Chapter 15: Writing Experience
More than an hour later, Cha Jianying stopped.
"I just read aloud nearly 10,000 words. You can recall what Comrade Liu Hongmin wrote and what you think was good or bad about it?"
The classroom suddenly became noisy. The students were discussing what they had just heard with each other, and discussing with others the parts that they thought were excellent or poorly written.
At this time, a classmate stood up and said, "Jianying, I think your reading just now concealed a lot of problems and also revealed a lot of problems. This novel uses a lot of Northeastern dialect, which will seriously affect the reading experience..."
Cha Jianying glanced at Liu Hongmin, and seeing that he had no intention of explaining, he had to answer himself: "Dialects are not a problem. Dialects are the characteristics of a region and will strengthen the sense of identity of this region. Of course, people outside this region may be confused. But I believe that a good work can overcome this. We can feel the simplicity of the people of Northeast China from the novel..."
Another student stood up and said, "I have some doubts about the structure of the story. The main story of the book takes place in 1983, four years later, which makes me feel out of touch with reality."
Zha Jianying nodded, "This is indeed a problem, but the description in this book is deduced according to the story line. Therefore, the feeling of being out of touch with reality is minimal."
Zou Shifang quietly touched Liu Hongmin and said, "These people are really good at finding faults!"
Liu Hongmin smiled and said, "No matter what they say, once the novel is written, it no longer belongs to me."
He said so, but as he saw more and more people standing up to find fault with the novel and besieging Cha Jianying, Liu Hongmin's face became more and more ugly.
After walking a few steps onto the podium, Liu Hongmin came to Zha Jianying and said, "Leave the rest to me."
Cha Jianying looked at him in surprise, then nodded and returned the manuscript to Liu Hongmin.
Liu Hongmin organized the manuscript and put it away, then looked up at the students in the audience.
Seeing Liu Hongmin coming on stage, those who had just asked questions immediately stood up and wanted to attack Liu Hongmin. Cha Jianying was their classmate, and they had just touched upon him. Now that the real culprit was here, their offensive would be countless times more intense.
However, Liu Hongmin did not give them the opportunity to ask questions. He simply stretched out his hand and pressed down, motioning everyone to sit down.
"Just now, classmate Cha Jianying told me that no one would ask me questions, and no one would interrupt me when I was talking..."
After hearing what Liu Hongmin said, most of them sat down in embarrassment. They did make a promise, and standing up just now was obviously a violation of their promise.
There were still some tough students standing there, wanting to continue asking questions.
Liu Hongmin ignored them. "My Brothers and Sisters has not been published yet. I can change the content anytime and anywhere, so your questions are meaningless. You can raise questions when the novel is published. Of course, you don't have to raise them in front of me. You can send them directly to the newspaper. As long as your writing is good, I think the newspaper will publish it."
Hearing this, the students who were standing sat down awkwardly. If the articles they wrote could be accepted by the newspaper, they would not stand up to embarrass Liu Hongmin.
Liu Hongmin smiled faintly and continued, "When Lao Zou came to me, I didn't agree to come. After all, I'm just a history student, how can I know anything about writing!"
The students of the Chinese Department all lowered their heads. Liu Hongmin, who had already published two novellas, did not know how to write. Then, wouldn't they, who couldn't even write a short story, be even less able to write?
"cough!"
Liu Zhenyun, who was sitting in the front row, coughed lightly to remind Liu Hongmin not to hurt innocent people. Liu Hongmin winked at him and then got down to business.
"However, thinking about how much help classmate Zha Jianying has given me, I'd like to come even if I have to bow my head to the ground."
Zha Jianying said softly, "Old Zou, Liu Hongmin is a very nice person."
Zou Shifang rolled his eyes speechlessly. If I hadn't threatened this kid with you, it would be strange if he came!
However, seeing that Cha Jianying looked at Liu Hongmin differently, Zou Shifang smiled again. Cha Jianying had some feelings for Liu Hongmin, and maybe he was really willing to date Liu Hongmin.
By then, with Cha Jianying watching over him, Liu Hongmin's good days would be over.
Thinking of this, Zou Shifang couldn't help but admire his own idea. This was killing two birds with one stone!
Liu Hongmin didn't know that Zou Shifang was going to "harm" him. He said to himself on the stage: "Everyone here is very knowledgeable in literature. I am not qualified to share any experience. But I can't just say nothing after coming here. Let me talk about my writing experience!"
"I think that when writing, you must first 'write'. No matter whether it is good or bad, you must write it first so that you can know your strengths and weaknesses, and then improve based on your strengths and weaknesses. If you don't even write, don't even talk about improvement, let alone publication."
"When I wrote Young Justice Bao, I revised it at least ten times, and made major changes at least three times. After writing it, I polished it according to Three Heroes and Five Gallants until the final draft. I wrote at least 300,000 words."
Everyone was shocked to hear this number. Writing 300,000 words by hand in a few months was a huge project. Moreover, Liu Hongmin had to attend classes, so it was good enough for him to spare five or six hours a day.
Those who came here because of his reputation expressed their admiration, saying that with such perseverance, it was no wonder that Liu Hongmin could write such a good novel.
The trouble-making students in the Chinese department fell silent. They couldn't even write 300,000 words in a semester, let alone 30,000 words. They all felt that their talents were not appreciated, and it turned out that they had not worked hard at all.
Liu Zhenyun looked at the dejected classmates around him and became more determined to learn from Liu Hongmin.
Cha Jianying looked at Liu Hongmin with shining eyes. She didn't expect Liu Hongmin to be so hardworking. It turned out that she had wronged Liu Hongmin.
Liu Hongmin's sharing ended quickly, and the classroom immediately burst into applause. Although Liu Hongmin did not share any writing skills, he pointed out a direction for them.
Although this is a stupid method, it is indeed suitable for everyone. As long as you have perseverance and are not afraid of revisions, you can always write good works.
Of course, this has a prerequisite, that is, your own accumulation must be sufficient.
For students from other departments who came here because of his reputation and wanted to meet Liu Hongmin, it was just for fun.
But for Chinese major students who are determined to become writers, this is at least a beacon of direction.
They don’t think they don’t have talent, otherwise they wouldn’t have been admitted to the Chinese Department of Peking University. They also don’t think their accumulation is insufficient, because they all passed the final exam last semester.
(End of this chapter)
