Chapter 9 is very in-depth
The parent company of "Story Club", Modu Century Publishing, is a giant state-owned enterprise. I won't go into too much detail. Anyway, it is very powerful. No wonder it has become a rare brand that sells nationwide. Magazine.
At the moment, in the Story Club editorial department, editors, editors, reviewers and others are coming in and out, and it is very busy.
Lao Li is the deputy review editor and the leader of the Red Edition Team A, responsible for reviewing manuscripts.
Why is it called Lao Li? Because he is senior enough and is a veteran in the publishing industry. If Lao Li hadn't switched jobs here because his children were studying, and Lao Li had stayed at the original publishing house, his position would have definitely been higher than it is now.
As one of the highest-selling magazines in the country, the review model of "Story Club", in addition to the traditional three-review process of "preliminary review, re-review, and final review", also has an additional step of "one discussion", that is, all editors discuss whether to accept or leave the manuscript.
If it passes the third review, it will be rejected if it fails the first review.
There must have been too many manuscripts that passed review in the first half of the month. Lao Li held the enamel cup, took a sip of tea, drank the tea leaves, and spit it back into the cup.
"The story is too poor. Let's wait and see. Forget it, just reject it directly. Even if it passes the reexamination, it will not pass the final review."
""The First Beggar in the Seven-year-old Country"" The story is okay, the setting of Seven Years Old Country is a bit like a Hollywood movie "Evolution of Jackass", too."
Lao Li, who is in working mode, reads manuscripts very quickly. After reviewing an article, he takes a sip of tea. It feels a bit comfortable, but the probability of drinking tea is relatively high.
Not only is the speed of reading manuscripts fast, but it is not enough to read ten lines at a glance. Lao Li can notice the details of the article. This kind of talent is a good candidate for review and editing.
"Gu Lu...all eight articles passed the preliminary review? This is a bit rare."
It is common for an author to submit several manuscripts, but what is uncommon is a 100% pass rate.
"The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God", "Smashing Piggy", "Good Intentions", "Pipe", "Shoes", "Souvenirs from Hell", "Hole in the Wall" and "Santini Flying Man", Gu Lu is I submitted one more article than planned, but I’m not sure why I’m keeping it secret for the time being.
Eight stories, Lao Li saw the message in the document notes by the editor in charge of the preliminary review, [Editor in charge Li Muxi: The reason for passing is that the story is well written, but it doesn’t quite resemble the story style of our magazine, but the story is really well written. ]
“What nonsense are you talking about?” Lao Li decided to criticize his subordinates for not being reliable at all.
"Good Intention": I never asked for it to be like this. It's like being possessed by an evil spirit, except instead of an evil spirit taking over your body, it's an angel. Damn it! If the devil had taken over my body, someone might have wanted to kill me. But now?
"Shoes": The world's memory is very poor, he said, especially for those bad past events. The world forgets easily, he said, but you don't. Whenever you see a neon man, you will remember what I said to you. Whenever you see Nissan, whether it is a TV or anything else, you will remember that hidden under the exquisite packaging are various parts and tubes made of Chinese bones, skin and meat.
"Santini Flyer": "You could have bent your knees a little." Captain Luigi wiped a tear from my eye and said softly, "You could have bent your knees a little. Joint. I won’t say anything.”
Lao Li watched with rapt attention. How much concentration should he pay? I even raised the ceramic cup twice without drinking any water.
Stories one after another silenced the well-informed old Li, just like Sun Bin's greatness and Arthur's skills were placed on him at the same time.
“This author is so amazing. He can write about the trivial matters in life in a very interesting way.” Lao Li commented after a long silence.
For example, "The Flying Man of Santini" tells the story of a foreign child who watched a circus performance and wanted to join the circus, so he accepted the assessment of the troupe leader. The leader's test was to ask the child to touch the toes with his hands without bending his knees. The result was that the child exerted too much force and caused a herniated disc.
It’s that simple, but if you cooperate with the leader at the end, you can succeed by bending your knees slightly. So is it because the child is too honest? Furthermore, "If you want to succeed in this society, you have to bend your knees. Children don't understand this, but adults know it all too well."
It is definitely not that Lao Li overthinks reading comprehension. After reading eight stories, he can feel that the author named Gu Lu definitely has this depth of thought.
Like "Shoes", which impressed him most, the protagonist accompanied his grandfather to see the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Jinling Massacre. Two weeks later, "I" was unwilling to accept the gift of Mizuno (Japanese) sneakers brought back by my parents. . After being forced to wear them, I played a game of football. "I" felt so comfortable that I even forgot that the shoes were from neon while playing football.
“The ending is a stroke of genius, and it does not stop at the point where the protagonist feels guilty,” Lao Li lamented. “The world is forgetful. Many times we will forget temporarily. Don’t feel guilty. Because of the pain of the nation, we I will remember it forever.”
It’s a pity that if it had been sent three months later, the magazine would have asked for articles on patriotic stories as usual. Lao Li believed that “Shoes” was much better than the winning entries in previous years.
"Why didn't Gu Lu submit these stories to literary journals such as Harvest and October?" Lao Li paused and changed the topic, "That's not right. These stories are not that literary, so the submission will not be approved."
To put it simply, the writer Gu Lu is the most literary in the story gathering, and the most story-telling in Harvest October.
Lao Li personally passed seven articles, but the one that failed was "Smashing the Piggy". The story was really weak, even if it was very deep.
I used the email rejection reply template, [Dear author, sincerely thank you for submitting your article to "Story Club" magazine...] The template also explains the possible factors in the attractiveness of the storyline and the fullness of the character creation. The manuscript failed to pass due to reasons such as the fluency of language expression and the fit with the magazine's positioning. I look forward to my next submission.
"Story Club" is not a core journal. In 95% of cases, revision comments will not be given, and the remaining 5% will only appear in the final review of the editor-in-chief and review editor.
Immediately afterwards, Lao Li, out of his love for stories, gave a private reply: [Mr. Gu Lu, your "Smashing the Piggy" is not suitable for the positioning of the story club, but I can recommend you to "Youth Literature", If you are interested, please add my contact information...]
"Huh——" Lao Li felt that he should leave a review message, but he didn't know how to put it down.
Now he understands the preliminary review message of his editor Li Muxi, and the description is very appropriate! It seems that he also wrote a similar comment.
I don’t know what Editor Huo will think about it. Lao Li thought about it and smiled, looking forward to it.
Gu Lu, who had posed some problems for the editor and editor, heard a piece of gossip as soon as he arrived in the classroom early in the morning.
Zhao Juan and Wang Wenjun in class broke up!
Well, Gu Lu is now very sure that it is not gossip, because Zhao Juan walked into the classroom with red eyes, and when she got to her seat, she started to cry with her head buried in her head without even covering the stool.
Three or four girls who could play together gathered around to comfort him, excluding Zhou Lin, who was doing homework.
If Zhou Lin’s test scores were not stable in the top grades every time, her every move would really be like a poor student, “eating snacks in class”, “coming to school early in the morning to make up homework”, “like to pass notes in class”...
"But crying like this is not the answer." Gu Lu realized the crux of the problem. Zhao Juan is the math class representative, and she should be the one to take the lead in self-study this morning.
(End of this chapter)