Qi 's Short Story Writing

Wang Zengqi had made numerous new attempts in composing short novels. He cameup with three ideas, namely,“novels are memories”,“to write novels is to write aboutlife”, and “to write novels is to work on languages”. This text attempts to study thecreation of short novels of Wang Zengqi from these three aspects.To write novels is to write about memories. This text mainly studies the theme andgenre of Wang’s short novels. Besides a few novels which were recomposed on thebasis of bizarre stories written by Pu Songling in the Qing Dynasty as well as thosemyths and legends, his novels were mainly composed, according to his memories, onthe mediocre people and matters in the small town of his hometown, rather than onthe big events in relation to the mainstream of society. Wang Zengqi added warmth tothese mediocre people and matters, even if the novel was a tragedy–all these wereunder the influence of his family, respected teachers, Confucianism, and selftemperament, making him hold an attitude of “make the best of things”. Nevertheless,he seldom used miseries as genre or theme. He did it not because he purposely tried toforget, but thanks to the living conditions of his early years, his respected teachers,and his distinctive recognition of the responsibility to a writer. Wang clearlyunderstood that writing this kind of novel was not and would never be the mainstreamof writing. However, he persisted in his way of writing for the reasons given aboveand for his acknowledgment of freedom in composing novels.To write novels is to write about life. This text mainly studies the way and traits ofnarrative in his novels. Wang Zengqi, as a Beijing-school writer, was one of therepresentative writers in composing novels, and had made new attempts in theinnovation of literary style of novels from several aspects. He attempted to composeprosaic novels by weakening the conventional novel writing model of undulyfocusing on plots; he organized the structure freely rather than deliberately; heemphasized the impact of sentiment and temperament in creating novels with somepoetic language so as to create unique images; and he respected the real image of lifeand told many a “tiny” stories in a slow pace.To write novels is to work on languages. This text mainly studies the language inWang’s novels. Wang Zengqi paid much attention to language. He exerted profitableelements from folk literature, and used abundant vernacular and vulgar languages. Heused precise words rather than glories ones. He was particular about every word in hisnovels, to which he also added some idioms and parallel structures, making them befilled with dense literary deposits, and achieve the effect of finding the unique fromplain and simple works.