Online novels have typical commercial characteristics. What is business? It is not enough to applaud yourself, but someone must pay the bill, and as many people as possible. As for good or bad, the key is that someone has to watch. As long as someone pays the bill, even if someone scolds him afterwards, it won't hurt his success. There is only one criterion for its success: making readers pay and making authors or websites profitable. As for the post-evaluation after making money, it will not be considered.
Although seemingly simple and vulgar, seemingly incompatible with the nobility of literature and even blasphemous, it is undeniable that it is not so easy for readers to come up with real money for an illusory story.
There are two key factors. First, let the reader read the beginning and want to know the plot behind. Second, we should keep readers' continuous interest in reading, even at the expense of money.
The first point is actually very difficult. How many stories should there be in the world? Why should readers recognize your story? Therefore, the beginning of the novel is very important. We have a classic saying: If the first chapter can't attract readers, please believe that readers will choose the small fork in the upper right corner of the page. As long as the reader chooses the fork in the upper right corner, there is more than 90% probability that the book will not enter his eyes for the second time-what is the remaining 10% probability? This is the real prosperity of this book. If this book becomes popular, some readers will come back to know about it.
So, how can readers not choose the deadly fork? There are the following tips, which are indispensable. First of all, the protagonist must enter the state within 500 words. Secondly, within a thousand words, the plot must be unfolded. Finally, in the first chapter, we must find the excitement of readers. As for stimulation, there are many suspense, imagination and self-substitution. Since everyone may be unfamiliar with self-substitution, let me explain that self-substitution is commonly known as "sense of substitution", which means the reader's empathy for the protagonist, and we call it "the bud of a dream".
If the first point is difficult, then the second point is undoubtedly difficult. The second point is to keep the reader's interest in reading continuous and uninterrupted. Any interruption means giving up. You can think about it, a network novel, five or six million words, thousands of chapters, what is the "life gate" of the novel? Any fate will lead readers to leave you. How difficult is it to cover all the life gates? One of the key points is the combination of popular version and VIP version. The front is free and the back is free. Most people don't spend money on reading books, including everyone. You can think for yourself. Have you ever spent money on books? Therefore, in general, 80% of readers will leave at this stage, which is the fundamental reason why the number of collections is generally five times that of subscriptions.
It's hard to say before, but it's going to be revealed later.
How to attract readers' interest and how to make readers pay for it?
There are two situations here, one is a famous artist. Famous writers have a fixed readership, commonly known as loyal fans. These people are familiar with the author's routines, know the author's techniques, and are obsessed with the characters created by the author. Even if there are some minor flaws in the new book, they still firmly believe that they will find new pleasure in the author, and they will chase you forever. On the other hand, unknown artists do not have a fixed fan base, or the fan base is not large enough. These people can only rely on the plot to win and keep each chapter attractive. Speaking of which, you may feel strange. As you said before, a book has thousands of chapters, which means there are many loopholes and breakthroughs everywhere. Who can stop all of them from losing readers? Actually, not necessarily. The early stage of a book is dangerous. When the story unfolds to a certain extent, the excitement of attracting others is also increasing. The collapse of one or two excitement points will not completely lead to the loss of readers, because he has other excitement points to support. Even if they see the most disappointing chapter, they will stick to ten or twenty chapters before giving up. As long as they give him new excitement in the later persistence stage, he will continue.
Speaking of which, do you understand a lot?
Some people say that people who write long online novels are really not people, but gods. Actually, they are not. To be exact, they are just a group of people who are good at finding the excitement of others. In a sense, these people are all people with high emotional intelligence in online novels (not representing reality).
The conclusion of the problem has come out. The secret of the success of online novels is to find as many exciting points as possible and keep them exciting. Then, the key core came. What can keep readers excited?
(2) The secret of the success of online novels (2)
When this question comes out, many old writers may laugh: I don't want to point at your pain, but you have to ask. Don't online novels rely on vulgarity to attract children who don't know shit?
If you think so, you are wrong.
There is no denying that there is vulgarity in online novels, and it is massive vulgarity, but this element is by no means what supports the success of an online novel. On the contrary, it is the key factor that restricts the height of a work. If there are more vulgar details, the book will be scrapped.
This proposition is wrong because online novels attract readers by vulgarity. For example, pornographic elements, in the impression of many people, are the selling points of online novels, and even some authors who are new to this industry will make this mistake. But think about it, who has the greatest influence on a pornographic picture compared with a 1000-word pornographic description? Not to mention the porn that can be seen everywhere. Since everyone can find a much more powerful and intuitive stimulus than you at will, who else will look for this low-intensity stimulus element in the text?
There are many reasons why an online novel is unsuccessful, even no reason, but there is only one reason why an online novel is successful: it can stand the test of all aspects.
The excitement of readers is also the attraction of online novels, which I can summarize as follows.
First, the story is smooth enough. If the expression is not smooth, no one will read the best story.
Second, the plot is wonderful enough. Dull is a taboo.
Third, some points can't be copied by others. These are the labels of every successful work. For example, solo dancing on a snowy night in Zhu Xian, tomb culture in Ghost Blowing Lights, feelings of home and country in Chinese Youlong, and romantic feelings in Inscription of the Great Wall, such as "You are on the other side of the starry sky, I am on the other side of the starry sky, and I have practiced for thousands of years, not to pursue eternal life, but to wait until I can wait".
These things are healthy, and healthy and positive works will have real vitality.
I always say that the world of online novels is fucked, but it is also the fairest. Maybe you can fool the editor, but you can't fool the reader.
Readers of online novels are not as low-end as they thought. They can ignore typos and grammar, but they won't ignore any loopholes in your plot. Take The Journey to the West, the historical novel I wrote at the beginning, as an example. I looked up a lot of information about the Han Dynasty and made sure it was nothing serious. But after only seven chapters, something went wrong. A reader told me: "You said that Emperor Jing died and Emperor Wu succeeded to the throne." If you were in that dynasty, you would die. What is the reason? Emperor Wu was the name of Liu Che after his death. He just took over. Did you curse him for death? I have no shame! Don't think readers are retarded. Readers are all over the world, and there are many university professors. Once they get picky, no one can stand it. Moreover, in modern society, information is highly developed, and the truth will come out whatever readers look up.
Having said that, the secret of success can basically be summarized as: a good story, a smooth expression, a healthy idea, something that portrays people as flesh and blood and leaves people with aftertaste.
(C) the writing skills of online novels
Speaking of this topic, I am ashamed. Many authors of online novels have told me that you are not suitable for writing online novels, and you care too much about words. Yes, everything has to be compared before we can draw a conclusion. Compared with traditional writers, I care least about words, but compared with those online writers, I care about the expression of words. I always say that I am the kind of person between traditional literature and online literature. On the one hand, it yearns for the free framework and free play of online novels, on the other hand, it is difficult to abandon the aesthetic feeling of traditional characters.
Success is nothing and failure is nothing. It is because of this kind of person that my achievements are doomed. I didn't make a splash in online novels, but in all the books I have finished so far, I haven't failed miserably. Even if I change two vests, I will still be selected from hundreds of thousands of books by picky readers, which will be smoothly linked to the moonlit night on the 24 th Bridge.
This is both glory and sorrow.
Perhaps because of this, I think I can give some superficial but enlightening views on online novel writing to a group of people who are highly respected and have deep research on words. The following specific writing methods, you don't have to delve into, just as an inspiration.
When it comes to writing online novels, let's start with classification. Various categories are written differently. There are many classifications of online novels.
For male readers and female readers, many people may think, does the gender of readers have anything to do with novels? Of course, it doesn't matter in traditional literature, but it is very important in online novels. Female readers of male-frequency novels may read them (mostly female men), but male readers of female-frequency novels will not read them (even pseudo-mothers will not read them). Why? Men and women have different dreams. Men can do anything to fight for the world. Women should teach their husbands and children to enjoy the sweet warmth. What do they want to pursue in the novel? In fact, it is also an interpretation of your dream to some extent. Different dreams have different expectations. This is why most male-frequency works are full of blood and ability, while female-frequency works are mostly presidents, time travelers and queens.
This is a gender-specific classification and also a classification of the nature of novels. There are many such classifications, such as fantasy, magic, city, history, Xian Xia, suspense and so on. I have written all these kinds of works, and I have a little superficial understanding. The writing is different. Fantasy mainly tells the mystery of the story, and the scene is generally set in the virtual space, with oriental elements as the mainstay. Magic is generally set in the western world. The names and place names of characters have obvious western styles, such as Catherine and Addis, and skills are often magical elements. The six traditional elements, light, darkness, earth, fire, water and wind, were continuously deduced in the later period, and electric magic, space magic, time magic and so on were added. Urban writing is the most challenging. One mistake that many people easily make is: making the city strange. The master's works are familiar cities and familiar details. Any situation is unexpected and natural. History is very difficult, and I basically dare not talk about it, because the writing of history is that small details are true, big ones are true, and a main line interspersed in the middle is fictional. It is necessary to connect perfectly and test the professional level extremely. The key to Xian Xia is boldness of vision, openness and a big world. If the traditional myth dynasty can be perfectly connected, it is the top grade. Suspense is difficult to write, but publishing this piece is my favorite. The most important factor is that the land under your feet must be true, some grass must be true, and the story can be interpreted freely, but the degree is very important. Too much will become a myth, and not enough interpretation will be dull. We call this moderate degree "grey zone". For example, in Ghost Blowing Lights, there are strange insects and zombies in the middle, but there is no direct description of ghosts throughout. Wong Tai Sin (weasel) can confuse and manipulate people, but he can't speak directly.
The various types of writing are mentioned earlier, and the general rules should be said later.
There are two kinds of writers. One kind of person is dominated by passionate personality. Such people often either don't write or write crazily. They can only sleep for three hours every day, and the rest of the time they write crazily. If they lose interest, they will sleep with him for a few days and nights. Another kind of person is rational personality. They write thousands of words every day, rain or shine, and they want to eat and sleep. Even if they encounter major changes, they still don't change their style of writing.
I don't know about writing traditional novels, but writing online novels is definitely the second kind.
Because online novels are crazy, if you write with crazy personality, it will really add fuel to the fire and cannot be copied. There are many vivid examples, or painful lessons, such as Gu Long. Gu Long is a good wine, a good woman, arrogant and extravagant, and talented. He left countless exciting monuments, but he also died young. For example, I once met an online writer named twinkle. He has created a miracle that no one has ever broken. He wrote fifty thousand words in ten hours. He told me how he wrote it. First, he wrapped his finger in gauze and hit it. I said, can you stand it? He said he could stand it! I said, can the keyboard stand it? He said that he changed three keyboards a year.
My basic method is: don't break the biological clock as the bottom line, and don't exceed 10 thousand words a day. When you reach 10,000 words, stop immediately, even if you are idle, even if the trend of thought is surging, you will not write if you don't say it. In addition, it is also very important to save the manuscripts, and ensure that there are at least150,000 manuscripts at hand at any time. This is not just a calm response, the key is to relax, have enough time to think about the direction of the story, and not be forced to make wrong choices.
This section is only for the reference of traditional writers. You can't make this choice. Then in the next section, I will talk about something that everyone is interested in, that is, the connection between online novels and traditional novels. I hope it really helps you.
(D) the connection between online novels and traditional literature
We say that a work is good, what is good about it? Most people can speak languages, thoughts and stories. There is no difference between traditional literature and online literature in these evaluation factors. The difference is only the order. Traditional literature will be arranged in this way: language, conception and story. And online literature will be arranged like this: story, language and thought.
Traditional literature often puts language first consciously or unconsciously, while online literature will definitely put stories first.
It doesn't really matter who is in charge and who is in charge. The important thing is that there is no big difference in the basis of judgment, considering these three aspects.
Since there is no difference, it proves that online literature and traditional literature are interlinked.
Let's talk about the advantages and disadvantages of both sides first. The disadvantage of online literature is that it caters to readers' needs too much, lowers the self-requirement of literary artistry, and sacrifices too many things for stories, resulting in the loss of the thickness of works (of course, the thickness I am talking about is not the thickness of books, but the thickness of artistic connotation).
The disadvantage of traditional literature is that it sacrifices width and breadth for artistry and fails to hit the reader's interest.
What should we do?
It's still a matter of concept. The first is recognition.
The predecessors of traditional literature should acknowledge the creativity and rich imagination of online literature. Internet writers should also admit that words are beautiful. What our ancestors left behind is really profound. Sometimes, we are really blaspheming words.
And second? Fusion.
Stones from other mountains can attack jade and learn from each other's strengths.
It is time! What kind of scene will it be to integrate the rich imagination and creativity of online literature into traditional literature, to contain and interpret these stories with the thickness of traditional literature?
This section ends here, just because how to integrate is the subject I am thinking about at present, and I can try my best to do it myself, but it is not time to sum up. ***
(5) Some experiences of the novel
I am not a writer, and I have never considered myself a writer. Like most online writers, they are more accustomed to calling themselves writers. This is exquisite, writers, work and marriage are at a high level, and their writing is called writing. The writer is just a writing hand, and more is the use of tools. Their writing is called "code word".
Whether a writer or a writer, at least he has coded tens of millions of words, and all kinds of scenes, characters and expressions are relatively skilled.
As I am a skilled writer, I still have some opinions to say.
The first is the shaping of the story. Many people have a premise in writing, which is to straighten out the story frame completely, or even choose the name and content of each chapter and fill in the blanks. Is this a good method? Of course, at least you can ensure that the story is under your control. But for real novels, sometimes there are also bad places and three shortcomings. First, the setting of the story frame is a very brain-burning process, and it often takes a long time to set it completely. When it is set, the passion fades, and the story dies before it begins. Second, the framework of the story is dead, but as soon as the story unfolds, you will often find that the plot of the story sometimes deviates from the track and the initial setting becomes unreasonable. What should I do? Only the following outline can be modified, which is a long process. Third, after the story is limited, some sudden inspiration will become overwhelmed. If you are safe, it will affect the overall situation. If you are uneasy, you will not give up, which will make the writer suffer. Many people also doubt that online writers can easily write millions of words. How to design this outline? It's simple. We don't have a complete outline. Generally, we write down the outline at the beginning and then change it according to the situation so as not to deviate from the general direction. As for the details, we follow it and pursue the harmony and vividness of nature. A popular metaphor for these two writing styles is that the former is painting and the latter is planting trees. When you draw, draw the outline first, then draw the details carefully, fill the gaps with paint, and then it's over. How to plant trees and plant saplings to see how long it can grow, grow, grow branches, grow leaves and bloom. Two models, two results, the former is neat and standardized, the latter is eclectic, the former is atmospheric and the latter is aura, that's all.
The second is the setting of the plot. Someone once said that the most important thing to test a writer's standard is not to write a story, but how to deal with the relationship between complexity and simplicity. Some plots need strong colors, while others are as simple as possible. Without simplification, even the best story can't be told well. Simplify the complicated places, and readers will not be infected; Simple, you will be complicated, and the reader's thinking will be biased by you, thus deviating from the main line of the story and feeling confused. Everyone is a master of changing from simple to complex, so I won't mention changing from simple to complex, just from complex to simple. For example, an introduction like this: "Dr. Zhou, people call him Zhou lame." He was not a cripple originally, because he prescribed two kinds of medicine to others and was beaten into a cripple. " Is it simple? Have you made it clear about his medical skills? Another example is the following dialogue: "As far as I know, the Phoenix Empire is not your home." "Yes!" "But that's the home of Phoenix Mountain Villa!" "Yes!" "Phoenix Villa people want to destroy the Phoenix Empire. Is it ironic that you, an outsider, jumped out to stop it? " "That's quite ironic!" "Regret?" "No regrets!" "Why?" "Fair!" Is it more heroic than a lot of preaching? It is still a classic sentence of Mr. Gu Long: Xiao Li flies a knife, and there is no empty hair. Is eight words more telling than comparing a pile of data?
Create an atmosphere again. Atmosphere building is true learning, the university asked. Finally, anyone can only dabble in life and dare not say that he is proficient. Sometimes, the tense story development stage needs a relief, and this time is the key moment to create an atmosphere. For example, in the story of Ghost Blowing Lights 2, he made a mistake. The tension of the story lasted for too long, and there was no moderate relief, which led to the poet's aesthetic fatigue. Even the wonderful chapters of the story are exchanged for the anger of the reader "You are finished", which is absolutely unexpected. The sequel is too slow and boring, which is in contrast with the style of the first one, so it will cause some controversy.
Secondly, characterization. Characters are the soul of novels. Talking about people in front of traditional people is suspicious, but maybe I have some new ideas for reference. First, people's characteristics should not be static. After a person has experienced various things, the perspective of looking at the problem will change, and the way of dealing with the problem will also change. To say that a leopard cannot change his spots, it only refers to human nature, not the characters in the novel. Change is possible, but the logical chain is enough. Secondly, the characterization of characters is labeled. Everyone has his own label, and he has his own characteristics in doing things, speaking and doing things. For example, if I say a word from a girl, a basic image will definitely come to everyone's mind: "Do you have a conscience?" I rode my bike for dozens of miles, and such a lovely car turned into a dog. "Will you put her on a strong woman? Obviously not. For example, I will say, "You are an eagle on the grassland, but the grassland in your heart is not here!" " "This must be an affectionate and helpless farewell of a knowledge girl. Thirdly, there are many ways to portray characters, and only the most suitable one is always chosen. When the heroine in Qiong Yao's novel begins to cry, you can turn off the TV, smoke a cigarette, wait until the cigarette is finished, and then look back at TV. Maybe she's still crying. This is a portrayal, but also touching. However, I have seen a TV series called the Year of the Loong Archives, which is about anti-corruption. Mayor mccullough and his lover (reporter Liu Mei) were in a coma when they entered the coal mine. When he woke up, he heard the news of Liu Mei's death with a white towel over his eyes. His throat moved gently, and a line of clear tears slipped down the white towel. Without saying a word, the audience still cried.
Finally, the height of the novel. Everyone says that Jin Yong is everyone, why everyone? He can combine history with characters, martial arts with Buddhism, and human feelings with humanity. This combination makes everyone. Any book can be from point to surface, from small to large, from small counties to small people, and can reflect a serious and grand social chapter. Weird stories also have an eternal theme. The end point is not determined by the material, but by the height of the novel. Xian Xia's story is a myth, but its Buddhist, magical and human nature are equally indispensable.
Let's put the topic of this online novel here for the time being, so let's end with a prediction in Xian Xia's novels: the Tao will end up like a Buddha, and the Buddha will end up like a demon.
Buddha is like this, Tao is like this, and demon is like this.
Online novels, traditional novels, are all novels, return to novels!