Chapter 14 of 100

Chapter 14

16 min read3,899 words

【ps: This is the second chapter of today, with two more to go. I'm trying to make it into the top 50 of the new book chart. Please support me!!!】

Tong Yan is a person who likes to daydream. In junior high, when he read Jin Yong's martial arts novels, he would also imagine some original stories of his own, writing them on the back of his homework. These stories once became quite popular in his small circle of classmates, and he still keeps those works from back then.

However, at that time, he only wrote for fun, and his readers were limited to the classmates who were interested. His main focus was still on studying, and he never thought that his words would be seen by more people. Being praised by his classmates was enough to satisfy him. After all, he was well aware that his stories were far from the level required for publication.

But now, after discovering web novels, he felt a renewed urge to create. He had a vague feeling that someone was prompting him: "You should write web novels." This feeling was very strange and vague, yet it gave him inspiration and guidance, much like how he felt a sense of familiarity when he saw the name Tang Jia San Shao.

Under this guidance, as soon as he got home, he began to think about what he should write.

Martial arts novels were definitely out of the question. Tong Yan's motivation for writing was very simple: the examples of authors on Qidian earning tens of thousands of yuan per month and millions per year were his greatest inspiration. The ease with which Zhang Xiao could spend thousands of yuan on a laptop made him envious. To put it bluntly, he wanted to make some money to ease his parents' burdens and make his school life a bit more comfortable.

Based on his recent understanding of web novels, martial arts novels had no future. The mainstream web novels he saw were usually of the fantasy, xianxia, cultivation, or sci-fi genres. So, he had to put aside his lingering childhood dreams of martial arts and challenge himself with other genres.

Actually, after reading so many web novels, Tong Yan had a hard time letting go of the first one he read, "The Little Soldier's Legend." While space battles were not his favorite genre, the unfinished story of "The Little Soldier" always left him feeling unsatisfied. He was very stubborn and wanted to see Tang Long's subsequent story and ultimate achievements, and he was eager to know who would ultimately rule the brilliant universe.

Since Xuan Yu had stopped updating "The Little Soldier's Legend" online to prepare for its publication, Tong Yan thought he might as well write a similarly captivating story about a little soldier. This idea popped into his head.

Finally, Tong Yan decided to write a pseudo-scientific space opera inspired by the classic web novel "The Little Soldier's Legend." He even came up with a title: "The Little Soldier's Wild History." It sounded a bit like a distant relative of "The Little Soldier's Legend." Initially, he considered using suffixes like "outer history," "main story," or "journey" to match "legend," but after some deliberation, he felt that "wild history" would be more eye-catching.

The protagonist of "The Little Soldier's Legend" is Tang Long, so the protagonist of "The Little Soldier's Wild History" would be Song Hu.

Tong Yan thought that "The Little Soldier's Legend" was extremely popular online, with countless readers. Since it was cut off before completion, its readers must be eager and unsatisfied. If a novel appeared now that was similar in title, protagonist, and genre to "The Little Soldier's Legend," wouldn't they be very interested?

The answer was obvious.

Tong Yan had never written a long novel of over a million words. The martial arts novels he wrote in junior high were only about 70,000 to 80,000 words and were incomplete. For his first attempt at such a long story, having a reference and a model to follow was a wise choice.

Of course, if Tong Yan could meet Xuan Yu and learn how he created "The Little Soldier's Legend" and managed so many characters and plots, that would be ideal. Unfortunately, this was not realistic, and he had never seen any professional books on writing novels. So, Tong Yan had to feel his way through the creation of a super-long novel.

He had already created the title and the male protagonist, but a single protagonist was not enough to support a long novel. Tong Yan followed the思路 he had used three years ago when he wrote martial arts novels in his bed with a flashlight, starting to refine Song Hu's appearance, personality, and life experiences, and creating other characters centered around the protagonist.

Since it was a space opera, it couldn't be limited to Chinese characters, so he also needed to prepare some foreign names. Names like Tom and Jack were too common, so he opted for more sophisticated ones like Douglas, Ulysses, and Francis.

He also planned to include a few Japanese characters, whether they were named Matsushita, Yamashita, or Inoue, they would definitely be the villains.

He would also design a few Russian characters, with surnames like Novak and Skov, who would be portrayed as muscular brutes or henchmen.

In addition to characters, he needed a lot of city names, planet names, ship models, and weapon names. This required both his accumulated knowledge and some imagination. Tong Yan's knowledge of military matters was not extensive, but fortunately, a few days ago, he had brought back some outdated and unsold military journals from Wumei Bookstore, which could help him create some plausible content.

The three elements of a novel are characters, plot, and setting, and even web novels need to follow these principles.

Tong Yan had prepared the characters quite well. Although the characters he had created were not enough for a super-long novel, they were sufficient to start writing. He could create more characters as the plot developed.

The setting included both the natural and social environments. The natural and social environments of the space age could be found in Hollywood movies or science fiction novels. The world of "The Little Soldier's Legend" was the most suitable background for Tong Yan's needs, and with some minor adjustments, it could be used.

The plot was the development of the story and the most captivating part of a novel. Whether a novel was good or bad largely depended on the plot.

The plot of "The Little Soldier's Wild History" was simple to describe: the protagonist's journey from a nobody to a supreme figure. However, making this process full of suspense and excitement was extremely challenging.

Tong Yan prepared a new notebook and wrote down all the characters, events, and story developments, categorizing them. Gradually, the characters multiplied, and the world-building became richer. Every time he thought of a new idea, he would get very excited.

For three whole days, he stayed in his room, writing and drawing. Tong Shan found it strange. Hadn't her older brother been helping her cousin at the bookstore for the past half month? Why hadn't he gone there in the past two days? Had he had a falling out with his cousin?

"Brother," Tong Shan pushed the door open and saw her older brother working on an English test. "Why haven't you been going to the bookstore these past two days?"

Tong Yan waved the test paper. "It's too noisy there, and I can't concentrate on my summer homework, so I haven't gone."

This reason was convincing enough to dispel Tong Shan's doubts. After she left, Tong Yan opened the notebook under the test paper and continued to refine his story. He didn't want his family, especially his parents, to know he was writing a novel. They would definitely forbid him from writing, citing that it would interfere with his studies. He also couldn't let Tong Shan know, as she was a chatterbox and might accidentally let it slip.

In three days, Tong Yan roughly completed the foundational work for "The Little Soldier's Wild History." On the fourth day, he brought his notebook to Wumei Bookstore. When Liu Ming saw him, his first words were, "You finally came!"

"If you hadn't come, I would have gone to your house to look for you. Are you not angry?" Liu Ming asked cautiously.

"Why would I be angry?" Tong Yan was puzzled.

"Good, I'm relieved." Liu Ming sighed with relief. He had recently started dating a girlfriend, and without his cousin's help, he would have been swamped.

"Can I use the computer?"

"Sure, it's for you." Liu Ming said casually.

Tong Yan sat down at the computer, created a new Word document, and started typing: "The Little Soldier's Wild History," Volume 1: Leaving Earth, Chapter 1: My Grandfather's Grandfather...

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