The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 152: Family Ode "The Secret of Connecting the City"

After soliciting manuscripts for so long, Wang Wenlong finally understood how lacking writing talents are in this era. Eight-part essays are harmful to people. Most literati these days have no novel thinking.

Writers who have published novels, no matter how bad their writing is, are qualified employees for Wang Wenlong.

Xu Zhonglin thought about it and nodded happily: "Okay, it's not interesting for me to sit in Zhangzhou, why not work as an editor in Fuzhou and write novels at the same time."

Wang Wenlong said happily: "It's just right. I wonder what works Mr. Wang has written?"

"Oh, my surname is Xu, my courtesy name is Zhonglin, and my nickname is Zhongshan Yisou. I wrote a book called "The Romance of the Gods" more than ten years ago."

Xu Zhonglin?
"Feng Shen Yan Yi"!
Wang Wenlong stared at Xu Zhonglin in front of him in stunned silence.

He asked a few more times, and finally confirmed that the author of "The Romance of the Gods" was standing in front of him, and he instantly felt a strong sense of unreality.

"The Romance of the Gods" has a profound influence in history, but its reputation in the Ming Dynasty is far less than that of later generations.

The first edition of Fengshen Yanyi had been printed during the Wanli period, but by the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, neither the Four Talents nor the Six Talents were included in "Fengshen Yanyi", which shows that the parties involved did not think highly of this book. , probably at the level of an ordinary best-seller.

The real hit of "Fengshen Yanyi" is that the story of "Fengshen" will be extensively adapted to the northern operas of the Qing Dynasty.

In fact, it’s really not surprising that people were not optimistic about this book at this time.

The biggest advantage of Fengshen Yanyi is its rich imagination, but other than that, its plot is simple and repetitive, its characters are thin, and its ideas are not exciting. It is not at the same level as "Journey to the West".

The stories of "Fengshen Yanyi" cut into short paragraphs can often be very exciting. The most important thing is that they eliminate the shortcomings of the original book's single repetition.

Opera audiences will enjoy watching the fighting plot in the novel Fengshen Yan, but if they are reading the original novel, almost no one will be able to read it without skipping a beat.

For example, the plot of breaking the Ten Jue Formation. Xu Zhonglin actually wrote ten great formations in Fengshen Yanyi, and the plot of breaking the formation is exactly the same every time. First, one person is sent to die, and then someone is sent to break the formation.

The first formation is written like this, the second, the third, and up to the tenth, the process remains unchanged.

If the same plot is played to you ten times, who can stand it? Pure water word count.

If Xu Zhonglin's behavior was included in future online novels, she would probably be criticized to death by readers.

This can be regarded as clearing up Wang Wenlong's doubts. He has been wanting to know the whereabouts of the author of "The Romance of the Gods" since he came to this era, but except for the name Xu Zhonglin, Wang Wenlong has no other clues.

Although Xu Zhonglin is somewhat famous in Suzhou literary circles, she is not a high-profile figure like Feng Menglong. When Wang Wenlong came to Wushan Society, most people had only heard of the novel "The Romance of the Gods" but did not know the whereabouts of Xu Zhonglin.

In fact, although "Fengshen Yanyi" became popular in later generations, for a long time there was controversy over who was the author of "Fengshen Yanyi".

Someone still found Xu Zhonglin's name on the earliest Ming Dynasty edition of "Fengshen Yanyi" in the Japanese collection, and after finding some relevant information about Xu Zhonglin in the literati's notes, they pieced together Xu Zhonglin's life.

To put it bluntly, Xu Zhonglin was a short-lived best-selling writer at this time. She had been thinking about writing a second book to achieve success again, but in Wang Wenlong's previous life, he never wrote the second novel until his death.

Wang Wenlong naturally would not let such a talent go and tried his best to keep him, and Xu Zhonglin nodded in agreement.

Wang Wenlong suddenly found it extremely interesting, and wondered whether Xu Zhonglin's fate would change when she came to "Xunbao" in this time and space?

But let’s not say whether Xu Zhonglin’s fate can be changed. Just say that Xu Zhonglin will come all the way from Zhangzhou to Fuzhou to know how much impact "Liancheng Jue" will have on readers at this time?

At this time, the martial arts novels had not even developed the fighting scenes, and the emergence of public case martial arts was still far away. All the above works were attributed to the old school of martial arts. "The Secret of the City" is the work of the new martial arts master Jin Yong.

The biggest difference between new-school martial arts and old-school martial arts is the sense of substitution.

All contents of the new martial arts focus on three themes: treasure hunting and learning skills, love and hatred, and the righteousness of family and country.

It only takes a little thought to understand:
Treasure hunt and learning skills: the protagonist acquires peerless martial arts; grudges and resentments: the protagonist is discriminated against, and the protagonist’s lover is taken away because of his weak strength; feelings of family and country: the protagonist witnesses the destruction of his country and his family, and goes south with iron heel - at this time, the protagonist suddenly displays a magical skill, change destiny.

The reader's sense of immersion is naturally much stronger than watching the confrontation between good and evil.

These three themes have always been tried and tested, and Internet novels in later generations still revolve around these three themes.

Readers of this era have never seen such a novel that directly makes people immerse themselves in it. When Wang Wenlong wrote about the pure love between the protagonist Di Yun and his junior sister, the readers were already shocked. Then they saw Di Yun was falsely accused and imprisoned. , he and his junior sister were separated, and the reader's sense of involvement was already extremely strong.

At this time, the novel also revealed that Di Yun was imprisoned and was locked up with a great master, and that master might teach Di Yun martial arts.

The readers' expectations are already full, always thinking that Di Yun can learn magic skills to go back for revenge and win back his little junior sister.

"Liancheng Jue" has been serialized to its sixth issue and has become popular in Fujian. This novel is not difficult to read at all. Anyone who knows a few words can understand it. Even people who can't read are following the serialization.

With the popularity of "Liancheng Jue", every time a new chapter is published, storytelling masters quickly read the article and then put it on the stage for performance.

Even those readers who were attracted by the names of other scholars in other sections of "Xun Bao" were obsessed with "Liancheng Jue".

Every time a new work of "Liancheng Jue" is published, it is often recited from family to family.

Under the leadership of "Liancheng Jue", the sales momentum of "Xun Bao" has also been rising.

At first, Xu Xueju's best goal was to sell one hundred copies of each issue of "Xun Bao". As a result, with the popularity of "Liancheng Jue", the sales of "Xun Bao" gradually stabilized to more than a thousand copies.

Many people buy "Xun Bao" just to follow the serial novels, and "Liancheng Jue" has become a market trend.

As the sales of "Xun Bao" continued to rise, businessmen naturally came to the door and wanted to advertise.

Advertising in the form of leaflets has been around since the Northern Song Dynasty, and newspapers were cheap to print and had huge sales. At this time, people would naturally have the idea of ​​advertising in them.

This inspired Wang Wenlong. He personally led people to negotiate with several customers, and finally advertised for a restaurant in Fuzhou city at a price of twelve taels per issue.

It's not that Wang Wenlong doesn't want more, it's just that he can only talk about this price.

Although people these days are aware of advertising, they obviously do not intend to spend too much money on publicity and distribution. The owner of the restaurant is still a little hesitant because the sales volume of "Xun Bao" is only one thousand copies, and each issue of Twelve Liang is still a little hesitant. The publicity cost was equivalent to ten cents for advertising for each newspaper, which was already more than the cost of printing flyers himself. The only advantage was that Wang Wenlong promised that the publicity effect of the newspaper would be better than that of distributing flyers himself.

And Wang Wenlong can only continue to increase prices after the advertising effect comes out, and he may even have only this one customer for a long time.

During this period, Xu Zhonglin also officially joined the "Xunbao" newspaper office and was responsible for the novel section.

Xu Zhonglin was very obsessed with "The Legend of Liancheng". After joining the company, she followed it every day, not to mention that she even wanted to go to Cangshan to learn martial arts from an old Taoist.

He also asked in a sideways way whether Wang Wenlong could write about the martial arts world so realistically and whether he really knew the martial arts masters. When he learned that Wang Wenlong's stories were all made up, Xu Zhonglin couldn't help but sigh.

(End of this chapter)