Here comes the highly anticipated volume summary, or maybe it's just me who's anticipating it.
Actually, this timing is quite awkward. If I wrote a few more chapters, it would be December 31st, and I could merge the release announcement to save trouble.
Of course, there are advantages to this. Since I'll be releasing on January 1st, if I finished the first part on December 31st, would I dare to take a break?
So, everything has its pros and cons.
Back to the first part itself, because "The Era of Chaos" is written with a heavy tone, if "Long Night" continued that tone, it would not only seem repetitive but also lack buffer and room for adjustment. In addition, my previous novels, except for Xiao Meng, had significant similarities in personality and inner nature, with only differences in certain aspects and details.
Therefore, I wanted to challenge a protagonist completely different from before and break through my limitations.
Based on these two points, I said before that I planned to write a protagonist with a mental illness. On the one hand, this is a completely new experience for me. On the other hand, it can bring joy to the relatively dark background and dilute the sadness lurking beneath the surface.
I'm not mentally ill, haha. I can't truly simulate the thinking of a mentally ill person. This is the biggest obstacle in front of my true creation. After repeated thinking, I came up with a method, which is to abandon most psychological activities and shape the character with actions and words.
After adopting this method, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was very different from previous creations. I no longer preset what kind of personality this person is, what his preferences are, what his small shortcomings are, and where his character arc is. Instead, I gave his background, his past experiences, and then, when he encountered different things, deduced different reactions from the background, experiences, and character state.
Writing like this, I realized that Shang Jianyao was actually such a person.
This may not mean much to friends who read novels, because no matter what method is used, it ultimately shapes the character, and there is no distinction between high and low. But for writers, this brand new feeling is particularly wonderful.
This is not to boast that I write well. This is not the case. The first attempt at a technique will definitely have all kinds of problems, but opening up and exploring it little by little is very fulfilling.
This writing method also has its shortcomings and drawbacks. At least I have found several now:
First, without psychological activities, there is a lack of the most powerful weapon to create a sense of immersion, which is quite troublesome for a web novel. Without a sense of immersion, many plots cannot unfold with tension.
Second, the initial shaping of the character will be very long. I think it was during the time in Shuiwei Town, when Shang Jianyao divided the beef for the little girl bit by bit, that I felt that the character's feet were truly on the ground.
Third, there is no way to quickly label a new character and deepen the impression and shape the image through psychological activities.
Combined with the fact that I recklessly adopted a writing style similar to travelogues and road movies in the first part, the advancement of the entire story is difficult to maintain with too much tension, and some supporting characters could not be established quickly, so that although many ups and downs occurred, the plot seemed slow.
This writing method also has its own advantages:
When psychological activities are lacking, shaping characters relies more on interaction, and once interaction increases, characters who appear frequently naturally become distinct and full.
And in the first part, it is mainly the members of the Old Task Force.
I can boast about this a little bit, but well, there is currently too little plot, and the character's arc is definitely not able to be brought out yet. I just hope I can do well later.
After talking about the characters, let's talk about the overall structure of the first part.
Because I wanted to present such a large environment first, to create a large appearance of the reflection of the old world, the darkness of the new world, and the absurdity of their combination, to lay the atmosphere and tone, I adopted a writing style similar to travelogues and road movies, without setting up outbreaks or climaxes, but focusing on experiences.
In addition, I weakened the feeling of leveling up, which made the plot tension of the entire first part very weak, after all, lacking two powerful weapons.
By the way, the name of the first part is "Prelude", and the epigraph is:
"In the moment of death, the solemn first note of an unnamed song will sound. Life is but a series of preludes to this song."
Many friends thought that someone would die when they saw this, but it's not true. I wrote about the "civilization's" life.
In the last two chapters, one song is one of the series of preludes before the death of the old era, a nostalgia and lament for the past civilization, and the other song is the prelude to the new world, a sincere expectation for it.
In the long night of civilization, there are still many embers.
Perhaps one day, one of the embers will ignite again and illuminate the world. This is closer to the meaning of Liszt's "Preludes." People and civilizations will eventually die, but we will make the prelude as long as possible, as magnificent as possible, and as brilliant as possible.
If I can make you feel nostalgic for the old world and have the word civilization flash in your mind when you hear the song "Remembering the Past" in the process of reading the first part, then I think what I want to express has come out, and that's enough.
After talking about these, let's talk about the problems in the first part:
First, the second half is too tiring to read. This is not a problem with the text, but a problem with the rhythm. Maybe it's because I'm used to playing games, and I always do a bunch of side quests before doing the main quest, so when I initially set it up like this, I didn't think there was a problem at all. But after I actually started writing, I realized that once the task of sending the chip to Qifeng Town is given, it will create expectations for the reader. If it always deviates and the task is delayed for too long, the reader will become irritable and feel that the plot is too dragging and tiring to read.
Playing games yourself and designing "games" for others is really different, haha.
Second, in the urban ruins, I hope to use the description of scenes and things that we take for granted to create the atmosphere of the wasteland and to lay the foundation for the nostalgia and lament for the old world. Therefore, many places are written in great detail. This is not a problem in itself, but I ignored one point. At that time, the Old Task Force was not free and was controlled by Qiao Chu. Many friends were eager to get rid of this as soon as possible, which contradicts the peaceful state of mind required for reading detailed descriptions. This is indeed something I didn't design well and handled poorly.
The first part mainly outlines the outline and tries some new writing methods. That's about all I have to say.
As usual, I will take a break to sort out the outline. However, because the second part will be very short, only about twenty chapters, and is a relatively important turning point, I will only take a day and a half off. I will resume updating at 12:30 noon the day after tomorrow, which is noon on the 31st.
You don't have to worry about the length being too short. It is expected that the third, fourth, fifth, and seventh parts will all be long, about two hundred chapters each.
The name of the second part is "Incomplete"
Actually, there are still a lot of things to say, but I'll leave it for the release announcement, otherwise there won't be so much to say.
In short, thank you all.