British writer

"The Hobbit" has been serialized to the sixth chapter,

At the same time, "Roger's Mystery" ushered in the second reprint, still 10,000 copies.

Unexpectedly, along with it, the sales volume of "Beach Magazine" rose again, and broke the single-week sales record again.

This is really unexpected.

Wood of the Royal Publishing Office gave Lu Shi an analysis of the reasons:

First, the quality of "Six Busts of Napoleon" is extremely high,

As a mystery novel, it may be good, but as a detective adventure novel, it is only weaker than Doyle's "Scarlet Study", "The Sign of Four" and "The Last Case";

Second, "Roger's Mystery" was a big hit.

I have to say that "Roger's Mystery" and the Sherlock Holmes series are in competition.

But that's the same kind of competition,

In terms of price, the two are not at the same level at all, and there is a clear gradient. Readers who have finished reading "Roger's Mystery" will tend to look for works of the same type, and the Sherlock Holmes series will inevitably come into view.

vice versa,

Fans of Holmes can also be fans of Poirot.

Two works of the same type at different price points are very popular in the market, which actually makes the cake bigger.

After all, Lu Shi is a modern person. He has eaten and seen it, so of course he understands it.

Competition can indeed expand the market of the same category to achieve the result of cooperation, which is the so-called "competition and cooperation" relationship.

Lu Shi doesn't care about it.

After all, it is not an irreconcilable conflict with Doyle, there is no need to fight to the death.

Besides, Wen Wu is the first,

In the end who is strong and who is weak, all depends on one mouth,

It's impossible to really run over to compare sales with Doyle, right?

Lu Shi didn't care about what was there, but devoted all his time to the creation of book reviews.

The book review is titled "On Narrative Tricks and Reasoning Works\

,"From a certain point of view, this is his first creation, so he must devote all his energy to strive for perfection.

And just like that, time passed.

...

early February.

Doyle mansion.

Doyle was sitting at a typewriter writing a manuscript.

The new short story is called "The Alone Cyclist\

,"He feels pretty good about himself, and should be able to sell well.

At this time, the door was pushed open quietly,

His wife Hawkins tiptoed over, put a cup of black tea by her husband's hand, and then turned around to leave.

Unexpectedly, Doyle said: "Ruth, has today's newspaper arrived? I want to read it... By the way, I told you before, subscribe to both the Manchester Guardian and The Scotsman. Have you ordered?"

The Doyles used to subscribe only to The Times,

Occasionally there are major events, such as Christmas and New Year's Day, they will buy all kinds of newspapers and magazines, both for reading and collection.

But recently, for some reason, Doyle suddenly changed his temper,

In the past, he hated the liberal paper media the most, but now he never refuses them.

And there's another weird thing,

Once Doyle fell into the creative state of inspiration, he would forget to shave, and sometimes he would not take a shower for two or three days.

But now, he has completely changed, he can do whatever he wants, bathing and shaving are the same,

As if writing was just an ordinary job.

Hawkins didn't know whether it was better for her former husband or her current husband.

She worried: "Arthur, do you want to watch it now?"

Doyle took a sip of his tea,

"No order?"

Of course it is ordered.

But Hawkins decided to test it first to see his husband's reaction,

Don't be stimulated by anything!

She said, "Arthur, did you know that Roger Mystery is being reprinted?"

Doyle nodded,

"I know, 10,000 copies, it's news three days ago."

For such news, Doyle is already numb,

He no longer wanted to compare himself with Lu Shi, and simply turned into a ruthless coding machine, earnestly creating "Return\

,"Keeping your pace is the most important thing.

This is also the reason why he suddenly became calm,

Two words——

Buddhism.

Hawkins looked at her husband. Although he felt a little weird, he couldn't tell what was wrong.

She walked to the door,

"I'll bring you the Manchester Guardian right now. There's a review of Lu's book called something... called 'trick' or something, and it's a whole tome that's driving me dizzy .”

A tome refers to a long, large-scale book.

Doyle was intrigued,

"Big tome? Why are there so many tomes in newspapers?"

Hawkins, however, went out without answering.

After waiting for half a minute, she returned to the room with the newspaper in her hand, and at the same time pointed to the book review page and said, "This is this article, called "On Narrative Tricks and Reasoning Works."

Doyle has never heard of "narrative tricks", but he still understands the term "work of reasoning\

,"He was surprised: "Isn't the title too big?"

Could it be that Lu Shi is floating?

Hawkins handed over the newspaper and said, "Take a look, the content is too professional for me to read."

Doyle nodded and took the newspaper.

The first thing that catches the eye is a concept:

Narrative tricks refer to the fact that the author deliberately conceals or misleads certain facts from the readers by using the structure of the article or writing techniques, until the truth is revealed at the end, which makes the readers feel indescribable sense of astonishment.

Doyle was even more surprised.

Undoubtedly, this is the writing method of "Roger's Mystery\

,"In the novel, Lu Shi used the reader's tacit understanding and inertial thinking when reading, introduced the reader or player into the prepared story environment, and finally reversed the whole story by pointing out the reader's misunderstanding.

The issue is……

Isn't "Roger Mystery" still on sale?

Just give the core trick like this, won't the sales be affected by spoilers?

Doyle was puzzled,

As a result, he tilted his head, saw his wife's puzzled eyes, and suddenly changed his mind.

After all, not everyone can read a large tome,

For the author, the concept of narrative tricks is very easy to understand, but in the eyes of the readers, it is a bit incomprehensible.

"Tsk..."

Doyle was speechless,

From his heart, he felt that Lu Shi's attitude of "I review myself" was quite arrogant.

But he felt that Lu Shi had the qualifications.

A book worth more than six pounds sold 20,000 copies in less than ten days, and it would float on anyone's body.

Doyle read on,

Unexpectedly, the more he read, the more shocked he became,

Because Lu Shi really didn't hide his secrets, he broke apart and smashed all the narrative tricks, how they should be structured, and how to guide readers, just like writing an academic paper.

Hawkins looked at her husband, puzzled and said, "Arthur, what's wrong with you?"

Doyle was silent for a while, and said: "If you can understand this article thoroughly, you must be able to make a living by writing."

Hawkins was puzzled,

"Huh? Is it really that powerful?"

Doyle nodded,

"Yes, it's really that powerful. You can see the classification of these narrative tricks he wrote, gender tricks, age tricks, identity tricks, one person playing two roles or even multiple roles... These things must have been thought of before. , but Lu Shi was the first person to write it out in such a systematic way."

Hawkins couldn't understand, but was shocked.

She asked, "You mean, Lu used so many tricks in Roger Mystery?"

Doyle smiled

"That's exactly why I was shocked."

Hawkins was stunned.

"It really took so much?"

Doyle shook his head violently, and replied: "That's not the case. The narrative tricks used in "Roger's Mystery" are not that complicated. But, if you think about it, Lu Shi has so many good ideas, you can keep them for yourself. Now it is announced to the public, this..."

As soon as this remark came out, Hawkins also fell silent.

If Lu Shi wrote down all the tricks one by one, he would be sure that he would have no worries about food and clothing in this life.

Of course, money is already a thing outside the body for a best-selling author of this level, what really matters is the honor of the book.

Doyle looked at the book review and said, "When I see this article now, I can immediately come up with a few good ideas, like... um... Yes! A certain character is colorblind, and he sees The color of the book is different from ordinary people's cognition, and using him as the first perspective can lead readers to draw wrong conclusions."

This is very interesting to hear.

Hawkins nodded,

"It will definitely be a good subject."

Doyle showed a complacent expression,

But soon, he restrained his smile,

The feeling of eating from Shihe Lai is quite refreshing, but not particularly refreshing.

Tasteless to eat and a pity to discard.

"What the hell was Lu thinking when he wrote the review?" Hawkins said.

Doyle read the article,

"I'm not as good as him."

Hawkins was very surprised that her husband bowed his head and conceded defeat.

"Arthur!" she yelled.

Doyle waved his hand.

"I didn't admit defeat, nor did I lose my fighting spirit. When I said I was inferior to him, I meant my mind. Lu Shi wrote this article probably to teach us how to write good reasoning works..."

As he spoke, his eyes wandered around the book review page,

The title of the article is "On Narrative Tricks and Reasoning Works". In addition to the description of narrative tricks in the first half, there is also a second half that talks about the type of reasoning works in Lu Shi's eyes.

There is no bells and whistles in the whole article, and the text is very sincere.

After reading for only a few minutes, Doyle couldn't help but take a deep breath,

"He's teaching us how to write a book."

Hawkins was surprised,

"What?"

Doyle pointed to the article and said, "Look, what he wrote here is about 'information asymmetry'..."

Hawkins nodded immediately,

"Yes, I saw that Lu mentioned this many times in the article, but I don't understand what it means."

Doyle replied: "Simply put, information asymmetry is 'unfair'. Because of the author's deliberate concealment, the detective holds key evidence and information that the readers do not know. Do you remember me in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" What did you do at the beginning?"

Hawkins recalled,

At the beginning of The Hound of the Baskervilles, the husband wrote that Sherlock Holmes went wrong,

Holmes speculates on the owner of the cane left at 221B Baker Street, but the result is completely inconsistent with the actual situation.

Doyle sighed,

"well……"

Readers may not be clear, but his heart is like a mirror,

The rigor of the Sherlock Holmes series of reasoning is not strong, and readers will believe it is entirely because the level of other writers is not high enough.

Doyle looked at the article again, feeling emotional again,

"Yes, he is teaching us to write books."

...

"He's teaching us to write books."

Cambridge,

King's College.

James is in the office, reading today's "Manchester Guardian", with an expression of admiration on his face.

Cavendish said: "Is it? But I think this article is a little offensive."

James looked puzzled,

"where?"

Cavendish took the newspaper and read the original text:

"

‘Detectives cannot use supernatural or grotesque methods of detection. '

"

This is one of the principles of mystery novels given by Lu Shi.

James understands,

"Do you think Mr. Lu is implying those strange novels I wrote?"

As he spoke, he shook his head,

"According to you, he also wrote 'The Detective's Stupid Friend, who must tell the reader unreservedly of his judgment, that the intelligence of this person must be slightly below the average level of the reader', and that 'Detective's Stupid Friend' is in Hinting at Watson?"

Cavendish thinks,

Isn't that alluding to Watson?

He said: "I don't think Lu Shi himself believes what he wrote. For example, "Roger's Mystery", doesn't it violate this rule? 'The detective's stupid friend' is actually the murderer."

James chuckled,

"It is true that Mr. Lu's writing seems a bit dogmatic, and he may even face the risk of slapping himself. But I don't think he wants to roughly classify detective novels. Instead...um...instead, it is a way to evaluate detective novels with mixed good and bad. , a piece of writing advice for writers."

Cavendish was a little confused, and asked the other party: "From what you mean, is Lu Shi teaching the real thing?"

James nodded.

He pointed to the final summary of the article,

There, Lu Shi made a vivid metaphor,

Lu Shi divides all the information that constitutes a story into a hundred cards,

In the initial stage, one hundred cards are all covered on the table, and the development of the story is the process of opening these cards one by one.

Most of the stories are linear, and the order of opening the cards is also a straight line. They are all revealed in chronological order starting from the basic information, allowing readers to follow the development of the plot according to clear clues.

"The speculative fiction category is different," James said.

He spread the newspaper flat and flipped it irregularly at the same time,

"The reasoning is originally based on a special 'turning card method', especially in works with narrative tricks like "Roger's Mystery."

Cavendish asked: "Wouldn't it look a lot like acrobatics to write it this way?"

James replied: "It was originally acrobatics."

He flipped a newspaper back and said: "Deliberately keep the cards that should have been opened in a closed state, and keep the readers from noticing, until the end, trying to show the wrong composition in front of the readers."

This style of writing places very high demands on the writing style.

Cavendish fell silent when he thought of the sold-out "Roger's Mystery".

That's a really great piece of work.

James smiled and asked, "Mr. Supervisor, don't you think we novelists are fooling people?"

Cavendish was taken aback,

Immediately, he laughed,

"No, no. I just think mystery novels are deceiving people, because it is impossible for readers to guess who the murderer is before seeing the detective deciphering it."

James couldn't help laughing.

If mystery novels are "fooling people", then ghost novels cannot be read.

He pondered for a moment and said, "Mr. Chancellor, I think we should show the self-consciousness of British gentlemen. What do you think?"

Cavendish's laughter stopped abruptly,

long silence,

He said, "Okay."