Is it a character? Is it a plot? Or is it a distressing opening and ending?

In The Blade, william somerset maugham said: When I started writing novels, I was never so confused as I am now. If I still call it a novel, it's only because I don't know what else to call it. ......

I remember a man in this book. I have only been in close contact with this person for more than a dozen times, and there is a long time between them. I know almost nothing about what happened to him when we were not together. I think, with novels, I can fill in the gaps and make my story more compact and coherent. ......

Fill in the blanks with novels.

Mao Mu pointed out the uniqueness of writing novels and the writer's experience here. Must a writer have enough experience in order to collect novel materials? Under ideal conditions, the answer is yes. But I want to remind you here: that is under ideal conditions and conditions.

More often, a writer often doesn't have the opportunity and conditions to gain experience. What should he do at this time? Can't you write?

Before Mao Mu wrote Oscar Pistorius, he wrote a world-famous work-Moonlight and Sixpence. This is a novel based on Gauguin, a famous post-impressionist painter. It is absolutely noteworthy (many people ignore this) that Gauguin is French.

But Charles Strickland, the character in Mao Mu's novels, was described by him as an Englishman. By his own admission, Mao Mu didn't know much about the story of the French artist.

"It's hard to understand people. I think it is almost impossible to really understand a foreigner. Because people, both men and women, are not just themselves; It is also the place where they were born, the farm or apartment in the city where they were toddlers, the games they played as children, the stories they heard from their grandmother, the food they ate, the school they went to, the sports they participated in, the poems they read on weekdays and the gods they believed in. It's all these that make them what they are now, and it's not something you can know by hearsay. Only when you have experienced it yourself can you understand them. Only if you are one of them can you understand them. "

From Mao Mu's account, we can understand how difficult it is to understand a person. But what's going on? Can you describe it vividly without knowing it, and have such a far-reaching impact on later writers and readers?

Mao Mu said that he used the novelist's power to fabricate some events to reveal the hero's character. With the association and inspiration of these facts in the brain, Strickland was created. Later, he said that it is difficult to portray foreigners in the book because they only rely on observation. He dares to write about foreigners in some short stories because he can deal with characters in a more general way.

"What you give the reader is only a general outline, so that the reader can supplement the details."

Mao Mu's words deeply shocked me and reminded me. I was born with two important ideas.

First, writers are human beings after all, and it is the responsibility to establish a complete understanding system of things, but it is impossible and impossible to experience all the corresponding things for the writing of each book. What about the lost materials and news? Relying on experience, logic and fiction, make full use of imagination to make up for these gaps.

I am deeply touched by this.

In his third novel, Arriving as Scheduled, there are both documentary and fiction. Because the protagonist can't and can't live with the hostess all day, many psychological and physical explorations of the hostess are in a gray area and have to be fabricated by experience, logic and imagination. To this end, the prototype of the female host once spoke against this:

"From this perspective, literary works are created around themselves, and the other side of things will not be considered at all. This is still a documentary, but it is just shirking responsibility. "

The logical mistake made by the prototype behavior of the female host at this point is that all works must reflect absolute authenticity and objectivity, otherwise it is disrespectful or objective to the facts and the parties. The fact is, this kind of work she understands does not exist.

The second point is to think about the difference between two important concepts in painting art: figurative art and image art, which were born in painting. We have studied the origin and evolution of artistic styles in various periods, paying special attention to the differences of some concepts, one of which is the difference between "figurative and image". Here is an allusion, or a story, a joke.

It is said that Matisse painted a portrait of a lady. After painting, the lady exclaimed, "Are you painting me? Actually painted me like this, so ugly? " Matisse smiled and said, "Madam, please don't be surprised. Actually, I painted you as I saw you, not as you think. At this point, I actually painted you beautifully. "

What Matisse is saying here is that artists have different eyes on things from ordinary people. He didn't copy the image of the lady, but drew his own subjective feelings. This is not difficult to explain. No matter whether one knows painting or not, it is enough to show this portrait of Madame Matisse and Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa at the same time.

This is the difference between concreteness and image.

Similarly, Mao Mu's words reminded me that this kind of concrete and image expression similar to painting also exists in novels. Figurative writing can experience the writer's specific experience, such as the description of Ebola virus in blood epidemic; Image writing is inseparable from the writer's own thoughts, and it is the writer who expresses his feelings or emotions about the real society and life through words.

Similarly, in logic, such a concept is: the connotation and extension of the concept. For example, when the word "house" is mentioned, the connotation of the concept is to understand its essence. For example, it is related to the fact that a house is a residence and a home for people when they are tired, and it reflects the "what" of the concept from the "quality" aspect; The extension of the concept is that all the items in the house, such as furniture, dining room and study, reflect the "what" of the concept from the "quantity" aspect.

Here we can see that concrete art and image art exist in different fields at the same time. The concept of image art should be subjective expression of the objective world.

In a word, in his work Blade, Mao Mu fully demonstrated two skills in literary creation-concreteness and imagery. He showed his "blade" in a gorgeous way! Who says literature is just a documentary? Fiction is also one of the best means to lack material and inspiration.