1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 176 Don’t Let Others Take Advantage of You
"Have you had breakfast?"

"No, I came right away after I called you."

"Then let's go and take care of it together."

Li Xiaolin took two aluminum lunch boxes and led Jiang Xian to a breakfast shop on the roadside nearby, which was a large collective.

"Sweet syrup fried dough sticks."

She reported to the family in Shanghainese and asked Jiang Xian, "What do you want to eat?"

Jiang Xian saw that someone had made her a cup of soy milk. "Just like you, add a spoonful of sugar to my soy milk."

After preparing breakfast, Li Xiaolin paid the bill.

The two of them went back to the office of Harvest. On the way, Jiang Xian held the aluminum lunch box and poured the soy milk into his mouth. He choked and almost spit it out.

"Why is it so sweet?" Jiang Xian felt a dull pain in the back of his teeth.

"I asked you why you added sugar. I thought you liked sweet food."

Li Xiaolin couldn't help laughing, "Shanghai soy milk has sweet, light and salty varieties, and the sweet one I want has sugar added to it.

Don’t drink it yet, I’ll mix it with some water when I get back to the office.”

As soon as the two of them pushed open the door, their attention was drawn to Xiao Dai.

"Nong Ce Na, what are you doing?" (swearing)

Xiao Dai was criticizing an editor in a very unfriendly tone, "Why are you still keeping other people's manuscripts? How many times have I told you this?
What's wrong with you? You're such a fool! (Swearing)
I don’t care where you worked before, Harvest has its own rules, and we at Harvest are determined to return the manuscript to the author!"

Hiss.

Li Xiaolin made a gesture to keep quiet and said helplessly: "Teacher Xiao Dai is a strict person. When he gets angry, he will scold you without giving up. But he doesn't scold young people. He protects young people."

Jiang Xian nodded, but was thinking about something else.

As we all know, there are two traditions of The Harvest.

One is a novel published in a magazine, and the author's signature must be printed in his or her own handwriting.

Another is to insist on returning writers' manuscripts.

Nowadays, authors have a weak awareness of protecting manuscripts. In addition, the cultural market is immature, so basically, once they have written their manuscripts, few people will take the initiative to ask for them back.

This also includes Jiang Xian himself. Except for "Brown Lychees", he didn't know where his other manuscripts were thrown away.

In the 80s, the volume of manuscripts submitted to magazines was so great that the editorial department had to carry sacks of manuscripts every day. Except for Harvest, other magazines basically had the habit of “not returning manuscripts.”

Due to tight office conditions, there was no place to store many manuscripts. Many manuscripts had been piled up in warehouses and offices for a long time. In addition, due to moving and merging, they were basically treated as waste paper and circulated to Panjiayuan and auction houses.

Then a celebrity emerged, Zhao Qingwei, the "junk king" who drove a Porsche.

This man specializes in dealing in celebrity manuscripts. In 2003, he collected 33 boxes of old materials from a magazine, each box costing 1000 yuan, for a total of 3.3 yuan.

He sold it to an overseas collector for 350 million yuan!

Because these manuscripts have the names of Shi Lu, Wu Guanzhong, Li Keran and Bing Xin.

In January 2015, the Xi'an Film Studio sorted out a large pile of waste paper and sold it to a nearby scrap collector.

The rag collector thought the handwriting was beautiful and treated it as a treasure. He looked through the manuscript from time to time and finally found the word "life" written on it.

After authentication, it was confirmed that this unsigned manuscript was exactly the script manuscript of the movie "Life" written by Lu Yao himself, and it was eventually sold for 109250 yuan.

I don’t know how these waste paper sellers would feel if they knew this.

But Jiang Xian had a lot of thoughts at this moment.

Without further ado, he must get all his manuscripts back first.

He is a person who picks up bargains every day, and he can't be treated as a bargain by others.

Storytelling Magazine.

Editor-in-chief He Chengwei is sharing his work experience with the newly appointed editor Yao Zihao.

“Although we are not a pure literary publication, we must be meticulous and careful with our words, and stick to the principles of a publication. This is the only way to live up to the readers.”

Yao Zihao was originally a Chinese teacher. He wrote an article called "A Police Officer with a Special Identity", which caused a huge sensation after being serialized. It was compiled into a book and reprinted eight times. There were also comic strips and picture books. It was made into a drama and radio drama, and later made into a movie.

"This is a badly written beginning. It's not like writing a script, with a long and tedious 'opening scene'. Our readers of Story Club must be reading in a noisy environment, perhaps in a toilet, on a train, in a field, or on the roadside."

"Editor-in-Chief He!"

Bian Huawei came over excitedly, and slammed the manuscript in his hand on the table to He Chengwei as if he was presenting a treasure.

"Look at this!"

"Comrade Hua Wei! You are so old now, can you be more steady in doing things?"

He Chengwei complained, took a quick glance, then perked up and sat up straight.

"Proud comrade."

He pointed at the manuscript of "The Supreme Being" as if it were a textbook: "Look, this opening is very well written!"

"Chen Crab was stripped naked and driven out of the police station. He was asked by his gang to investigate the Japanese cheating. This simple sentence tells the story very clearly. If you tell this story to a farmer, he will definitely not even want to go to the kitchen to cook."

Yao Zihao nodded repeatedly, feeling as if he had learned something from the "textbook".

"Who wrote this story?" He Chengwei turned his head. "This opening is as precious as gold!"

"Jiang Xian wrote it." Bian Huawei answered honestly.

"Master! This is a master!"

"Not only can you submit to Harvest, but you can also submit to our Story Club."

He Chengwei was filled with admiration and quickly finished reading the story of "The Supreme One".

"Great story!"

He Chengwei felt his blood boiling just thinking about the scene of Chen Crab drinking the poisoned wine.

So handsome!
Of course, he certainly didn't know that someone had actually interpreted this scene on the screen.

Because the film "The Supreme" adapted by Jiang Xian is based on a Hong Kong movie of the same name. Directed by Wang Jing, Ah Tan is Alan Tam, Chen Pangxie is Andy Lau, Yulian is Chen Yulian, and Ah Yun is
Guan Zhilin.

Andy Lau is extremely handsome at the moment, but he has the burden of being an idol. The burden of being an idol seriously affects his acting skills. He can't keep up with other people's roles. "The King's Avatar" can be said to be a very rare drama, with two heroes competing against each other, and their acting skills are surprisingly comparable.

Rumor has it that when filming A Moment of Romance the following year, every time Andy Lau took off his motorcycle helmet, he would subconsciously adjust his squashed hair, prompting Johnnie To to criticize him harshly, "Andy, when did you lose your idol image? Your acting skills have made a breakthrough."

Later, Andy Lau still refused to change, so the furious Johnnie To directly announced the suspension of work. Andy Lau also lost his temper. After resuming work, he asked the stylist to help him blow-dry his hair every time he changed the camera position.

"Huawei!"

He Chengwei searched everywhere and finally saw Bian Huawei in the toilet with his pants hanging down and he was peeing.

"Editor-in-Chief?"

"This manuscript is very good! Let's arrange for serialization as soon as possible!" He Chengwei raised the manuscript in his hand. He did not show any steadiness at all and was in a completely excited state.

"The July issue is already full, which column should I put it in?"

Bian Huawei looked embarrassed, not only because of the current environment, but also because of the layout problem.

It is now late June, and the July issue will be published soon, and the typesetting work has already been completed.

"Open a column for Jiang Xian!" said He Chengwei.

"Column?" Bian Huawei looked incredulous.

As mentioned before, the columns of "Story Club" have gradually stabilized and are divided into "New Folk Tales", "Jokes", "Local Specialty Stories", "Science Fiction Stories", "Customs Stories", etc. Opening a column for a writer is simply unbelievable to Bian Huawei.

"Just reduce the number of pages of those novels and put "Supreme" in that column. From now on, all of Jiang Xian's works will be put in his personal column."

"What do you think? Do we need to call the author over to make revisions?" Yao Zihao followed and asked.

"We are not a purely literary publication, so there is no need to be so fussy about words. There are no mistakes in what he wrote, and it reads smoothly. In principle, it can be published."

"." Yao Zihao's eyes widened.

Your principles are quite flexible.

Both "Lust, Caution" and "Half a Lifelong Romance" mentioned that a Western pastry shop that Eileen Chang herself was very fond of, "Caesar", has reopened in Shanghai.

The jewelry store where Mr. Yi was assassinated in "Lust, Caution" is right next to "Caesar".

Jiang Xian stood in front of the counter on the first floor and watched for a while. Next to it was still a conspicuous sign that read "No beating or scolding of customers without reason" which was the same across the country.

Salesperson: “What do you want?”

Jiang Xian: "Whipped cream."

Salesperson: "A cup of whipped cream is 30 cents."

Jiang Xian took out money from his handkerchief, "How much is the chestnut cake?"

"Two yuan a piece."

"Give me three."

Jiang Xian remembered that his sister really loved Western pastries, so he packed some and went to the lane where Jiang Qin lived, licking the whipped cream.

"uncle!"

"uncle!"

When the two nephews saw that he had bought food, they rushed over as excitedly as Chenxiang, who was holding an axe, saw Erlang Shen.

Jiang Xian gave each of them a piece, then patted their chubby butts and said, "Don't fight."

"Second brother!" Jiang Qin was busy cooking with smoke coming out. She came out coughing when she saw him.

"I met a friend in Shanghai today and he gave it to me." Jiang Xian picked up the last piece of chestnut cake in his hand and asked, "Would you like to try it?"

Jiang Qin showed a hint of relief in her eyes and shook her head gently.

"I don't like this, you eat it."

"I have already eaten."

Jiang Xian insisted again and again, and Jiang Qin couldn't resist, so she took it back home and said, "It's time for dinner soon, I'll eat when I'm hungry."

Jiang Xian fetched a basin of water and washed his hands. Soon Bian Huawei also came back from work and said happily: "Second brother, our editor-in-chief gave you a very high evaluation!"

"Has The Supreme One been submitted?"

"We are already preparing for typesetting and printing. This time, Story Club will also open a column for you."

"Column?" Jiang Xian was stunned, and couldn't help feeling secretly delighted.

After all, this was the first time that a magazine had given him a column, so Story Club was quite generous in showing him respect.

The columns are all for celebrities.

For example, Ba Jin's "Random Thoughts" was serialized in a special column in Hong Kong's "Ta Kung Pao".

When Tony Leung was selling things on the street, Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po also gave him a column and invited him to be a columnist, which he continued to write until 2008.

That’s right, Tony Leung is also a writer. He can also write screenplays, run magazines, and is even a sprinter, running 100 meters in 11 seconds.

Bian Huawei talked to him about "Huo Yuanjia" again. This time, he not only wanted to help him publish the single volume, but also wanted to make a radio drama and a comic strip for him.

"Our magazine has cooperation with Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House, so we can just ask them to make a comic strip of Huo Yuanjia," said Bian Huawei.

"Comic strips? That's great." Jiang Xian became excited.

Relatively speaking, he is more interested in adapting comic strips, because the royalties from comic books are not a small amount.

Comic strips, also known as small picture books, flourished rapidly and without any resistance in China in the late 70s and early 80s.

In 1982 alone, more than 2100 kinds of comic books were published, with a single book print run of 10 copies.

If it is adapted into a comic book, the more it sells, the more Jiang Xian will earn, because now the royalties for art publications are also divided into basic royalties and royalties for the number of copies printed.

If it is an adapted comic book, the original author will be paid 20%-40% of the adaptation fee, and the original publisher will be paid 10%-20% of the adaptation fee. The publications are printed in different places or rented by local publishing houses, and the print runs will be accumulated together. The royalties for the print runs will be paid by the publishing house that provides the royalties.

(End of this chapter)