Training the Heavens

Chapter 52: Storytelling

As soon as this idea came up, Gao Jialin thought of "Story Club" first. Serious literature can establish fame, but when it comes to making money, popular literature is still the best.

Articles that can be published in "Harvest" and "Germination" are time-consuming and laborious to write, and they also need to be revised according to the requirements of the editorial department. There is no such problem when submitting to "Story Club".

The money is paid quickly and the requirements for manuscripts are not that strict. As long as the story is attractive, some flaws do not matter. After all, the readers of these popular magazines just read for fun and are not as picky as the readers of orthodox literary magazines.

During this period, many popular literature authors were quietly making a fortune. If we talk about the mainland authors who earned the most in the 1980s and 1990s, it was not Lu Yao, Yu Hua, or even Wang Shuo. Wang Shuo's works were indeed popular, with high sales and royalties, but his output was too low, so his total income was still not that impressive.

The most profitable series should be the "Xue Mili" series. Two young writers born in Dazhou, Sichuan, Tian Yanning and Tan Li, used Xue Mili as their pen name and wrote a bunch of works with underworld, business wars, spy wars, etc. as gimmicks, and then gave these works eye-catching titles such as "Female Headmaster", "Female Informant", "Female Hero", "Female Special Police", and "From Female Star to Death Row Prisoner". Once they were released to the market, they became an immediate hit.

These two people have a high output, publishing one or two books a month at the earliest. Their book writing speed is comparable to that of later online writers.

Later, these books became so popular that the two of them alone could no longer meet the demands of booksellers from all over the country. So they found more than 20 experienced authors. They were responsible for finding suitable topics and writing outlines in newspapers and magazines. These young authors then wrote novels based on the outlines. The output suddenly increased to five or six books per month, and even more than ten books.

Amazing, right? They created what would become known as writing studios in the 1980s.

This assembly line-like operation method has resulted in Xue Mili's astonishing output, with a total of more than 100 books published, with an average sales volume of hundreds of thousands of copies.

During its peak period, Xue Mili's novels were displayed in villages, airports, street stalls, train stations, library buildings, department stores, etc. Some booksellers even labeled the slow-selling works of Qiong Yao and Cen Kailun as "Xue Mili's New Works" in order to make them popular, creating the myth of best-selling books by Chinese mainland writers.

With so many best-selling books, one can imagine how much the two authors earn.

In addition to publishing books, the sales of many popular magazines were also very hot. "Story Club", "Zhiyin" and "Girlfriend" were the best among them. These magazines made money and paid generous royalties to the authors. In the era when the traditional magazine remuneration standard was only a few dozen yuan per thousand words, they were wealthy enough to offer high royalties of hundreds or even thousands per thousand words.

Even Lu Yao could not resist the temptation and wrote many articles for the Girlfriend magazine. The creative essay "Morning Starts at Noon", which recorded the creation experience of "Ordinary World", was published in "Girlfriend".

"Zhiyin" and "Girlfriend" mainly target the female reader market, and most of the articles published are emotional articles, which are slightly similar to female online novels. "Story Club" is closer to the style of male online novels, with stories about people's livelihood, various aspects of the market, and legends from ancient and modern times. Whatever is interesting is published.

Gao Jialin read martial arts novels when he was in middle school, and started reading online literature when he went to college. He also watched so many film and television dramas. He had accumulated a lot of knowledge in this area. Just a few of his articles would be enough to make the editor of "Story Club" feel like they had found a treasure, and they would treat him as a great god.

So if you were reborn in the 1980s, you don’t have to worry about being poor. Just go to the newsstand and find "Story Club", write down the submission address, and then choose a few suitable stories from the martial arts, online literature, and film and television works you have read in later lives, write them down and submit them, and you will definitely have no problem solving food and drink.

If I could write the book faster, I could make my first pot of gold.

Gao Jialin went to a newsstand near his school and bought a few copies of the latest "Story Club," intending to study the current format of the magazine. While buying the magazines, he discovered something interesting: quite a few university students were buying "Story Club," but when they did, they acted like thieves, just like when he was in middle school, renting pornographic books, afraid to be seen.

Because "Story Club" is indeed attractive, but it is not presentable. Your classmates are reading famous Chinese and foreign classics such as "Faust", "Oliver Twist", and "Thunderstorm", but you are reading "Story Club" with great interest. How embarrassing it is.

Gao Jialin didn't think there was anything shameful about reading "Story Club", but when he returned to the dormitory and lay on the bed, he still had to cover it up.

There was no way around it. This was the prevailing atmosphere in universities nowadays, and he couldn't go against others. If he was just laughed at, it would be fine. He was thick-skinned enough to handle it.

I was afraid that his teachers and classmates would worry that he would become decadent, addicted to these vulgar stories, and give up his bright future as a writer, so they would come to him one by one and persuade him under the banner of "I'm doing this for your own good."

Wow, this scene makes my scalp tingle just thinking about it.

After reading a few books, Gao Jialin basically figured out what kind of works the current "Story Club" likes.

Folk tales, interesting stories from China and abroad, celebrity anecdotes, martial arts legends. These stories are indeed fascinating and much more interesting than those in serious literary magazines.

How about I copy a martial arts story, preferably one that can be made into a film or TV work in the future, so that I can make some money from adapting it in the future? Gao Jialin found a suitable work after a little thought.

We certainly cannot plagiarize Jin Yong and Gu Long, and the works of Huang Yi and Wen Ruian may not suit the tastes of today's readers. Fortunately, there are still domestic TV dramas, and the masterpiece "Jianghu Enchoulu" released in 1991 is quite suitable.

This plot may be full of flaws when viewed later, but it is very much in line with the preferences of current readers. When the TV series "Jianghu Enchoulu" was broadcast, almost everyone who had a TV at home was following the show. Such a good work should have been released in advance.

The film tells the story of Li Xiaogang, a disciple of Emei, who, after standing up for justice and eliminating the flower-stealing thief Jiang Shangfeng, is retaliated by his wife, Black Phoenix. To eradicate this malignant thief, Li Xiaogang is forced to seek help from others, thus unfolding a series of stories about his journey through the martial arts world, the love affairs of young men and women, and the joys of revenge.

The actress who plays the role of Black Phoenix is ​​Dongfang Wenying, who is Tanchun in the 87 version of "Dream of Red Mansions". Later, she became a producer and worked in the TV drama production center under CCTV, which specializes in TV drama creation and production. Although she is not well-known, her influence in the TV circle is not small.

Gao Jialin took out the manuscript paper and wrote the five words "Records of Enmity and Revenge in the Jianghu" at the top.

Now that I have decided on the title of the book, what should I choose as my pen name?

　Thanks to Qingzhi Youming and Bald Uncle for their tips on reading.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)