Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 619 Chapter 618 The Piano in a Factory

The two cousins ​​looked at him with worry.

"What's the matter? It's just an article that hasn't been published. It's nothing." Fang Minghua said with a smile: "If reportage is not allowed to be published, then just write a novel. But let's not talk about this today. Let's spend a good Christmas with the two kids!"

Fang Minghua has actually made preparations for both scenarios: realistic reportage is not acceptable, but fictional novels are okay, right?

Before Fang Minghua came to this era, among the works reflecting the Northeast workers' literature, the "Three Musketeers of Tiexi" (Yu Banyu, Shuang Xuetao and Zheng Zhi) were relatively famous and were called "New Northeast Literature."

As people born in the 1980s, they all wrote about this period more than 20 years later. The essential narrative elements of Northeast stories, such as layoffs, murders, and beatings, are all woven into the plot of the novel, becoming a symbol of the description of this period.

There is also crime literature, such as "The Past of Northeast Criminal Police" and "The Good Man Wang Zhiyong".

However, Fang Minghua feels that none of them are more shocking and impactful than the movie "The Piano in a Factory".

The film was written and directed by Zhang Meng and starred by Wang Qianyuan and Qin Hailu. It tells the story of a father who works hard for his daughter's musical dream and finally builds a piano for his daughter out of steel with the help of his friends.

Northeastern director Zhang Meng used his unique sense of romanticism to record this group of lost middle-aged people and the lost 90s.

The sudden transformation caught the workers, who had worked in the factory for decades, off guard as they suddenly lost their jobs.

Some of them stayed at home unemployed, some became gamblers, some became locksmiths, some became butchers, some went into business, and some became thieves...

They are no longer young, have no diploma, little savings, and lack the time and capital to start over.

They are rigid and have no better way out except working in the factory.

They are lost, depressed, without confidence and strength, but also stubborn.

But one thing has never changed.

They always believed that their own hands could make up for the embarrassment of being abandoned by the times. They used the working spirit that they once took pride in to prove their dignity to their children and to this era.

New Year's Day soon arrived and 1992 came to an end.

The most important event in the domestic literary world in 1992 was naturally the successful holding of the first World Chinese Literature Awards.

The submissions from different countries and regions, the high-level reading classes and jury members, the selected excellent works and the high prize money have made the literature award a focus of attention at home and abroad.

Some people even predicted that the Chinese Literature Award would replace the Mao Dun Prize as China's top award. Of course, it is too early to make such an assertion, but the Chinese people value a good start. The success of the first event undoubtedly gave Fang Minghua and other people who worked hard for it great encouragement.

Of course, at the end of the year, Fang Minghua's own reportage could not be published smoothly, which was not a happy thing in any case. More importantly, it made Fang Minghua feel that what he wanted to say was not said.

Let’s use novels as an example.

After New Year's Day, Fang Minghua started writing a novel based on the movie "The Piano in a Factory".

The plot of the movie is not complicated.

In the early 20s, in an industrial city in Northeast China, Chen Guilin, a former steel factory worker, was laid off. In order to make a living, he formed a wedding and funeral band, running around in weddings and funerals, and opening shops all day long.

At the same time, his wife Xiaoju could not bear the burden of life and fell in love with a wealthy businessman. Later, Xiaoju returned to her husband Chen Guilin and asked for a divorce, and asked for the custody of their only daughter Chen Xiaoyuan. Who can give their daughter a piano became the key to the fight for custody.

Chen Guilin hopes to train his daughter to be an excellent pianist. In order to get custody of his daughter, he endures all kinds of pressure and raises money from various sources to buy a piano for his daughter. After being frustrated everywhere, he decides to take a risk and sneaks into the school at night with his girlfriend Shuxian and a good friend from the steel factory to steal the piano, but they are caught again.

When all other methods failed, Guilin came across a Russian document on the piano by chance, so he called his partners and started the journey of hand-making pianos in the dilapidated factory. Finally, with the help of a retired thief, a full-time gangster, a big brother, and the pork prince, a group of down-and-out brothers, they built a "steel" piano. A group of men fought for dignity.

Love, friendship, passion and humor burn absurdly in the impossible mission.

The film was very well made and won the Golden Rooster Award, Huabiao Award, Taiwan Film Golden Horse Award, and the Feixibi International Film Critics Award.

Later, a TV series of the same name was adapted from the movie, but Fang Minghua has never seen it.

In the past, when Fang Minghua adapted movie scripts into novels, they were usually novellas or short stories with relatively few words.

But this time, Fang Minghua planned to write a long novel.

The film itself has its shortcomings:

First of all, the narrative rhythm of the film is loose at the beginning and tight at the end. The director may pay too much attention to the appearance of characters in the beginning, which makes the second half of the film appear too compact, especially in the last thirty minutes. The plot is compressed too much, the scene connection is abrupt, and there are even some flaws such as abrupt and unreasonable scene connection.

Secondly, the narrative clues of the film are relatively single. There are two hidden lines in the film. One is Chen Guilin's ex-wife's fight for the child, which seems rather embarrassing. Either the description of this aspect should be strengthened, the character's motivation should be strengthened, and some difficulties should be added, or it should be briefly described or even not written at all.

The other is the clue of whether the chimney stays or goes, which is too loosely connected to the main plot. In fact, the impact of the chimney's stay or go on the characters' hearts should be strengthened, but due to insufficient foreshadowing, the audience will not identify with this emotion too much.

And this is enough to solve these two problems in the length of a novel.

Moreover, Fang Minghua was deeply touched by the ten-day period back in Fengtian, and there were some things he really wanted to write down.

Since it is difficult to write about the reality that is too direct and cold, I will use black humor and some absurd words to express it.

Fang Minghua was immersed in writing throughout January. From morning to night, he basically did these three things all day: eating, writing, and sleeping. His wife Song Tangtang was a little worried.

I have been married for several years, but I have never seen Fang Minghua writing so crazily.

But sometimes, fate seemed to play a joke on him.

Just when Fang Minghua was turning his reportage into a novel because it was not published, things suddenly took a turn for the better. Xiao Dai called and told him that the reportage, which had been shelved, would be published in "Internal Reference" and circulated within a certain range of senior officials.

Good thing.
Fang Minghua was very happy to hear this.

Isn’t this the purpose and significance of writing this reportage?

Song Tangtang was also very happy to hear this, and she even called Li Li who had already returned to school to tell her the news.

We can celebrate this year's Spring Festival happily.

The Spring Festival in 93 came earlier than usual. January 22 was New Year's Eve. On this day, Fang Minghua, who had been stuck in his study all day, had to come out to eat New Year's Eve dinner with his family and watch the Spring Festival Gala to celebrate the New Year.

(End of this chapter)