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Chapter 273: The Beginning of "The Legend of the Great Desolation"

A few days later, in the morning.

Magic City.

"Sorry! The number you dialed is busy. Please try again later..."

Bao Jianfeng dialed Cao Sheng's number again, and heard the prompt tone again, and his brows furrowed.

This was the 10th time he had called Cao Sheng in the past few days, and he heard the same prompt tone every time.

The first few times he heard this prompt tone, he was just a little depressed and felt that he was unlucky because he just called when Cao Sheng was on the phone with someone else.

But after hearing such alert sounds so many times, he couldn't help but wonder if Cao Sheng had blocked him?
"Not really? Why?"

He muttered to himself.

……

Huizhou.

The weather in Huizhou in June is already quite hot.

Fortunately, a rainstorm came.

It was hot and muggy in the morning.

At noon, the wind started to blow and became stronger and stronger. When Cao Sheng was eating in the villa restaurant, he felt that the whole room was filled with wind blowing in from the window.

The storm is coming and the wind is filling the building.

At that time, this sentence flashed through his mind.

Sure enough, at around 1 p.m., a torrential rain hit the earth, quickly extinguishing all the stuffiness in the air.

In the study on the third floor, Cao Sheng held a small purple clay teapot in his right hand, standing quietly by the window, looking at the storm outside.

When he grew up, every time he saw such a storm, it would bring back many childhood memories.

He remembered that whenever there were strong winds and heavy rains, the thatched roofs of some houses in the village would be blown into the air by the strong winds. At that time, some houses in their village had thatched roofs.

I also remember one time when there was a sudden strong wind, the adults were all working in the fields, and there were only the elderly and children at home. When the strong wind came, the dust, leaves, etc. in the village were blown all over the sky, and many of them were blown into people's homes. One of the children reacted quickly and closed the doors and windows first. Cao Sheng remembered that the wind was from the south that day, but the child closed the back door on the north first, and then, the roof of his house was blown away by the strong wind.

and also……

The wind broke the electric wires, and they fell into the paddy fields. After the rain, a villager passed by there and was electrocuted to death.

and many more.

At that time, their place was very poor and strong winds and heavy rains always brought danger.

What impressed him most was an experience of his own.

That was when he was in the second year of junior high school.

When school was over in the evening, it rained heavily outside for a long time. The sky was getting darker and darker. The school was about ten miles away from his home. If he didn't leave for home, he would not be able to see the way home at night. Like other alumni, he rushed home in the rain.

Unlike some of his alumni, he had a bicycle.

In the heavy rain, he rode his bike on the nearly ten-mile muddy road.

I fell several times along the way.

When I got home, I looked like a mud monkey.

My mother almost didn't recognize him.

So, as an adult, every time he saw a storm, he would recall those past events.

Today, he stood behind the window, holding the purple clay teapot in one hand, taking a sip of the tea in the pot from time to time, looking at the storm outside the window. Although he recalled the past events in his heart, what made him happiest was that he felt his heart was exceptionally calm and his mind was exceptionally clear.

Inspirations about "The Legend of Hong Huang" kept flashing through my mind.

He knew the time had come to write this book.

If he cannot write a satisfactory beginning in this state, it only shows that he lacks the ability, not the state.

After looking at the storm outside the window for a while, he turned and went to the computer.

Sitting in front of the computer, waiting quietly.

There was no rush to take action.

Because this storm was accompanied by lightning and thunder, the occasional lightning flashing across the sky and the occasional loud thunder were reminding him that if he turned on the computer at this time, the computer might not be able to hold up.

After waiting for forty or fifty minutes, the wind and rain outside the window had obviously become much smaller, and the lightning and thunder had disappeared.

Only then did Cao Sheng turn on the computer.

I opened the outline of "Hong Huang Yan Yi" and the detailed outline of the first volume, stared at them for a while, and then started to try to write the first chapter of this book for the nth time.

Yes.

He has recently finished the detailed outline of the first volume.

Moreover, this is not the first time he has written the first chapter.

But the results of his previous attempts were not satisfactory to him.

This time, he was in really good condition. With his brows slightly furrowed, he wrote more than 3,000 words in one breath, completing the entire first chapter.

The plot of the first chapter is actually not complicated. It is nothing more than a young man from modern society traveling to a primitive world.

Such an opening was not difficult for Cao Sheng to write.

It was just because he had high expectations for the book "Hong Huang Yan Yi", so he was particularly picky about the beginning of the book.

I always want to write better.

What's a better beginning?

In fact, he himself couldn't explain it clearly. He was not a technical writer and he judged the quality of a book based entirely on his own feelings.

If I have to say what tips.

His personal experience is that the background setting of the book should not be thrown out in the first chapter, no more than three characters should be introduced, and at the end of the first chapter, a suspense that can arouse the reader's expectations must be left.

Among them, it is common sense in this industry not to throw out the background setting of the book. New authors often make such mistakes, and old authors basically do not write like this.

Because it will bore readers, most readers will just glance at these settings and won't be able to remember them. Not only is it of no benefit, it will also cause many readers to abandon the book.

Do not introduce more than three characters, also considering the reader's memory.

There are too many characters in the first chapter, and it is difficult for readers to remember them.

Moreover, there are too many main characters in one chapter, and most authors are not good at portraying so many characters.

Finally, leaving suspense at the end of the chapter is naturally intended to make readers interested in reading the second chapter.

Otherwise, if the first chapter can't retain readers, all the subsequent chapters will be meaningless no matter how they are written.

For Cao Sheng, these three points do not require any thought, as they have already become instincts.

Whenever he wrote an introduction, he would pay attention to these three points.

And the better beginning he wanted mainly depended on the feeling of the text.

It's a feeling that's hard to describe.

The same plot's beginning, when written by someone else, makes people feel it is amateurish writing, extremely amateurish, with unclear characters, frivolous personalities, and a dry plot, without any charm at all.

However, the same plot written by someone else can make readers read it with gusto, like drinking fine wine. After finishing one chapter, they will start reading the second chapter without realizing it.

This feeling is hard to grasp.

But as long as you can write with this feeling, a work with a simple plot can also attract countless readers to continue reading it.

In front of the computer.

After finishing writing the first chapter, Cao Sheng went back to review the contents of this chapter.

After reading it once, a faint smile appeared on his face.

He was quite satisfied with this beginning.

He doesn't remember the opening plot of "The Buddha is the Tao".

Therefore, the beginning of his novel Hong Huang Yan Yi is also original, just like his other books after his rebirth. At the beginning, the protagonist is sitting alone at the desk by the window of his old bungalow. There is a storm outside the window, but he is sitting at the desk with a calm expression, flipping through an ancient book.

As he flipped through the ancient books in his hands, Cao Sheng briefly explained his past and present in just a few hundred words.

In the past, he was born in this small mountain village. His parents died early, and he grew up under the care of his grandparents.

His grandfather used to be an old teacher in the village.

When he was a child, his grandfather taught him both literature and martial arts.

But he was very active by nature when he was a child, had little interest in books, and could not sit still. His only interest was in kung fu.

After more than ten years of hard study and practice, he has mastered kung fu.

Like other young people, he left the small mountain village.

Come to the big city to make a living.

I have tried many jobs, but my salary was always meager and I could not see any hope of getting ahead.

This made him, who was competitive by nature, very unhappy.

Always looking for an opportunity to make a lot of money.

Finally, he found it.

He began to make money with his kung fu.

In less than two years, he had earned a millionaire fortune.

Life has reached its peak.

However, at the peak of his powers, he encountered an ambush and retaliation from his enemies.

He managed to save his life thanks to his skills, but he suffered several horrific wounds on his body and almost died.

This serious injury made him calm down.

He knew that making money by hard work would not last long.

He was also afraid that his grandparents would see them die young, so he retired from society and returned to his hometown in the small mountain village to be with his grandparents who raised him.

When he came back this time, he no longer practiced martial arts every day like he did when he was a teenager.

Instead, I began to be interested in my grandfather's collection of books.

After finishing his farm work every day, he spent most of the rest of his time reading these books.

Among them, there are many ancient books with yellowed pages.

At the end of this chapter, the protagonist, who was reading a book, was attracted by the startled breathing outside the house and looked out the window.

He saw that the wind and rain outside the window had stopped at some point.

This wasn't what surprised him.

What surprised him was that the sky after the rain turned into a creepy blood red.

He had never seen a sky of this color before.

He stood up in surprise and went outside.

The white-haired grandpa and grandma had already come outside the house and were looking up at the blood-red sky.

He heard his grandparents say that they had never seen a sky of this color either.

I also heard my grandfather muttering to himself: "There are strange signs in the sky...strange signs..."

……

At first glance, this beginning seems nothing special.

Cao Sheng also felt that there was nothing special about it.

But he was already quite satisfied.

Because he wasn't watching the plot.

Rather, it is the role played by each paragraph of this chapter.

For example: at the beginning, there is a small mountain village in the midst of a storm, with a torrential rain outside the window and the male protagonist calmly flipping through ancient books at the desk inside the window. This can give readers a feeling that although there is a storm outside, the male protagonist is calm inside and is not surprised by fame or disgrace.

This feeling can give many readers a good first impression of the male protagonist.

Just like in life, when we see a stranger for the first time, we may feel disgust or admiration for him/her.

For example: In the middle of this chapter, the introduction to the identity of the male protagonist is not long, but it explains that the male protagonist has good kung fu skills, and that he currently likes to read and has read a lot of books.

This can give readers the impression that this is a male protagonist who is both civil and military, and whose personality has shed his impetuousness and returned to being calm.

The few hundred words at the end of the chapter describing the strange phenomenon in the sky are the suspense that Cao Sheng leaves for readers.

Simply put, there is actually no plot in this chapter.

The author mainly uses his pen and ink to shape the image of the male protagonist, hoping to give most readers a good first impression.

The suspense left at the end is just to make readers interested in reading the subsequent content.

That's it.

After reviewing the contents of this chapter several times and polishing it up a bit, Cao Sheng began to plan the plot for the second chapter.

Although the detailed outline of the first volume is already available.

But he wrote this outline in a hurry, so it is not very detailed.

There is no detailed plot for each chapter.

In his mind, the first chapter is to create and portray the image of the male protagonist and leave suspense.

The second chapter should use novel plots to attract readers.

What kind of plot can be called novel?

His plan was simple: at the end of the second chapter, let the hero enter the primitive world.

Therefore, the plot before the end of the second chapter should explain how the male protagonist entered the primitive world.

This plot is not difficult to write.

The difficulty lies in how to choose the plot, how to compress the plot into a length of about 2,000 words, and how to write it well.

That's right! For Cao Sheng, he needs to compress the plot when writing it.

Because if he is not careful, he may write several chapters and tens of thousands of words for this plot.

But that would slow down the plot.

He hopes that the male protagonist can enter the primitive world as soon as possible so that readers can be quickly attracted by the novelty of the primitive world.

He did not forget that this book would be published under the pseudonym "Dong Tianbao".

If it is published under the pen name Zhongyuan Yidianhui.

It won't be a problem if he writes this plot a little slowly, and readers will have enough patience to read on.

But if Dong Tianbao publishes under this pseudonym, the plot pace of this book must not be slow.

If we are slow, the early performance of this book will definitely not be ideal.

Because readers won’t have much patience for a new author account.

It's easy to abandon a book because of the slow pace of the plot in the first few chapters.

……

The next afternoon.

The first thing Cao Sheng did when he turned on his computer was to review the two chapters of "The Legend of Honghuang" he had written yesterday.

He wanted to see if he would still feel satisfied after re-reading these two chapters after a night's rest.

(End of this chapter)