It was late at night and I was so sleepy that I was about to cry, so I endured it.

There is a story in the second part of Da Liu's Three-Body Series "Dark Forest": The protagonist Luo Ji fell in love with a woman. The woman was named Bai Rong, and she was a writer. The relationship between the two was quite good and could be called a pair of pairs of matches.

Bai Rong's birthday is coming, and she wants Luo Ji to write a novel for her as a birthday gift. This is a beautiful thing. All men will take it for granted that the protagonist of this novel will be his girlfriend, but Bai Rong refuses.

She said: No, I have seen a very interesting art exhibition, all of which are the works of male painters, and they paint the most beautiful woman they imagined. The protagonist of your novel is the most beautiful girl in your mind. If you want to completely leave reality and create such an angel, the only basis is your most perfect imagination of women.

Luo Ji didn't understand Bai Rong's intention, but he still began to conceive the character. He first imagined her appearance, then designed clothes for her, then imagined the environment she was in and the people around her, and finally put her in this environment, let her move and talk, and let her live. Soon, this matter became boring, and he told Bai Rong about his predicament.

Luo Ji: She is like a puppet, every move and every sentence comes from my idea, lacking a sense of life.

Bai Rong: Your method is wrong. You are writing an essay, not creating a literary image. You should know that the ten-minute behavior of a literary character is the reaction of her ten-year experience. You should not be limited to the plot of the novel, but imagine her entire life, and what is really written into words is just the tip of the iceberg.

So Luo Ji really did this, completely abandoning his own settings and imagining the details of her whole life, even the details. He imagined her breasts in her mother's arms, and her little mouth was urging hard, making a satisfied whine; she imagined her walking in the rain suddenly put away her umbrella, enjoying the feeling of contact with the raindrops; she imagined her chasing a big red ball rolling on the ground, and fell down after just one step, looking at the balloons leaving far away, crying, and not realizing that she had just taken the first step in her life, I imagined the first night of college, she was lying on the upper bunk of the dormitory, watching the shadow of the tree cast on the ceiling by the street lights.

In this way, the girl came to Luo Ji quietly.

He could no longer fall asleep peacefully because he had to wait for her arrival. Why wait instead of directly imagining her coming? Because at this time, the girl is alive, independent, and no longer the puppet. Everything in her life is determined by herself and is not controlled by anyone.

In the following days, Luo Ji and she snuggled up next to the fireplace and drank red wine, and drove to the distant mountains together until they could not extricate themselves. Of course, all this was actually just the "her" I imagined.

The story is almost over, and there are many details in the middle. I will not repeat it. Please read Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Problem Series by yourself.

Back to the topic, how the writer is trained.

Writers are refined like Luo Ji in the above story. Every writer is the uterus of thought, giving birth to various characters, and the story follows the characters.

Don't believe it? Recalling the classic novels and movies you have read, are you able to remember more characters than specific plots? Cheng Dieyi, Duan Xiaolou, Sun Wukong, Li Mubai, hero, beauty, knight

The only difference is that there should be dozens or even hundreds of "she/him" in the mind of a writer, not one. How many "she/her" you can have means your literary talent.

For writers, there are three most important things: discovery, imagination (non-construction), writing.

Why do I say that I imagine something rather than construct something? Because some things are given by "others". The structure is to take the initiative, write for writing, and to serve me. Imagination is to serve the things I imagined. I just need to follow the things I imagined, step by step, and just take notes.

I once had this experience. I always felt that I should write something, and then sat in front of the computer for a long time. What should I write? What should I write? What should I write? Finally, I also put a bunch of words into it. But that was soulless garbage, because when I had no story in my heart, I wanted to write, even if I added my real experience, it was fictional and lacked a sense of energy.

When being "given" like this satisfies my imagination, or when I start to serve this imagination, the writing is smooth, which is really a pleasure.

This experience is amazing, and I haven't had it a few times.

The literary giants, Dumas, Hemingway, Proust, and Marquez, are able to be in this "given" imagination anytime and anywhere because of their high literary talent or after continuous training. Each imagination is a wonderful adventure, with dozens or even hundreds of "he/her" along the way, forming a picture of the era, which is really incredible.

This is also the reason why Dumas draws a line and immediately starts with "The Earl of Monte Cristo" after writing "Three Musketeers". (Thank you, Teacher Zhang Jiawei, for pointing out that this incident is a lovely rumor.)

Writing skills, literary categories, hard work, and more practice, you can understand through hard work. Why are there so many people who write very well? It lies in the imagination of "being given".

None of the writers can control this imagination, or even predict their next behavior, and can only follow them secretly and happily, observing everything and the most subtle parts of their lives like a voyeur, and recording it becomes a classic.

Yes, literary creation is such a perverted thing.

Nowadays, literati lose this creativity. All they have in their thoughts are fragmented fragments and freaks. Their short life is manifested as irrational obscure spasms. They sweep these fragments into bags, and put them on postmodern deconstructionism, symbolism, irrationality, and sell them.

I prefer to believe that what Gil experienced in the movie "Midnight Paris" is not the so-called "Adventures of Paris", but the writer's imagination.

So, if you really want to write well, start trying this kind of imagination first. Believe me, this process is very fantastic, maybe you can meet Adriana and have a relationship with her.
Chapter completed!