2. Explanatory materials that cause headaches

We have just talked about that in novel writing, the most difficult thing to deal with is explanatory materials, because it often delays the progress of the novel, causes the text to be delayed, distracts the attention, and even interrupts the curiosity that readers have already developed. Generally speaking, explanatory materials mainly focus on three aspects: story situation, characters, and the needs of crisis design.

Even the strongest and inherently interesting story situation still needs to be explained to the readers by explanatory materials to explain the rationality of the character's motivation for behavior, the degree of danger of the opponent, and the urgent need to achieve the main narrative purpose, or other essential content that prevents the readers from doubting and confusing about the incident and the character. For example, Wilkie Collins' "A Traveler's Story on the Horror Bed" tells the story of a gentleman from the upper class to gambling in a lower-level gambling hall. With such an beginning, there will inevitably be strong internal fun, but it is not enough. While building the story situation, the writer must give the gentleman a reasonable explanation of the behavior, so the writer shows that

This is a young man who has just graduated from university. He is living a debauchery and is no longer satisfied with the stimulation of the upper class. He goes deep into the lower class with his friends to take risks. After briefly explaining the identity and motivation of the protagonist, the writer spends a lot of writing to describe the situation of the lower class casino and their unexpected good luck, which not only explains the environment and mental state of the characters, but also lays the foundation for the crisis that has emerged shortly thereafter. In the short beginning of this novel, the writer uses various means such as narrative, communication (dialogue) and description to complete the explanation of the characters and the unknowable crisis he will face, so that the story can be rationalized.

Having said that, a question arises: which materials are explanatory materials for novels? In fact, anything in the world can become explanatory materials for novels. The key to the problem is that whether it is narrative or description, writers must do their best to make explanatory materials play an explanatory role, and at the same time they also have different degrees of interest.

In another case, in novels whose main narrative purpose is not strong enough, the role of explanatory materials in creating interest is increasingly obvious. For example, in the most common novels of marriage and love, only Gothic novels, or pastime novels, will bring princesses, knights, beautiful women, and wealthy gentlemen together to seek abnormality in the storyline; while in most works with rich and profound content, they are ordinary people and ordinary things.

Then, ordinary things made by ordinary people will not have any interest in themselves. At this time, as I said before, it is necessary to use explanatory materials to create important meaning for the story situation and characters to make it attractive enough to the readers. This meaning can involve the highest standards of human society, or it can only have decisive significance to the characters themselves. Only when the upcoming decisions or actions that the characters are about to make have great significance to the characters themselves will the readers become curious and the interest of the novel will arise, because no one will be willing to read ordinary things of meaningless ordinary people.

This kind of interesting novel involves a wide range of subjects. Let’s take William Faulkner’s "A Rose Dedicated to Emily" as an example to talk about how explanatory materials work in it.

This short story is an unusual novel with no subject. It only has the beginning and the ending, and the ending only takes up less than one-tenth of the whole article. At the beginning of the novel, the writer informs the reader that the protagonist Emily has passed away; and the main purpose of the narrative is that "no one has gone in to see this house for at least ten years" (Emily's residence).

Such a story situation cannot satisfy any readers. Therefore, in the first paragraph of less than one hundred words, the author immediately took out the first explanatory material to arouse the reader's curiosity. "The people in the town went to see the mourning: the men were admiring because a monument fell. Most of the women wanted to see the interior of her house out of curiosity."

What will a man tell us about the "inside the house" of a "monument" recognized by a man? It is precisely because of the curiosity that the readers are aroused that they will continue reading and find more content that can maintain curiosity. Faulkner only used less than a hundred words to complete such a complex work. Even the greatest writer is like this, which just confirms a point I have always adhered to: For beginners, if they cannot arouse readers' curiosity within three to five hundred words, the lifespan of this short story is very worrying.

Faulkner's design of the beginning part of this novel is that since readers have understood that the main purpose of the novel is to "enter Emily's residence", the external description of this "square-shaped wooden house" is naturally an explanatory material; at the same time, the mayor and the residents' two conspiracy to enter Emily's residence were also used as explanatory material for the storyline; in addition, Emily's brief love and the so-called suicide of buying poison also gave the main purpose more anticipated meaning, because the hero in love was the only person who had entered the house, and Emily did not commit suicide after breaking up. Of course, the end of the novel proves the greatness of the previous explanatory material: people found the mummy of her lover in Emily's room.

I chose this novel to explain the application of explanatory materials in the novel, with the purpose of pointing out how important the explanatory materials have in creating interesting things. At the same time, I also want to point out that whether it is a simple narrative, a detailed description, or even a plot, or a fully functional dramatic scene, can be used as explanatory materials at the beginning, with only one condition - creating interesting things, inspiring curiosity, attracting and maintaining the readers' attention.

In the above text, we focus on analyzing the first and second sources of novel interest. We will elaborate on other sources of novel interest in the following chapters. (To be continued)
Chapter completed!