The third volume is always... let's call it reflection!
Well, after finishing one volume, it’s time to write a short composition again.
Considering that the big guys are generally averse to short compositions, I try to write them in an organized and short way. But it’s still very long, so if you don’t want to read it, you can just skip it.
First of all, the name of the volume [Tuan].
Everyone should be able to see the reason why this volume is named: the core structure of this volume is the 2023-2024 Nongshim/Hupan Cup Arena Tournament, which also describes the men’s and women’s Siege League and other related plots . The name "Tuan" is very intuitive.
Secondly, this volume describes various characters in the group of professional chess players, and also writes many auxiliary lines belonging to various characters, which is also consistent with the concept of "group".
Thirdly, "tuan" in modern Chinese and chess terminology means "accumulating strength, waiting to explode", which is also consistent with the growth process of the heroine in the past six months, and also consistent with the foreshadowing of this volume. positioning.
As for the volume's comment [gathering sand into a tower, condensing into a group], it expresses the teamwork spirit of "daily efforts accumulate results" and "individual strength needs to be combined into the strength of a group to achieve maximum value". It also corresponds to the volume name.
One more thing, I originally planned to excerpt the annotations for all the volumes from ancient poems and poems, but I really couldn’t find a suitable one for the one with the word "Tuan". I could only write half a sentence for the idiom "gathering sand to form a tower" and reluctantly used it, which is a small shortcoming.
After talking about the volume title and volume notes, the next step is reflection.
Those of you who have been reading this book should know that the content of this volume has been highly controversial on several occasions, and its performance has completely stagnated or even regressed. It can be said to be an extremely failed volume.
Let’s talk about a relatively minor controversy first, that is, the heroine’s seven-game winning streak in the ring was ended by Sister Xia Chuan.
This... I can only say that I regret giving Chapter 60 the title "The Prelude to the Legend" and the word "it kicked off the prelude to many legends in the arena". The chapter concludes.
Actually, what I wanted to express at that time was that Rui Zhao would have many legendary performances in the ring competition in the future, not just how shocking this year would be.
However... my way of writing misled a large number of readers. Combined with Xiao Zhao's series of strong achievements in the second stage at that time, it directly raised readers' expectations to a very high level.
In addition, as early as in the Wuyue Cup quarter-finals, the little witch defeated Sister Xia Chuan (actually, I wrote in Chapter 54 [Honinbo] that many big guys complained about that the reason why Xia Chuankui lost to the little witch at that time was because she had just pulled the tooth, but it didn’t seem to have a hinting effect), so a large number of readers at that time felt that Xia Chuan must fall here.
However, according to the plot of this street, Xia Chuan is really in trouble here. Naturally, this plot trend that failed to meet readers' expectations received huge criticism.
Especially here, Rui Zhao has fallen, and Xiao Lei, who is extremely annoying to readers, has not yet fallen, which is even more difficult for many big bosses to accept.
(Although from Benpushi’s point of view, this can hardly be regarded as “going out before Xiao Lei” or “losing to Xiao Lei”, because in the final analysis, it is still seven consecutive victories, but it is just the Lakeside Cup first It’s just a comparison. But it’s always the writer’s fault if it gives readers a bad impression.)
I can only say that this is my taste, and I didn’t mean it to the boss. They are causing trouble. Once again, I apologize for the bad experience I have brought to you guys. I will work hard to improve in the future...
We have just talked about Xiao Lei, so let’s talk about the biggest controversy in this volume and even throughout the whole book - Xiao Lei.
The funny thing is that when I was summarizing the previous volume, I classified Xiao Lei as a "minor controversial point"...
If you are so confused, you deserve to be attacked ( wry smile).
And Xiaolei has more than one controversy, let’s go through them one by one:
[Controversy 1: There are too many scenes in the third volume, and they take the spotlight. 】
Well, I was asked countless times in this volume, "Who is the protagonist?"
This matter will take a long time to explain, but I’ll start from the beginning.
First of all, I have to confess something to the big guys here:
Xiao Lei, he is indeed one of the protagonists of [Volume 3].
Attention to the attributive, the third volume is not the whole book.
There is only one protagonist in the book, Rui Zhao, and this will not waver in the slightest.
But just looking at the writing ideas before opening the third volume, there are three protagonists - [Explicit Protagonist], [Internal Protagonist], and [Hidden Protagonist].
The [Protagonist] is Lei Qi.
Don’t think too much about it next, the boss will definitely ask: What are you doing with the three protagonists in this volume, you idiot? And make Xiao Lei so disgusting?
Answer: Variation.
As for the reason for the variation, it is because of some considerations in the expression technique of this article.
I wonder if the bosses have paid attention to one thing:
Up to now when this article is written, Rui Zhao’s direct descriptions and first-person perspectives are very, very rare.
Most of the time, she appears in other people's reactions, words, and feelings in a profile-based way - she is a heroine who is mainly composed of profile descriptions.
The reason why this happens is naturally because Benpoujie did it intentionally.
The reason... is also very simple:
The protagonist Rui Zhao, in my opinion, cannot be "heavy on ink" for a long time - doing "heavy on ink" would be a kind of harm to her.
Because she is too clean and simple, if she writes too much, it will either make her appear impure because of too much ink, or the content will become repetitive and dull.
Therefore, Xiao Zhao must not have a long frontal description or a first-person perspective unless necessary. This was determined before I started the book.
But... what should I write in the vacant pen and ink, and what should I write to fill up the space?
As it happens, this article focuses on realistic group portraits, and group portraits require the most pen and ink. In this way, the group portraits that consume a lot of ink and the heroine who cannot take up space just form a perfect complement - and this is also the core structure of this article.
However, this long-term use of sideways representation of the protagonist still has a great risk, and can easily lead to a rigid expression. As for the plot, it is not yet time to write more positive words about Xiao Zhao, so I rushed out and came up with an "idea":
In the third volume, create a protagonist who deserves a lot of words. Play a role in improving rhythm.
This character is essentially the "puppet" of Rui Zhao, the [protagonist] - he needs to pay high attention to the heroine, and his reactions, actions, growth, and performance in the article are all highly related to the heroine. While expressing the heroine, he also undertakes some "dirty work, tiring and too difficult work" that the heroine is not able to do to promote part of the plot development and background foreshadowing, including the third protagonist of this volume, who also needs to be represented through him. .
Considering that he can also change the expression technique, this idea is really perfect!
——Well, I thought so naively at the time, I can only say that wenqing is suffering from a disease.
Then... there was the character Xiao Lei.
So in this volume, all the pages written about Xiao Lei are, in my opinion, about Xiao Zhao, because Xiao Zhao is the only source of influence that affects his actions.
Without Xiao Zhao, there would be no inherent impact of his series of actions. Whether it is his unwillingness, regret, ups and downs, or desperate comeback, they are all closely related to Xiao Zhao's achievements and progress.
His seven-game winning streak in the Nongshim Cup was entirely driven by Rui Zhao's seven-game winning streak in the Lakeside Cup - but without a female protagonist, judging from his results in other competitions, he was basically We can't win this seven-game winning streak.
Unfortunately...all the above exist in Benpoujie's imagination.
The big bosses have also seen the facts.
The results were disastrous.
I can only defend myself here: I really didn’t have any bad intentions at the beginning.
[Controversy 2: Xiao Lei has a giant personality, which makes me sick when I see it! 】
First of all, as Xiao Lei is the puppet protagonist of this volume, his character must not be too perfect, otherwise in my opinion, it will easily lead to overshadowing the protagonist. Including the fact that everyone didn’t like this character very much during the first volume, I also expressed my understanding in my remarks at the end of the volume.
There is something wrong with his mentality, he is immature, and he needs to change and grow. These are all objective facts and are undeniable. These are also settings from the beginning.
But I really didn’t expect that the big guys hate this character so much. It also really underestimated the "stupidity" level of the audience of online articles, which caused a very bad experience for readers.
In my opinion, Xiao Lei himself definitely has his own problems, but they are far from being useless. It is even said that as a child from a middle-class family in a first-tier city, even if his talent in Go is cut off (for example, he is only at the fourth or fifth dan level now), his performance has already surpassed that of most of his peers.
But in the eyes of most big guys, this is a giant baby, which was completely beyond my expectation at the time.
Because from my point of view, there are too many weird children nowadays. I have seen countless amazing tricks among my peers, not to mention the younger ones.
Xiao Lei’s education method, where he was thrown into a different place and his parents were offline for a long time, not only did he not learn anything wrong, but he has always been very good and even excelled in learning all the way. This is actually very, very surreal. That’s an exaggeration. Give me a child like this and I’ll laugh to death.
Even if Xiaolei "got sick" later, it still did not have a substantial negative impact on the surrounding areas, but he himself was the most affected. And even if his performance has declined, it is only compared to his heyday. From the perspective of outsiders, he is still good enough.
The big guys call this kind of child a giant baby... To be honest, it really surprised me.
But now I am gradually beginning to understand: It is very foolish to directly hope for readers to empathize with the actual situation in reality.
Readers come to books to see what they want to see. If you write so much male supporting content in a female protagonist article, you deserve the bad reviews. At the same time, it shows that Benpoujie really has no idea about the sensitivities and concerns of online readers.
It is precisely because Benpengjie does not have this concept that it directly leads to the complete failure of the character Xiao Lei. Furthermore, the third volume with him as the protagonist and connecting point is terrible, and the structure of the whole volume is also a mess. .
Not only are various readership tycoons extremely dissatisfied, Benpoujie also shakes his head at the writing effect of this volume.
After the controversy in the middle of this volume, I also changed the ending method, minimizing Xiao Lei’s related scenes, and speeding up the pace as much as possible, for fear that any further delay in this volume would only increase the torture. As a result, there was no climax in the whole book, the closing speed became faster, and some of the effects that I wanted to achieve before opening the book were not written at all.
It is definitely impossible to say that I am satisfied. I can only say that at least every plot point has been basically written.
Okay, let’s talk about the follow-up.
The follow-up... Anyway, I will definitely write it according to my established outline - Xiao Lei will not have such a large proportion of scenes anymore, so don't worry about this.
I personally feel that I will not play any more tricks in the future, but now I am not sure about it.
At the end of the second volume, I also felt that the writing would definitely become smoother and smoother. As a result, the third volume was much more controversial than the second volume...
Anyway, finishing the book safely and according to my own outline is already my biggest goal, and I don’t think about anything else.
I try my best not to step on the bully’s bully, but if I do, I can only say sorry in advance. I really didn’t mean to do this.
In addition, as previously said, the plot summary of this volume will be released two days later, and it will be at the end of this volume.
Finally, let me mention the title of the fourth volume, which has also been decided long ago:
[Solo Flying]
(End of this chapter)