What are the common structural and creative techniques of the novel?

Four common techniques for structuring short stories (a) The method of "cutting suspense across the board and recounting events" refers to the author's avoidance of a straightforward narrative by setting up a suspense in the first paragraph of the novel to bring up the whole story and cover the whole text, deliberately creating doubts for the readers in order to stimulate their interest in reading on. For example, on July 5, 1964, Hubei Daily published a "pair of bright eyes", this technique. This article begins with: Night, ink-black, out of sight, out of mind. I (the protagonist of the article) went to a production brigade. Since it was my first time there, the road was raw, and the sky was cloudy, with no moon or stars, and I had no flashlight with me, so I was really in a hurry. At that moment, I met a member of the community who happened to live in the brigade I was going to, and he led me there. Along the way, he would say, "Comrade, pay attention, there is a ditch ahead!" Then he pointed out to me, "Comrade, there's a pond on the left!" Finally, when we entered the village, he pointed to an alley and said, "Inside lives our captain, he will greet you." But early the next morning, when I came out of the captain's house, I saw a strong middle-aged man carrying a bucket and humming a light tune, walking toward the weir next to the rice field. As he approached, I glanced at him, "Hey, what a good man, why are his eyes blind? I was thinking about it, but I saw that he didn't care to go down to the pond to pick up water. I was shocked, shouted: "...... is a pond, you do not fall into the water." He looked back, blinked, as if to see me: "You are not I last night to you to guide the comrade?" ...... Seeing this, the readers must not be able to help but ask themselves: Is he a blind man? Why was he so skillful in guiding people through the night? Why are his "eyes" brighter than those of a man with eyes? This is called "cut into the suspense", the following waiting for the author "flashback events" - the reader will have to read on. (B) "dilute the plot, the shape of the scattered God gathered" method of this method of creation, from the surface, there is no unexpected plot, there is no intense conflict, and the plain narrative, has been a light atmosphere. However, in this straightforward narrative, with the feelings of the influx of the soul; in this light bleakness, with an indescribable flavor of life, often "emotionless" more emotional, soundless than sound. For example, Zhang Jie wrote "Gathering Wheat Ears", which is about a little girl in the countryside, her family is very poor, every summer when she cuts the wheat, she always pulls a basket, and goes to the wheat field to pick up wheat ears. At this time, an old man who sells malt candies comes. The other children exchanged their ears of wheat with the old man for candy, but the little girl could not afford to do so. So the old man used to give her candy for free. People laughed at her and told her to marry the old man. She didn't know much about it, and the old man didn't think it was a big deal, so they just joked about it and never mentioned it again. But she - this little girl, when the old man did not come to sell sugar, but in the village waiting, waiting ...... what she was waiting for? Just to eat the old man's candy? No, there is an indescribable flavor in it, a kind of faint sadness, a kind of emotion that can be communicated between people... This is called "form disperses and spirit gathers", the structure of "no structure", the "complex" article woven with an inner spirit. The writer of a novel should learn to find the inevitability hidden in chance in life, and learn to use this necessity in chance when writing a novel. It can trigger the readers to search for the roots of the bottom, read with great interest, and can reveal the essential meaning of life is not easy to find. For example, Maupassant, the author of the French novel The Necklace, used this technique very beautifully. The story is like this: In order to be envied and admired by people, Mrs. Louvre, the wife of a small clerk, borrowed a necklace from her girlfriend to wear when she was preparing to attend a party of the high society. That night, the necklace, together with her beauty, really put her in the limelight. Unexpectedly, the joyfulness of the evening turned into sadness, and she lost the necklace on the way home. In order to compensate for the necklace, she had to endure financial pressure. After ten years of hard work, she and her husband paid off the debt she owed for the necklace. But when she had just finished paying off the debt, she realized that the necklace she had borrowed was a fake. What she got in return for one night's fame was ten years of suffering, and what she got in return for a moment of vanity was half a lifetime of pain. This "borrowed necklace" - "lost necklace" - "compensation necklace" - "pay necklace debt" - "found that the Necklace is a fake thing" a series of plots, sections are hidden "accidental in the inevitable, inevitable in the accident", read fascinating, and thought-provoking. (d) "bright line dark line - double ring set" method of this novel technique is to use the text of the two bright and dark clues, parallel inter*, double ring set, from a character led to a character, from a story led to a story, not only to make the two characters, the two stories have a close relationship, but also continue to enrich the character, promote the deepening of the thematic idea. This is the case with Lu Xun's novel Medicine. In the late Qing Dynasty, Hua Laobian's son Xiao Biao Biao was stricken with consumption, and people said that he would be cured if he ate the blood buns. Therefore, he waited until one morning when the court was killing people, and then he went to buy buns dyed with the blood of the prisoners with foreign currency, and hurriedly brought them home to Xiao Biao Biao for him to eat. The hidden message is that the prisoner killed early in the morning on the day Old Bolt went to get the blood buns was Xia Yu, a revolutionary, and it was his blood buns that Bolt ate, but this "medicine" did not cure Bolt. But this "medicine" did not cure Xiao Biao's disease. Xiao Biao was eventually killed by consumption. The author intertwines the two lines of light and darkness* into a double loop - in the graveyard at the end of this article, Xiao Biao's grave and Xia Yu's grave are staggered next to each other, and Xiao Biao's mother and Xia Yu's mother are both visiting their son's grave and burning paper. ...... The theme of "Medicine" is "The ignorant masses enjoy the blood of the revolutionaries". The theme of "Medicine" is: "The enjoyment of revolutionaries' blood by the ignorant masses is not a good medicine for curing the sick and the suffering; the revolution of the bourgeoisie, detached from the masses, is not a good medicine for the salvation of Chinese society." Naturally, he ran out of the cemetery. Characters 1 What is the basis of all novels? It is the characters. The core of all novels lies in how to create attractive characters, especially the main character, which is the key to the success or failure of the novel. In fact, we can give a definition of the novel, short story: the use of prose form to describe a character trying to solve a problem. Long novel: the prose form describes several characters trying to solve several problems, of course, the characters should have a primary and secondary, the problem should be big and small. In science fiction and thrillers, the characters are many and varied, and can be real people, robots, bionics, animals and plants, or horrible unknown aliens from outer space. Most of the characters, though, I'm afraid, can only be human, with the occasional clone or bionic, and some ghosts and spirits. But whatever serves as the main character, they must speak and act like a real person. Readers read fiction primarily for pleasure; they don't want to hear about sermons. If a novel is written about a machine, a tree, a bird, and if these protagonists have no human characteristics, then the reader will soon get bored. Conversely, if we consciously make the characters in a novel face a problem when we write it, such as a problem of survival or an obstacle to love, and have the protagonist struggle to solve it, the reader will be attracted. Fiction, like any form of entertainment, has to be able to capture and hold the audience's attention, and, again, fiction has a superiority that is unrivaled by any other entertainment. Novels can use words to directly stimulate the reader's imagination, and the author can take the reader on a journey to exotic wonders with just paper and pen. But the novel also has its weaknesses. The writer cannot face the reader directly to explain or solve all the reader's doubts, the writer must write down everything he wants to say, and hope that the reader can hear, see, smell, feel and even taste all the things the author describes in the novel. Therefore, your job as a writer is to make the reader live in your novel. To make your readers forget that they are sitting in front of a computer or lying in bed reading words, but to make them believe that they are living in the world of your imagination, in the world you have created with your pen, that he is rescuing a patient in the emergency room, that he is standing desperately by the sea waiting for the dawn, that he is climbing an icy mountain, and that on the other side of the mountain is his beloved who is in danger. In short, it's about the reader living your story. One of the easiest ways to do this is to provide a character he aspires to be. Let the reader imagine that she herself is a protagonist, struggling with lust and the desire for freedom, tightly bound by another. Or one who is slowly slipping into the darkness of death because she is so damaged that she cannot see hope, but longs to be redeemed. How does an author do this? There are two things that must be kept in mind. First, the novel is basically a literary style in which the main character is written to solve the problems he or she faces, and the main character must be chosen very carefully. The character should be uniquely appealing and given a difficult problem to solve, thus making the reader care about what happens to that character later on. The protagonist in a novel is also called a point of view character and the story is told from his point of view, in other words, the protagonist must be able to take on the story. Choose a protagonist who is extremely capable, yet has obvious weaknesses, and then send him on a quest to solve a difficult problem. For example, the author could envision a protagonist who is wise, calm, and extremely strong-willed, an exceptional military man as seen during previous wars, but who sometimes falls into confusion, and underneath the hard outer shell is an easily damaged heart, who fought in his country's War of Independence because of his quest for freedom, and then was forced to choose to leave his homeland because his freedom was shackled. If Levin was asked to lead an army and run the country, he would do it easily, but the problem he faces is not to test his strengths, but to expose his shortcomings, so he meets another protagonist, one who is stronger than him in both looks and strength, and predatory, who takes away this protagonist's freedom, and not only that, but what he goes through goes beyond the limits of what he can tolerate, and that's what makes his high self-esteem was greatly hurt. Also, when describing the characters, don't exude the protagonist's own belief that he or she will win; if the protagonist is sure that the puzzle will be solved, what is there for the reader to worry about? The story must have suspense, and that suspense should be maintained until the end of the story. In other words, the protagonist has no control over his own destiny, as if he were walking on the edge of a cliff, swaying and stumbling, and the winds and rainstorms could destroy him at any time. In highly skillful novels, the protagonist cannot overcome the problems he faces unless he makes great sacrifices, that is to say, the protagonist must have something to lose in order to have something to gain, and the reader is eager to know what the protagonist will lose. The calm, omnipotent characters are the last thing you want in a novel; they are boring, stereotypical, untrustworthy, and pointless. A good writer is like a good architect, and each novel should have its own unique creativity, which includes distinctive characters and a setting that suits the story, as well as the point of view that flows through its text. Observe the characters you come into contact with around you on a daily basis, how many set patterns can you see? Get to know each of them better and you'll realize that each is an individual, with different personalities, habits, hobbies, joys, and fears from the others, and each faces their own individual problems. What are their strengths and weaknesses, you should focus on describing those characteristics that make them different, and envisioning which problems reveal their weaknesses the most before you put pen to paper and start writing. The second point about describing characters is that the entire story should be narrated from the point of view and feelings of the protagonist, even if the novel uses third-person narration, and everything written on the page should be the protagonist's personal experience, which is a limitation for the author. The protagonist must be present in every scene, and the author cannot write about things that the protagonist does not know. But this is the only way that the story told by the author has a sense of reality and is narrated directly to the reader. When the protagonist is confused, the reader is confused: when the protagonist is in pain, the reader is in pain, and when the protagonist is victorious, the reader feels the joy of victory. In other words, the reader lives the novel, not just reads the words on a computer screen or the type printed on paper. It is also possible to write a novel in the first person. In a story told in the first person, I am the main character, which gives the reader a greater sense of involvement and helps to build a virtual world in their minds, but because of the limited perspective of I, the narration is sometimes very inconvenient. However, due to the limited point of view of "I", it is sometimes very inconvenient to narrate, but it is more convenient than the third person in setting up suspense. Of course, if the author has to tell the reader something that the main character doesn't know, it's best to use third person. Others write in a mixture of third and first person, a method that is relatively difficult to achieve good results, and can easily produce perspective confusion and confuse the reader, but can overcome the disadvantages of describing in third or first person alone. One way to check whether the protagonist is able to perceive the real world is to look at each page of the novel you're writing to see if all five of the protagonist's senses are working. If in a page only the protagonist's sight and hearing used, rewrite the page, the final effect is to make the main character of the story not only see and hear, but also let him smell, taste and touch, this method is the story of the narrative effect of vivid and lively. So how do you find a protagonist with a unique personality? And how to make it solve something? To summarize, the protagonist that an author writes about is, to a large extent, the product of a combination of yourself and other characters with whom you are familiar. Many writers tend to counsel that beginning writers should write about people and things they know well, and this is indeed the experience of successful authors. No author would ever write about something he or she has never personally experienced; it is just impossible to do. Is this really true? Look around us, I'm afraid that none of the novels are written about the author's own experiences, citing the impossibility of a historical novel that takes place in a dynasty that doesn't exist. So where does the author's personal experience come from? The characters in the novel are familiar to the author; they have been alive in the author's head for a long time. Before and while starting to write, the author marshals in his own mind the memories that normally exist in his mind, and little by little he designs the image of the characters in the story, what they look like, what their temperament is like, what kind of friends and enemies they have, how they react to the outside world, what makes them different from others, what their strengths and weaknesses are, their family situation, and so on. In a sense, a great deal of writing a good novel is directly proportional to the amount, scope, and comprehension of the books you usually read, and also depends on the amount of relevant information gathered. All of this can be considered a kind of "personal experience". But personal experience is not enough, the author also needs to have the ability to stimulate the imagination of the trigger, think about what you would do if a person who loves freedom and was betrayed by his own comrades, wandering in the stars, one day suddenly imprisoned by another strong, layer by layer to peel off the disguise, and finally even the freedom of thought will be taken away. The above mentioned is the key to writing a good novel. First Characters 3 In a novel multiple characters need to be depicted, each facing their own problems Note that the protagonist faces multiple problems; this is the main difference between the protagonist of a novel and the other characters, and that one protagonist is a little more important than the other, and that he faces more problems. A famous writing teacher once told writers taking a class that they could envision the problems faced by their protagonist as a simple equation: one emotion versus another. For example, that would be freedom versus fear, pride versus conquest, loyalty versus friendship. But when you begin to conceptualize characters for your novel, even secondary characters, you can use this simple formula to apply to your character's main personality. If your characters can't fit into this obvious pattern, then you haven't conceptualized them well at all. The basic conflict of a novel, the driving force behind its plot, is the emotional conflict within the protagonist. All the conflicts of the novel develop out of this basic conflict. To this inner, spiritual problem faced by the protagonist, the author needs to add an external, physical and intellectual problem. They are intertwined with the main problem faced by the protagonist, and whenever one problem is solved, another one appears, which creates a chain of problems interlinked with each other, also known as a chain of interlinked expectations. This is because every problem and every query that the author puts in front of the reader implies a solution or answer to that problem or query, making the reader expect to continue reading. Therefore, the author has to keep asking questions and raising queries throughout the novel. All novels should have such urgent junctures, and as an author, you should put the protagonist of the novel, and your readers, to the test of such urgency, so that the readers are as agonized as the protagonist, in and out of the dilemma, and hard to get out of it. At this point in the story, you have carefully proved to your readers and convinced them that the protagonist, whatever his faults and problems, is a praiseworthy human being. In novels with comedic endings, the protagonist often makes the moral choice that he would rather give up everything he holds dear. Even though he loses everything he cherishes, he endures the fiery ordeal so he is rewarded and happiness eventually returns to him. In novels that end in tragedy, the protagonist chooses an amoral solution, and behind what appears to be happiness is a tragic fate. In some novels, the protagonist makes the right choice and solves the dilemma he faces, but loses his life, which is the classic definition of "tragedy". The final point to note about characterization in fiction is that the protagonist must change. No matter what happens to the protagonist in the novel, no matter how the novel is written, the protagonist must have a fundamental change. The key to every novel is to write about the change in the protagonist, to identify the key change in the protagonist emotionally, morally, physically, and internally, and it is this change that the author should write about. There is an Italian proverb that says, "Eating without wine is like day without sunshine." A story without conflict is like eating without wine. Conflict makes up a story, and there is no story without conflict. An author can write an interesting piece of prose or some several scenes and settings for a novel, but the story itself depends on conflict. Imagine for a moment: what a tedious story it would have been if the families on both sides of Romeo and Juliet had been worldly friends and they had not objected to the union of the two young people. Conflict is expressed in its simplest form in its most unmistakable way: a struggle between two characters. This is the formula of the Western novel: the good guy in the white hat shoots the bad guy in the black hat with a gun: or two men fist-fight in a small-town barroom. In this kind of novel, direct physical contact between people is the only form of conflict, and this kind of novel is called "western drama". As a matter of fact, in the early years of the founding of the nation, our national movies also fell into this kind of strange circle, and now, looking back, they are all about showing war and victory for the sake of showing war and victory. Science fiction and thriller novels have also imitated the conflict form of "western drama", but of course, the background of the conflict is broader and more complex. Taking science fiction as an example, science fiction writers moved the stage of the story to the whole interstellar space, but unfortunately, the pattern is the same: physical fighting is the main form of conflict in the novel. Except that instead of thieves, science fiction features a terrifying alien invasion. Nor does science fiction depict a war with Indians but an interstellar war. But its conflict is a physical gedo, a duel between good guys and bad guys. In most such novels, there is no character development. The heroic characters, the bad guys, and the rest of the mission, remain unchanged throughout, and they have no inner conflict. Today such novels seem childishly ridiculous, but they are the ones that flood the editorial offices every week into the scrap heap. So the point that needs to be made to so many authors is that ping-pong fighting is not conflict at all. So what is real conflict? For authors, a conflict is a collision or disagreement between various aspects of opinion, interest, etc., especially an intellectual and moral struggle arising from irreconcilable desires, purposes, etc. Irreconcilable desires and purposes are the conflicts that really bring a novel to life. It is not just a physical battle of armed conflict between good guys and bad guys, but a conflict between irreconcilable desires and purposes. Just as the formation of a thunderstorm is caused by the "conflict" between two differently charged clouds, the conflict in a novel is also formed by the inner conflict between the main characters. This conflict can take many forms, with punching, kicking, knifing, and gunning being the worst, because the author has not given it any serious thought at all. In a good novel, conflict can unfold on many levels in a good novel. The conflict originates deep within the protagonist and develops into a conflict between the protagonist and other characters. And, in novels, the conflict often ends up developing into a conflict between the protagonist and morals, social systems, or ideas. In the battle of the characters we talked about the fact that every novel begins with an emotional conflict deep in the mind of the protagonist: a conflict between two feelings, such as freedom versus fear, love versus hate, loyalty versus friendship or responsibility versus greed. In short stories, due to space limitations, this conflict usually torments the protagonist at the beginning of the novel. Longer novels can use more space to explain the background, but should also imply that the protagonist's heart into the uneasy situation, of course, do not necessarily need to explain to the reader at the beginning of this kind of out of the ground, but should let the reader quickly understand that the protagonist is in trouble. Some novels conflict around the protagonist and another character to start, in fact, most of the delayed novels is this pattern, there are also some novels conflict in the scope of some more, but in any case the conflict must be real, in order to make the reader to produce **** Ming. By the way, there is a big difference between a rival (or call it an adversary) and a baddie. It's much easier to portray a bad guy to a novice, because the novel just needs to have a bad guy to do bad things. In a really good novel, the conflict unfolds on multiple levels. The conflict within the real protagonist, i.e., the conflict of feelings, is then attacked by an antagonist who attacks the protagonist's weakest point, an inner conflict that becomes an outer conflict and makes it manifest in the outer world. There are also novels in which the opponent of the conflict is not a human being but nature or the universe, such as death, which does not depend on human will and cannot be changed, so the final ending is usually a tragedy. A famous novelist was once asked, "What makes a novel suspenseful?" His answer was, "Use a time bomb, timed to explode on the last page." Whether it is a long story or a short story, especially a short story, if it seeks to have a strong plot and an impressive ending, it has to race against time, and its final ending can be as simple as "The Emperor's New Clothes", the invisible clothes that don't exist at all, or as complicated as the "Doomsday Machine" in the movie of Stanley Kubrick, called "The Doomsday Machine". "Doomsday Machine", a super nuclear device that can destroy the entire world. What is the best way to create melodramatic fiction? The key is to create an explosive time bomb and have the reader clearly hear the ticking sound of the time bomb on the first page, or even in the first paragraph of the novel. One last thing: the storyline should be organized in such a way that the reader feels that the character is indeed a living, breathing human being. Of course, if the main character dies at the end of the novel, someone will have to mourn for the main character, so that the main character will still be alive in people's hearts and minds, and the novel will have to give that sense of continuity, a feeling that will convince the reader that the story is true.