Stephen King: I spent two or three days in New York, and we talked about it three or four times, and the end result was decided at the intersection of Park Avenue and 46th Street.Bill and I were standing there waiting for the red light to turn green, watching the taxi pull into the tunnel, and then Bill said, "I want to get out of Second Advent first." ”It just so happened that I liked it myself—but he spoke in a strange tone, as if reluctantly, so I looked up and asked him what was the matter."
Nothing, but if the previous book was about a girl who could move objects with psychic powers, and then this book about vampires, you might be stereotyped."
He said."
Stereotyped?"
I asked, really confused, I really couldn't see anything in common between vampires and superpowers that could teleport."
What's that?""
A writer who specializes in horror novels."
He said, his tone even more reluctant."
Oh!"
I said, greatly relieved, "That's it!
”"We'll see in a few years," he said, "and when the time comes, see if you say, 'That's all!'"
’”"Bill," I said, amused, "no one in America can make a living writing horror novels alone.H.P.
Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a writer of horror and fantasy novels, whom Stephen King called "the greatest writer of classical horror novels of the twentieth century."
Hungry for a long time, Robert Bloch, best known for Psycho.Later, he gave up at all and rewrote suspense novels and I don't know what type of jokes.You see, the craze set off by the movie "The Archmage" was just a flash in the pan. ”The green light turned, and Bill tapped me on the shoulder and said, "You're going to be very successful, but I don't think you get it." ”He knew the truth better than I did, and it turned out that he could make money writing horror novels in the United States."
Second Coming" was later changed to the title "Midnight Walking Dead", and after its publication, it sold wonderfully.My family and I had moved to Colorado and were working on a new novel about a haunted hotel.Once, on a trip to New York, Bill and I were in a bar called Carlsberg until midnight (a big, pale gray tomcat apparently had a jukebox for himself, and you had to pick it up to see what songs were available) and told him the plot of the novel, and at the end of the day, he propped his elbows on the table and buried his head in his hands as if he had a severe migraine."
You don't like the story?"
I asked."
I love it."
He said insincerely."
So what's wrong?""
First a girl with superpowers, then a vampire, and now a haunted hotel and a psychic boy, you're going to be stereotyped."
This time I thought about it more seriously, and I thought of many horror writers, such as Lovecraft, Clark A.
Smith, Frank Belknapp Lang, Fritz Reber, Rob Broch, Richard Machimson, Shirley Jackson (yes, even though she's all classified as a horror writer), and so on, who have kept me entertained over the years.So in the Carlsberg bar, watching the cat sleep on the jukebox while the editor sitting next to me buried his head in his hands, I understood that I could have been worse off.For example, I might have become an "important" writer like Joseph Heller, publishing only one novel every seven years or so; Or become a writer like John Gardner, with a harder, less popular audience, read by brilliant academics who eat healthy food and drive old Seven cars (with faded stickers on the back bumper that read "Support Kim McCarthy for President")."
It's okay, Bill," I said, "and if the reader likes it, I'll continue to write horror novels, and that's fine." ”We never discussed this again; Bill still works as his editor, and I continue to write my horror novels, and neither of us needs to see a psychiatrist.It's a good deal.So I was stereotyped, but I didn't really care - after all, most of the time, I do write horror novels.But am I just writing horror stories?
If you read the previous story, you will know that this is not the case......
But there are some horrors in every story, not just in "Breath-Breathe-Breathe" – the bloodsuckers in "Corpses" are quite scary, and the dream imagery in "Nazi Disciples" is just as terrifying, and God knows why, it seems like my mind will turn back to that direction sooner or later.Each of the longer stories here was written after I had finished a long novel—it seemed like there was just enough fuel left in the gas bucket after every huge job I had done to write a novella.The earliest completed "Corpse" was written after "The Walking Dead at Midnight", and "The Nazi Disciple" was completed after "The Ghost" was completed, which took two weeks to write (after "The Nazi Disciple" was finished, I was exhausted and stopped writing for three months); "The Shawshank Redemption" was written after "Die Again" was ready, and "Breathe-Breathe-Breathe" was the slowest of the four stories, written after "The Burning Gaze" was written.None of these stories have ever been published before, or even submitted to publishers for evaluation, why?
Because each story is between 25,000 and 35,000 words – not very exact, but about the same.I have to tell you: even the most daring writer would be terrified when he comes across the 25,000 to 35,000 words.It's hard to tell the boundaries of whether a work is a novel or a short story, at least not by the number of words, but when a writer writes something of nearly 20,000 words, he knows it's close to the upper limit of a short story.Similarly, if he writes a story of more than 40,000 words, it is closer to a novel.However, there is a blur between the two more well-defined areas of less than 20,000 words and more than 40,000 words, and when the writer writes about this place, he suddenly realizes that he has come to the terrible three-point zone of the novel—the "novella".--------------- "The Shawshank Redemption" Postscript (Stephen King) (2) --------------- from an artistic point of view, there is nothing wrong with novellas; Of course, there's nothing wrong with the deformed freaks in the circus, it's just that you don't see them in the world outside the circus; I mean, there are a lot of great novellas, but they've traditionally only been sold in a niche market for genre fans (and that's a polite way to put it, but more accurately: almost no one cares).You can sell a good novella to Ellery Quinn's Mystery Magazine, Michael Tenn Mystery Magazine, or a novella science fiction novel to magazines like Astonishing, Analogy, or even All-Knowing or Science Fiction Magazine.Ironically, there is also a market for good novellas: the aforementioned Science Fiction Magazine is one example, the Yin-Yang Demon World is another, and there are many other anthologies of original horror novels, such as the Phantom series, published by Sojitz Books and edited by Grant.But for novellas, which can only be described by the word "mainstream" (an adjective that is as depressing as "genre"), ......
As far as marketability is concerned, you're in big trouble.You look sadly at your manuscript of 25,000 to 35,000 words, open a bottle of beer, and hear a heavy foreign accent in your head ask, "Hello, sir, welcome to the Revolutionary Airlines plane, and have you had a good trip?"
It should be not bad!
Welcome to the novella, sir, I guess you'll enjoy this journey!
Let's have a cheap cigar!
Rest with your feet cocked, I think your novel will be here for a long, long time......
Right?
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
”It's frustrating.Once upon a time, there was a real market for such stories (he lamented) — magazines like the Saturday Evening Post and Currier and Mercury, both long and short, were the main content of such publications.If the story is too long to be published in one issue, they will serialize it in three, five, or nine installments.No one had yet thought of the terrible way of "condensing" or "summarizing" fiction (Playboy and Komonbodan in particular liked this terrible practice, and you could now read the entire novel in twenty minutes), and magazines would provide plenty of space for the novel.I remember spending all day at home waiting for the postman to deliver the letter, because the latest Saturday Evening Post was about to be published, and it had been predicted that this issue would feature Ray Bradburly's latest novel, or because Karen's serialized novel would be at the end of the issue.
(That impatient anxiety made me a striking target.)The postman finally appeared, and when he came in a short-sleeved summer uniform, carrying a mail bag, and walking briskly, I would wait for him at the end of the aisle, his body moving around as if he was in a hurry to go to the bathroom, and my heart was almost beating to my chest.With a grim smile on his face, he handed me an electricity bill and nothing else.My heart sank steeply.Finally he couldn't bear it, and finally handed me the Saturday Evening Post, with a smiling Eisenhower painted by Rockwell, with a report on Sophia Loren, and an article by Pat Nixon, "I Say He's a Great Man," and who she was talking about, guess of course, her husband Nixon.There are also many stories, some are long, some are short, and the end of Karen's serialized novel.Thank God!
）And it's not just happening occasionally, it's happening every week!
Whenever the Saturday Evening Post arrives, I guess I'm the happiest kid on the entire East Coast!
There are also magazines that publish long novels – The Atlantic and The New Yorker are particularly sympathetic to the publishing problems faced by authors who write 30,000-word novels, but these magazines don't particularly welcome my stories because I write things that are more prosaic, not very literary, and sometimes too lengthy and cumbersome (though I have to admit that is a very painful thing).But in a way, I guess the reason why my novels are so popular is due to these qualities (although they don't seem to be very appreciated).Most of my novels are ordinary stories that happen to ordinary people, just like the McDonald's of literature introduced McFragrantburger and big bags of fries.I know how to appreciate elegant prose, but I find it difficult or impossible to write anything like that (so most of the writers I admire are realist writers like Theodore Dresser or Norris).If the element of "elegance" is removed from the writer's pen, he is left with only one strong leg to stand on, and that leg is the "weight".As a result, I always strive to write weighty work.In other words, if you find that you can't gallop like a thoroughbred, you can still use your brain as hard as you can (a voice from the balcony: "What brains do you say?").
”Ha!
Ha!
Very humorous, go away, you!
）。
As a result, when it comes to the short stories you just read, I find myself in a confusing situation.People say that my novels are so popular that even if I want to get them published (in the eyes of critics, I've been writing stinky long laundry slips for the last eight years), but I can't publish these stories because they're not long, short or short, if you know what I mean."
I see, sir!
Free novels bring you joy and joy ---> storyskyline.net
Take off your shoes!
Drink some cheap rum!
When the mediocre Revolutionary Steel Orchestra is concerned, they will play a few Trinidad songs for us.I think you'll love it.There's still a lot of time, sir.There's still a lot of time, because I think your novel will—" — put it here for a long time, yes, yes, great, why don't you find a place to overthrow some imperialist puppet democratic regime?
I finally decided to see if my publisher of the hardcover novel, Viking Press, and the publisher of paperback novels, New American Library Press, were interested in the stories of a very special escaped prisoner, an old man and a boy trapped in a parasitic relationship, the discovery journey of four country kids, and the horror story of a young woman who decided to give birth to a child no matter what happened (perhaps the story was actually about a club that wasn't a club), As a result, publishers say they are willing to publish.That's how I managed to get these four long stories out of the strange situation of the novella.Postscript to The Shawshank Redemption (Stephen King) (3) I hope you enjoy these stories.Oh, I have one more thing to mention about stereotypes.About a year ago, the editor I told my editor one day — not Bill, but the new editor, a nice guy named Alan Williams, shrewd, witty and capable, but often serving on a juror somewhere in New Jersey."
I'm in love with your Rabid Dog Cuchu."
Aaron said.
(At the time, the editorial office was preparing for the publication of the novel, which was a true story about a long-haired dog, which had just been written.) ）"Have you thought of what to write next?"
A sense of déjà vu has arisen, and I've had conversations like this before."
Well, there were," I said, "and I've got some idea—" "Tell me about it." ”"What do you think of publishing a compilation of four novellas?
Most of them are ordinary stories, what do you think?
”"Novella?"
Aaron said; He was a great man, but from the sound of his voice, it seemed as if the good mood of the day had suddenly been discounted, as if he had just won two tickets to Revolutionary Airlines to some strange little banana republic."
You mean the epic?""
Yes, not bad at all," I said, "and we'll call the book 'Different Seasons,' which was originally called 'Different Seasons' in English, and the Taiwanese translation is 'The Strange Tales of the Four Seasons.'"
Or something, so that everyone reads it, and you know that this book is not about a vampire or a haunted hotel or something like that. ”"So is the next novel a story about vampires?"
Aaron asked hopefully."
No, I don't think so; What do you say, Aaron?
”"How about a haunted inn?""
No, I've already written about haunted inns.Aaron, don't you think "Different Seasons" sounds good?
”"Sounds great, Stephen."
Aaron sighed as he spoke, as if a good man sat in the third-class cabin of a new plane of Revolutionary Airlines and let out a helpless sigh when he saw cockroaches crawling around on the back of the front seat."
Hope you'll like it."
I say."
I don't think so.Could one of them be a horror story?
”Aaron asked, "Just one article?"
Kind of like ......
'similar seasons' (and not different seasons)?
”I smiled—just slightly—as I thought about Steffy and Dr.
McCarron's breathing methods."
I can probably heighten the horror a bit.""
Yay!
And that new novel – "How about writing about a haunted car?"
”"That's right!"
I could feel how happy he would be when he went back to the editorial meeting (or sat on the jury) later, Aaron shouted; I'm also happy – I love my ghost car, and I think it makes a lot of people nervous as they walk through the downtown after dark.But I love every story in this book too, and I think I'll love them forever, and I hope all readers will enjoy them too, and I hope these stories will be like all good stories - to make you forget some of the real things that have accumulated in your mind for a while, and take you to places you have never been, which is the loveliest magic trick I know.Okay, I've got to go, goodbye, please keep your heads up, read some good books, do something useful, and live happily.Offering my love and blessings to Stephen King, Maine, USA, January 14, 1982 Files from Jiujiu Mobile Txt Novel Download Network