(3)
——Theme selection——
This book actually chose a subject that I was not familiar with. At that time, I wanted to write about the fourth natural disaster just out of curiosity. At that time, I happened to be exposed to the gamer genre, which could be integrated with an idea I had before (an angel undercover becomes the lord of hell), so I drafted this story with great interest.
At that time, I was still thinking that the theme of the 4th natural disaster could be integrated with "game production". At that time, I happened to visit a lot of game forums and had a lot of ideas about sustainable games.
When I was actually writing, I discovered a lot of difficulties, and I had no idea at all.
In fact, most of the novels and comics I read focus on a fixed protagonist or team of protagonists, and do not touch on how a large community changes. I haven't read many novels related to lord farming.
There is a serious lack of material in the brain, and it is very difficult to create. Many times, the development of the player community is simply mentioned in one stroke, and I don’t know how to write it in detail as a main element of the plot.
It is estimated that many people can see that many plots in "The Lord is an Undercover" are based on team or single-person adventure novels.
Such as rebirth and grandpa, such as sneaking into the enemy's base camp, such as finding treasures while shopping when the days are long and the nights are short, such as the protagonist opening a trumpet to cause trouble and others do not know it is him, etc. It just splits the elements that originally belonged to the protagonist to different characters.
As for farming in the territory...
Who knows this?
It is still a bit difficult for me to control group portraits. If I write this book, I probably won’t choose group portraits.
——Event——
After finishing "The Little Priest Containing Divine Weirdness", I deliberately emphasized the importance of "plot nesting" in my summary of experience.
In other words, one big plot can be split into several middle plots, and one middle plot can be split into several small plots, which are called matryoshka dolls. The conflicting lines have never been interrupted, the characters have been advancing towards the final goal, and the story has a continuous sense of expectation.
Objectively speaking, this conclusion is actually correct, but certain problems arise in practice.
When conceiving this book, I used "plot/event" as the backbone of my writing idea. I first came up with specific plots, and then connected each plot in an outline to form a story. In order to allow specific events to occur, the motivations of the characters are specifically constructed. Most of the "plots" are 20,000 to 30,000 words long, and the time in the story is not long, usually within two hours.
From front to back, the main events that exceed 10,000 words are as follows.
[If you have any views, comments or suggestions about the following plots, whether positive or negative, you can comment after the corresponding plot column]
【Recruit Lulu】
[Player's first drop]--[Profiteer Khaled]
【Huangquan Beehive】
[Players sneak into the Belkin Bunker]
[Syphiel confronts Bell]-[Bell's attempted assassination]
[Plunder Army Attacks Player Community]-[Mysterious Angel Debuts]
【Angel Attacks Treasury Bunker】
[Shadow Lao San tried to observe the player and was killed]
[The shadow boss and the second child sneak into the player village]
[Final decisive battle] ([Hunting the mysterious angel]-[Discovering the monster spawning point]-[Bell's surprise attack on the Lord's Castle]-[Player dives into the vault]-[Defeat Bell]-[Confronting the Talkative One])
Some of the above-mentioned plots were just a shapeless idea in the initial conception stage, and were added as they were written. The actual writing order is not necessarily exactly the same as the order of publication. Sometimes I will write the events that happened later first, and then go back and write the events that happened before, or I will adjust the order and adjust certain sentences after both events are written. .
The ultimate goal of the entire volume is [defeat Bell]. This goal of this volume connects all the plots, and all events are the scenery and stations on the way to this goal. This goal was indeed achieved at the end of the volume. In addition, there are several hidden lines, such as "Syphiel gradually discovered that the length of the day and the length of the night are abnormal", "the plan to alienate Bell and General Weapons", and "the plan of the talker".
When I was writing, I could vaguely notice that there were slight similarities or lack of suspense in some plots.
For example, there are three plots: [Kalard, the profiteer], [The third shadow brother tries to observe the player and is killed], and [the third brother and the second brother of the shadow sneak into the player's village].
Although the causes, processes and results are different, the underlying dramatic tension is the same, that is, the collision and drama between [players do not follow rules and play cards according to common sense] and ["NPCs" normal and rational thinking forms] conflict.
After using the same conflict type three times, the intensity of the dramatic tension was obviously weakened a lot, and I didn't know how to add and construct new dramatic tension for a while.
In addition, in most plots, although the total number of characters appearing is not large, they can be basically divided into two forces: "enemy" and "West Philanthropy". The complexity of the conflicting relationship is actually not enough. Moreover, "Xifelfang" also has too many trump cards. Most of the time, it is the routine of "encountering the enemy - defeating the enemy and defeating him".
Compared with single-player or small-team adventures, the large number of players as protagonists makes it difficult to design and add some plots that I am familiar with. For example, in many single-player or small team adventure stories, there are scenes such as "the protagonist is hunted down and hides in a valley/small village" or "the protagonist group is wanted and has to dress up and move secretly".
Thinking about it now, the contradictions and tensions contained in the entire world view and character settings are actually not enough to support a long-form creation. (End of chapter)