British writer

Fleet Street.

The Times Headquarters.

In the editor-in-chief's office, Bakker was wrapped in a thick blanket, his nose filled with hot black tea vapor.

There is a tabloid spread out on the desk in front of you——

Daily Times.

At this time, Buckle was reading the article "Fake!" Fake! Fake! 》, his face became more and more ugly, until it was shining white, and the tip of his nose turned red from wiping his nose.

The red and white look like a clown.

At the desk, the clerk looked at him carefully.

The room was eerily quiet.

After a while, Buckle finally spoke: "Who asked you to write like this!? Who asked you to write like this!?"

Because my nose is not breathable, I speak in a loud voice, which is a bit ridiculous.

In order to ensure his dignity, he slapped the table,

boom--

The table made a loud noise.

At the same time, the black tea spilled out and got on Bucker's hand.

He shook for a moment and quickly withdrew his red-hot hands into the blanket, pretending as if nothing had happened.

On the other side, the clerk was submissive;

"Editor-in-Chief, you...you are the one who asked us to write this."

Bakker:? ? ?

"When did it happen? Why don't I remember?"

The clerk replied: "You got caught in the rain yesterday, so when you came back, you set up a bed in the office and lay down to rest. I asked you about the "Daily Times" and what news was published on the first page. You told me a lot. .”

Bucker was even more confused.

"I...did I?"

The clerk nodded like a chicken pecking at rice.

Bucker scratched his head,

"So, what exactly did I say?"

The clerk continued: "You said a lot. You complained about the Mirror's sales fraud, you complained about the Mirror's articles, you complained about the Mirror... in short, you complained about the Mirror."

Ten thousand grass-mud horses galloped through Bucker's heart,

grass!

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

He looked hopeless,

"I...I had a fever yesterday."

The implication is that those complaints are all nonsense made during a fever.

Clerk: "..."

He looked out the window and whispered, "The weather is nice today."

The veins on Bucker's forehead popped out;

Isn't it raining outside? ?

He was too lazy to say anything else, and continued to read the newspaper, while complaining: "I don't know how to say good things to you. When we tried to print the article before, you had to give the article a very serious title, but this time it's better. Come on. "Fake! Fake! Fake!", going from one extreme to the other...well..."

Halfway through his words, he stopped.

Buck's pupils shrank,

"What about the article "Are all novels suitable for serialization? Some profound thoughts on "The Lord of the Rings""?"

The clerk's lips moved,

"Forehead……"

Bakker said: "Speak!"

The clerk touched his nose awkwardly and said, "Editor-in-Chief, this is also your request! You want us to ride on the popularity of "Lord of the Rings" and come up with new ideas..."

Bakker's face was dark;

"You and I……"

He cracked.

The clerk stepped forward, picked up the teacup and said, "Editor-in-Chief, let me change you a cup of tea."

After that, he will run away.

Of course, Bucker couldn't let the other party slip away like this, so he scolded: "Wait a minute!"

He shook the newspaper in his hand,

"Who is this 'Luser'?"

The clerk didn't say anything, just stared at Bakker with strange eyes.

The silence speaks.

Bakker was completely confused. He never imagined that he would have such a pen name.

He asked: "It can't be me, right?"

The clerk coughed slightly,

"It seems...maybe...probably...maybe yes. When you assigned us to ride on the popularity of "The Lord of the Rings" yesterday, you kept saying that this novel was not suitable for serialization and would definitely fail. What else did you keep saying? 'Loser' and so on."

"Fxxk!!!!!!"

Bucker wanted to reward himself with a big mouth.

…

At the other end of Fleet Street, the headquarters of the Mirror,

Editor's Office.

Lu Shi stood in front of the window and looked at the newsboys waiting to get their goods in front of the newspaper office. All kinds of noisy scrambling sounds penetrated the window and poured into the room.

Natsume Soseki couldn't help but said: "The sales are really good."

Scott immediately took over the conversation,

"Of course! Don't forget that Lu's new novel was serialized yesterday! According to statistics, the daily sales volume of "Mirror" has already reached 130,000. When the printing press is in place, there is still room for further growth. 200,000 will be possible."

two hundred thousand,

For London ten years later, the sales volume was not that amazing.

But now it's 1901, and the two are completely different.

Lu Shi didn't answer, his eyes far away.

Following his gaze, I saw the headquarters of The Times standing in the rain curtain, gloomy and desolate, just like the castle where the villain described in the novel lives.

Scott touched his chin,

"Speaking of sales, hum..."

He asked with a hint of excitement: "Lu, do you know that a new tabloid has appeared now?"

This incident was not unexpected;

It would be better to say that the first tabloid newspaper after the "Mirror" has just appeared, and the old foxes in the London journalism industry are moving too slowly.

Lu Shi said, "I heard about it."

Scott chuckled,

"But I guess you didn't see it?"

As he spoke, he took out a copy of the "Daily Times" from his arms and put it on the table.

Natsume Soseki lit the lamp smoothly, his eyes stayed on the front page headlines, and he couldn't help but laugh: ""Fake! Fake! Fake!"? This name does have the flavor of "Mirror", which can be regarded as a glimpse. "

Lu Shi moved closer,

With ten lines in one glance, I finished reading the article quickly.

He said: "This article is not without merit. At least, the statistical method of actual sales is still reliable."

This sounds like it means something.

Scott understood,

"Hmph, heroes see the same thing."

He took out a form and said: "Before, you drew bar charts, line charts, and pie charts for me and Cooper, but we never found a chance to use them. I feel like I can use them this time. It's worth a thousand words." Thousands of words.”

Natsume Soseki read the table and felt dizzy when looking at the data.

"what is this……"

Scott replied: "A sales analysis of The Times."

He pointed to one of the columns as an example: "The last time The Times claimed that sales exceeded 100,000 was the day the Queen passed away. However, I contacted various bookstores and found sources to calculate the warehouse inventory of The Times. I found a huge problem.”

"Informant?!"×2

Riku Toki and Natsume Soseki said in unison.

Scott chuckled,

"Don't ask, there's no answer if you ask."

It is not difficult to guess from this expression that he must have paid a lot of money to bribe a commercial spy.

Lu Shi gave a thumbs up,

"You're awesome."

Bakker's accusation of "Mirror" sales fraud is really unwise.

After all, this is an open secret in the industry. All newspaper offices are full of shit. Who is cleaner than the other?

So, Mo Bijing.

The corner of Scott's mouth curled up in a sinister arc,

"Baker killed eighty enemies this time and suffered a thousand losses."

Lu Shi shook his head and corrected: "Wrong! Wrong! It should be 'Kill the enemy eight hundred and damage yourself a thousand'. This saying is derived from "Sun Tzu's Art of War: Planning for Attack"."

Scott joked: "I know this is an old Chinese saying, but I changed it."

Lu Shi couldn't refute,

Because the other party's change is indeed more suitable.

Scott looked at the "Daily Times", sneered, and said: "What about "Fake! Fake! Fake!"? Let me see, when our counterattack is published in the newspaper, the "Daily Times" will It will become synonymous with 'fake news'."

"puff!"

Lu Shi burst out laughing,

I never expected that this word would become popular one hundred and twenty years in advance.

Scott was puzzled;

"how?"

Lu Shi quickly waved his hand and said, "It's nothing."

Seeing him like this, Scott didn't want to ask any more questions, so he turned back a few pages of the "Daily Times" and said, "Lu, look at this book review. It's very offensive~"

Lu Shi quickly read the article "Are all novels suitable for serialization?" Some profound thoughts on "The Lord of the Rings\

,"He couldn't help but chuckle,

"Well written."

Scott rolled his eyes at him and complained: "You are not in a hurry. You don't know that many readers now think that this article is reasonable and think that you should not serialize "The Lord of the Rings" or a detective novel. Suitable for serialization.”

Lu Shi spread his hands,

"Is "Roger Mystery" suitable for serialization?"

After asking the rhetorical question, he pointed to the article and said, "I also used "Roger's Mystery" as an example~"

Scott scratched his head;

"this……"

Lu Shi laughed and said: "Those readers will say that 'detective mystery novels are suitable for serialization', purely because they like this genre and want me to put aside "The Lord of the Rings" and switch to serialization of detective mysteries."

Scott and Natsume Soseki laughed,

Only an all-around author like Lu Shi could say something like this.

Natsume Soseki asked: "What type of novel is suitable for serialization? Is "I Am a Cat" suitable?"

In fact, "I Am Cat" was originally serialized.

After Natsume Soseki returned to Japan, he serialized it in the magazine "Azalea", and then compiled it into three volumes and published it, thus earning considerable royalties and royalties.

The appearance of Lu Shi changed this fact.

He did not answer, but instead asked: "Why are books suitable for serialization and not suitable for serialization?"

Scott said: "It's written in the article, and it also gives examples. The main reason is that it took too long to write, and I was worried about inconsistency~"

Lu Shi smiled and did not refute.

The first thing he thought of was Jin Yong.

There are generally three versions of Jin Yong's martial arts novels:

The earliest serialized version,

The most familiar triple version,

A newly revised edition revised in later years.

Among them, the biggest difference is between the serial version and the triple version. Because the serial version has a lot of inconsistent plots, the triple version has been modified.

There are many contradictions of this kind,

For example, Guo Jing in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" was originally described as "clever and clever" and could clearly retell the battle scenes between the two armies. However, later Jin Yong figured out Guo Jing's character and changed it to Yu Wooden head.

This is the characteristic of serialization. Even if there is an outline, the author will inevitably come up with new ideas.

But I can’t take back the chapters that have been sent, so I can only eat the books.

Of course, there is another situation where the author is influenced by the readers.

Lu Shi remembered that in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", the little dragon girl was originally dead, but because of the objections of readers, Jin Yong was forced to pull the little dragon girl up from the bottom.

Natsume Soseki said: "I don't think there's anything to worry about. Isn't The Lord of the Rings already finished?"

Scott frowned slightly,

"No, Lu only finished writing the first part."

He was worried that when Lu Shi started serializing, he would be unable to control it later.

However, the time traveler Lu Shi certainly cannot be affected by this.

He is not "creating", at most he is "adding and modifying", which is roughly equivalent to "copying".

What's more, what he "copied" was "The Lord of the Rings."

Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Moreover, after Tuolao's death, his descendants often sorted out his manuscripts and constantly dug out various background supplements for the Middle-earth world in the novel. This shows what a complete system Tuolao had already constructed at the time of creation.

Lu Shi chuckled and said, "It's okay."

Scott hesitated for a moment, and then said: "Lu, you are a great writer. I don't allow me to comment on your creations, but I still feel that serialization...sigh..."

Sigh deeply.

Lu Shi said: "Serialization is just a form."

Scott immediately retorted: "As the founder of the Mirror, you should understand that the carrier and media of literature have always had an important impact on literature, and may even bring changes to literary creation."

Lu Shi was silent.

Seeing that he didn't speak, Scott continued: "Now let me ask you, when your novel has a lot of words, and it is serialized wherever you think of it, how can you ensure that the novel does not collapse?"

Natsume Soseki couldn't help but look at Riku Shi,

There is probably no writer or litterateur in the world who doesn't want to know the secret behind Lu Shi's ability to serialize novels with high quality.

Unexpectedly, Lu Shi actually said: "In fact, when you write ten million words, no one will remember what happened before."

Natsume Soseki: "..."

Scott: "..."

Ten million words of Shente Meow!

Both of them were speechless.

However, Lu Shi looked serious,

He had heard of some online articles, such as "Starting from

There are also "School X's Personal Expert" and the like,

I actually read the second part and completely forgot about the first part.

But this is definitely not something you can say to people in the early 20th century.

Lu Shi chuckled and said, "Just kidding~ Just kidding~"

Natsume Soseki breathed a sigh of relief.

Scott on the side complained: "I don't even know which of your words is true and which is false. Okay, please be serious and answer the questions I just asked."

Lu Shi thought about it and said, "Delay the manuscript."

Natsume Soseki: "..."

Scott: "..."

The two were speechless again.

But Lu Shi was very serious this time.

"Procrastination means writing slowly. Writing slowly is less likely to make mistakes."

A ridiculous number of writers employ this tactic;

Tolkien and his "Lord of the Rings\

,"George R.R. Martin and his "A Song of Ice and Fire"

Togashi the old thief and his "Hunter" (this one doesn't count).

Lu Shi said: "It's really easy to drag manuscripts."

Scott asked: "Then can you procrastinate?"

Lu Shi shook his head,

"Me? How could I be procrastinating?"

Scott's head is full of black lines,

￣□￣｜｜

"Please. My dear, great, wise and mighty Lu, can you answer my question seriously?"

Lu Shi pondered,

After a while, he said: "Actually, there are still many techniques. For example, Dahe's novels use historical changes as basic clues to create, Balzac's... um... Natsume?"

I saw Natsume Soseki taking out a pen from nowhere and immersed himself in taking notes like a primary school student listening to a lecture.

Scott chuckled and said: "You have to allow him to do this. After all, not everyone is lucky enough to listen to the lectures of the dear, great, wise and mighty Lu."

Lu Shi glanced sideways at the other party,

"Can you please stop teasing me?"

After finishing speaking, he hesitated for a moment, and then said: "That's all, I'd better write an article and explain it in detail."