conception of prose creation has unlimited possibilities in the pen of any excellent writer. However, once this possibility is limited by space, we have to take pains to find the focus and strengthen the breakthrough. Because this kind of effort is enough to bring an outline to the work, get twice the result with half the effort. Might as well read Zuo Wei's "chopping wood in a mobile phone". The purpose of this work is to show the farmer's father's diligence and self-sufficiency, as well as his son's concern for his father, but the writer didn't let all this show directly-it would consume a lot of pen and ink, which didn't meet the requirements of short prose-but made a reasonable imagination and vivid narrative by listening to the chopping wood from his father's mobile phone through "I". At this time, the sound of chopping wood in the mobile phone skillfully concentrated the life form of his father. As the aesthetic focus, it not only makes the father's image more personalized and textured, but also brings endless artistic effects to the whole work. Xu Yongpeng's "Empty Jewelry Box" turned the aesthetic line of sight to the emotional world of migrant workers. It's just that the screenwriter didn't write the usual ups and downs, but regarded an empty jewelry box as a "literary eye" and told the moving story of a working couple who valued emotion over material things. Because of clever conception and concentrated brushwork, this text is not only concise in length, but also rich in emotion and touching, which also embodies the advantage of short prose. Thirdly, as far as the way of thinking is concerned, essayists should make good use of reverse thinking, pay attention to playing the pipa and strive for innovation. In prose creation, positive thinking is of course very important, and reverse thinking is equally essential. Especially when writing short prose, if the writer chooses reverse thinking, it will not only help to form ups and downs and surprising reading effects; Moreover, with the sharp decline of the situation, some foreshadowing and confession can be omitted, thus realizing the conciseness of the narrative. Please read Mix's City in Mother's Heart. This work first tells the mother's yearning for the city through her daughter's mouth, but it does not let this yearning continue blindly. Instead, in the process of simply explaining why everything is so, she infiltrated her daughter's completely opposite emotional trend: she was afraid of the indifference and filth of the city, which destroyed her yearning and broke her dream. This gap between right and wrong has contributed to the great tension and rich connotation of limited space, which is thought-provoking. Huang Peiling's Want to Cry Without Tears is also a good work saturated with reverse thinking. Its author returned to her hometown after a long separation, but at that time, she did not write the author's joy and excitement as usual, because modern life had already turned her heart into a calm ancient well, and even lost the possibility of excitement. Therefore, she longs for a tear and is eager to rebuild her life. This sharp change in spirit undoubtedly effectively strengthens the artistic radiation of the work, thus making a short article present a broad realm. Finally, in terms of expression techniques, essayists should use more poetic techniques such as symbols, metaphors, artistic conception and personification when writing short articles, so that the artistic images in their works are rich in meaning and far-reaching in theme because of the combination of reality and reality. Poetry is essentially a concise and concentrated art, which determines that the expression of poetry can often "trap the world and frustrate everything in the pen", with strong freehand brushwork and generality. This is exactly the conciseness that prose needs to achieve. Therefore, actively introducing and skillfully using poetry skills has become an effective way to strengthen their own characteristics. However, some talented short prose writers and excellent short prose works are ingenious in this respect, showing their artistic acumen and superb. For example, Wu Jiajun's After the Sun Rises outlines the morning scene of a mountain village in simple words. From the realistic point of view, it has been exquisite and vivid, but the writer only integrates poetic techniques into this realistic picture-the old man and the sun both embody obvious symbolism and metaphor, which greatly enriches the connotation of the whole work, making it thought-provoking and memorable. Hill's "Stone Head Like Potato or Peanut", written from the character of stone and its relationship with farmers, gave the work a poetic realm from the beginning. In the following text, it takes stone as the core image, or touches the living state of farmers with stones, or reflects the spiritual texture of farmers with stones. Finally, through the writer's mouth, stone presents the universal significance of enlightening mankind. Therefore, the whole work has formed a valuable aesthetic tension because of its poetic expression, which is thought-provoking and meaningful. What is the artistic essence of the so-called "one flower, one world, one stone dried up"?