Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 4: Prepare an outline and conduct online research

That night, before going to bed, Cao Sheng was working on the outline of his new book.

Even after going to bed and before falling asleep, he was still thinking about the outline of the new book.

He has written many books before, but never has he taken so much care in making the outline before starting a book, because this new book is different.

Firstly, this book is his first book after his rebirth. He wants to write it well and hopes to become famous with one book.

Secondly, he felt that there should be no online novels at present, and his book might be the first online novel in this time and space. If it is really the first online novel, it may be read repeatedly by people for many years to come, so he hopes to do his best to make the quality of this book better and better.

Three! This is his first time writing a pure love story. He did not intend to write a long novel of two or three million words, but only a few hundred thousand words. With such a short length, the plot cannot be too watery, otherwise the whole book will seem empty. Also, because the length is not long, the structure of the whole text must be compact. As a pure love story that mainly targets the literary youth market, the overall plot must also pay attention to the beginning, development, turning point and conclusion, and cannot be written as a kind of cool story that is exciting all the way to the end.

This kind of plot twists and turns needs to be designed in advance. If it is only done improvisationally when writing the main text, there is a high probability that the structure of the article will be unbalanced. For example, the exciting parts are too long, which screens out the literary young people. When you write the heart-wrenching plot, readers who are accustomed to the previous exciting plot will not be able to accept it. This structural imbalance will please no one side.

It not only drives away literary readers, but also disgusts readers who like refreshing novels.

In order to make the plot of the book better, Cao Sheng decided before going to bed that night that he would only make an outline before the New Year.

The main text will not be started until after the New Year.

It will definitely be helpful to prepare the outline for a few more days.

Moreover, it is only seven or eight days away from the Chinese New Year. After the Chinese New Year, he will definitely visit relatives and wish his elders a happy new year as he did in previous years.

During the New Year's greetings period, it is inevitable to talk and communicate with many people, and eating and drinking are also inevitable, which will definitely distract his mind.

Therefore, if he writes a few chapters of the main text of a new book before the New Year, and then continues to write the main text after a few days of New Year's greetings, there will inevitably be inconsistencies in his mood and state, and the quality and style of the text may be inconsistent.

He had experience with all of this before.

Every Chinese New Year affects his writing state.

There will always be differences in quality and style between things written before and after the New Year.

……

Because he was not in a hurry to write the main text, he had breakfast the next morning, said goodbye to his parents, and set off for the county town.

He decided to go to an Internet cafe in the county town and check online whether the book "First Intimate Contact" had been published.

This matter is very important to him.

It determines whether he has the chance to become the originator of online literature.

It’s not that he likes fame, but he is very clear about how big the difference is between the first and the second in this world.

Many people remember the name of the first online novel, but how many people remember the names of the second and third online novels?

However, transportation here is inconvenient in this era. There are no asphalt roads or cement roads, only gravel roads. There are no buses to the county town, only diesel-powered tricycles that only run a few times a day, and at irregular intervals. These tricycles will only start when the bus is almost full or when there are no new passengers.

Cao Sheng didn't want to take this kind of bus because sometimes he had to wait for an hour or two, or even longer, before he could get one.

He went to the county town by bicycle.

The gravel road is very uneven.

The bike has very poor shock absorption.

When he rode to the county town, he was sweating and his buttocks were sore from the vibration. This was somewhat related to the aging seat of his bicycle.

The seat was already old, and every time it vibrated, the springs inside would press against his buttocks and cause pain.

When he arrived in the county town, he rode his bike through several streets before he found an Internet cafe.

The main reason is that there are not many Internet cafes in their county these days.

When he was in high school, he had never even heard of such a thing as an Internet cafe in the county town.

After locking his bicycle, Cao Sheng walked into the Internet cafe and turned on a computer.

This Internet cafe is not big, with only twenty or thirty computers, all of which are old-fashioned computers with square monitors. The configurations are not high, and the Internet speed is also very slow.

Cao Sheng was mentally prepared for this and was not picky.

After turning on the computer, he searched for "First Intimate Contact" on the Internet, but to his delight, he did not find it. To be on the safe side, he searched for the author "痞子蔡" again.

This time there were search results, and more than one Pizi Cai was found.

But no Ruffian Cai has anything to do with the book "First Contact".

Such a result naturally made Cao Sheng very happy.

He seemed to have seen the crown of "the originator of online literature" being crowned on his head. From then on, he reached the peak of his life, with everything from publishing to film and television adaptations. After becoming a well-known new writer on the entire Internet, beautiful, rich and beautiful women began to actively wink at him and write love letters to him.

Well, writing love letters is still very popular these days.

However, he didn't dare to daydream like this for too long, because the current Internet access fee is quite expensive. The small Internet cafe he found charges five dollars per hour.

The cost of one hour is equivalent to his food expenses for a day.

What he lacks most now is money.

I had very little pocket money, just a few dozen dollars for living expenses that I saved from last semester in college.

So, he didn't stay in the Internet cafe for more than an hour before he got up and left.

In less than an hour, he searched several novel websites that he remembered.

He didn’t search for Qidian because he knew that Qidian was created after 2000.

I vaguely remember that it was founded in 2002.

only……

What surprised him was that none of the novel websites he searched turned up anything.

It seems that it has not been created yet.

Finally, he searched for the website "Under the Banyan Tree".

This time I found it.

He originally didn't want to consider this website, which in his impression was a gathering place for literary youths. He always felt that he was not literary enough and was out of tune with this website.

But there was no way, the websites he wanted to find were not there yet.

Even this banyan tree, according to the information searched by Cao Sheng, was created on December 1997, 12.

That was at the end of last month.

Because today is January 1998, 1, according to the lunar calendar, it still belongs to 20.

According to the time, there is not yet a full moon under this banyan tree.

If he had been really broke and didn't have the technical skills to build a website, he would have wanted to just create a novel website based on the current situation.

Fortunately, he is still sane.

He knows that he is not qualified to run a novel website.

Even if he could take advantage of his foresight and build a novel website of his own early on, within a few years, his website would be crushed by other novel websites.

Because he has no advantage at all in terms of either money or technology.

——I’d better just focus on writing my novel!

He said this to himself as he walked out of the Internet cafe.

……

Over the next few days, until New Year's Eve, he prepared the outline of his new book.

This is the most serious and detailed outline he has ever written since he started his career.

As the outline became more detailed and the plot was adjusted more and more often, his confidence in this new book grew stronger and stronger.

(End of this chapter)