Yan Geling: a quarrel is a loss of face, a fight is a sacrifice of life

it is difficult for a screenwriter to give up Yan Gelling's family as a writer. Father Xiao Ma, ex-husband Li Kewei, and father-in-law Li Jun are all writers. Yan Geling was accustomed to writing as soon as she was born, and it is almost inevitable to become a writer. His father, Xiao Ma, is not only a writer but also a screenwriter. He has written films such as the Battle of the Riverside, Youth like Water, and so on. Yan Gelling's first rewritten play was her father's novel Song without words. At that time, Yan Gelling had rewritten most of it and handed it to her father. After reading it, Xiao Ma said, "I'll rewrite it." Yan Geling took a look at the script rewritten by her father and felt ashamed. Xiao Ma said, "look, this is what it feels like to write a screenplay." Her father made Yan Gelling understand what a good screenplay is like, but she didn't want to write a screenplay. In Yan Gelling's mind, only novels can stimulate the desire for creation, and plays are only things that sell money. But her novel has not yet been published, that is, there are film and television companies to buy the copyright. From Zhang Aijia's "Girl Xiaoyu" to Chen Chong's "Heavenly Bath" to Zhang Yimou's "The Thirteen Women of Jinling", these films adapted by Yan Geling based on her novels, good or bad, have attracted great attention on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and in the United States, and this popularity brought about by film and television is the envy of many writers. But Yan Gelling doesn't want to be a screenwriter. A reporter once asked, what do you think of being a screenwriter? She replied bluntly-- not so good. Yan Geling defines herself as a serious literary writer and believes that she is best at novel language rather than film language. "if you want to write a movie, you must first understand drama. Sometimes when the trick is outstanding, it becomes popular and not serious enough. It is contrary to my principles. I like movies, but I never watch TV. Things other than words can be expressed through movie language. But these things are all gone on TV. 

For an episode of a TV series to be addictive, it must be sensational. Sensationalism is what I hate most. " Yan Gehling said. But in Yan Gelling's novels, if you pick out a conversation at random, you can put it directly on the screen and become a line. This is one of the characteristics of Yan Geling's novels. In the film "the Thirteen Women of Jinling", the screenwriter compresses the main characters and cuts the plot, but rarely changes the dialogue. In the novel, prostitutes laugh and scold in the Nanjing dialect, rubbing dirty words and sex into jokes, and these fierce conversations directly become the lines in the movie. Yan Gelling in the novel lets the characters say the dialogue, followed by a fresh atmosphere. There is Henan dialect in "the Ninth Widow" and Northeast dialect in "Auntie Duo". In "the Thirteen Women of Jinling" with Nanjing dialect as the main tone, the spicy words of prostitutes are matched with a glutinous soft tone, reviving the vulgar and vivid image of Qinhuai prostitutes on paper, and then moved to the screen by Zhang Yimou. This is just one of the reasons why Yan Gelling's novels are suitable to be made into movies. Zhang Yimou once praised the Thirteen Women of Jinling as the best script he has seen in the past 20 years. Yan Geling can tell the story satisfactorily, whether as a writer or as a screenwriter. From laying the foreshadowing, promoting the plot and side narrative, she can connect the details and the story into a perfect story. The proficient writing skill is Yan Gelling's advantage, but it also becomes the deficiency of her novel. Every time a reader gets Yan Gelling's new book, after reading it, he sighs that he is as mature as ever, echoing back and forth, clear logic, and watertight. The technique is mature and the skill is excellent, but I always feel that there is a lack of "Qi". As soon as that tone blows, the stone statue can become a true god. The essence is the essence, and it is always one step short of the masterpiece. Yan Geling never thought that she lacked this "breath". From the beginning of her writing, she began to look for this "breath". 

She was born in 1957 and was born during the Cultural Revolution in her childhood. As a child, what she saw most were all kinds of suicides. She lives in the compound of the Writers' Association, and whenever she hears someone outside shouting that someone has jumped from a building, she excitedly rushes out to see it. Once, an old couple jumped down from upstairs hand in hand. After the body was dragged away, there were two big holes left in the mud. A gust of wind blew, and there were many colorful candy wrappers upstairs. At that time, you had to buy candy by ticket, and one person could buy two or two candies a month. Yan Geling guessed that it was the two old men who ate all the candy they had saved before they decided to die. She fantasized about the scene before the old man jumped off the building, the two of them plucked away the candy wrappers one by one, ate the candy, didn't know what they said, and then slowly stood up and jumped off the building hand in hand. Since then, whenever the wind blows, candy wrappers will fall upstairs. These colorful candy wrappers are Yan Gelling's first impression of human nature. 

Another female writer, who was close to her father, committed suicide by swallowing sleeping pills before the Red Guards copied their home. People took her to the hospital and put her clothes naked into various tubes, but the hospital was unwilling to accept such people who were afraid of committing suicide, so they simply left her in the hallway. The naked woman writer was covered with a sheet, and passers-by occasionally lifted it with good intentions to peep at her nudity. Yan Gelling, who was beside her, was very angry and glared at these people. An electrician walked by, deliberately dropped his cigarette butt on the sheet, pretended to pick it up, shook the sheet, peeked at the female writer's nudity, Yan Geling glared at him, and stayed beside the writer all night. Later, the female writer was saved. As an adult, Yan Gelling said to the female writer, "if a woman wants to commit suicide, she will commit suicide to the end. Don't be saved half of it. You don't even know what happened in your life between death and life." Yan Geling remembers deeply the complexity and ugliness of human nature exposed in extreme moments, but she doesn't understand what it is. She usually stores these stories that she cannot understand, waiting for one day to discover the meaning behind them and then write them down. Yan Geling said that she has a pair of good ears and is good at hearing all kinds of stories and keeping them in her heart. Some stories are just a story, not worth writing, and some fermented stories have deeper connotations, so she writes them down. This kind of listening and fermentation is far from enough. Every time Yan Gelling writes, she has to do field research and write "the Ninth Widow." she lived in rural Henan twice, chatted with peasant women, and got used to Henan dialect. Before writing "Auntie Duohe", she went to Japan many times with an interpreter to interview and investigate. Every time I write, I may spend half of my time on the accuracy of the early stage. Get ready. Sometimes it may take 20 years for a story to be conceived and finished. After a pair of listening ears and field research, she still has a lot of shoes, and she can imagine the psychology of all kinds of characters. After sorting out the historical background and verifying the characters, she also needs to build a complete person by imagination. Yan Gelling said: "A writer should be able to stand in anyone's shoes, to feel and discover." Only in this way can we enter the character and bring it back to life. Yan Gelling's requirements for her writing are extremely high. After she finished writing, she deleted it desperately, deleted redundant plots and lyrical paragraphs, and deleted 100000 words without blinking an eye. 

Ruthless Yan Gelling has a strong spirit in her writing. it may take as long as 20 years for a novel to be excavated, stored, and investigated from her. Not only does she write, but there is also a lot of ruthlessness in her life. At the age of 15, her first love was frustrated, leaving her with insomnia. The longest insomnia for more than 30 days, the brain confused, do not know what happened around, see people feel is a whoosh in front of. You can't see the light, you have to close the curtains during the day, and you have to think about things all the time in the dark. As soon as she was asked if she couldn't sleep, she burst into tears. "I felt aggrieved as if the whole world had abandoned me." At the age of 12, Yan Geling joined the army as a dancer and performed with the troupe, but she felt that she could not dance well and did not want to dance. At the age of 20, China began to fight back in self-defense against Vietnam. To avoid dancing, she volunteered to be a war reporter and became a full-time military writer after leaving the army. At the age of 30, I want to go abroad. I can't speak English and memorize words with "new concept". After going abroad, I had no money, but my GRE scores were not up to standard. I heard that there were exams in Chicago, Detroit, and Buffalo. "I risked everything to buy a plane ticket and fly around with the rest of my money, and I got the test results within a month." I finally went to the Art Institute of Chicago, but I didn't have enough money. She spent the summer working in a restaurant as a babysitter. After a day's work, she went to the cafe for coffee, chatted with people, went home, took sleeping pills, and went to sleep. When she woke up a few hours later, she began to do her homework. The teacher asked to write three pages, and she wrote six pages. Then excitedly began another day of working life. At the beginning of my life in the United States, I encounter new things every day, and my life is completely different from that at home. She went into a bathroom, where a big drainage faucet was there, and Yan Geling stood there watching how others opened it. At that time, there was only one way to twist the faucet in China, and there were many ways to twist the faucet in the United States. She was afraid that she could not turn on the faucet for a long time, so she looked very clumsy and silly. What she felt in her life in a foreign country was no bitterness. There are new things every day, which can inspire her every time. In a completely unfamiliar environment, on the edge of sensitivity, she uses all her senses to sense and face the changes she can't cope with. At this time of inspiration, she wrote a lot of short stories and novelettes. This is not in line with Yan Gelling's image. She is stylishly dressed, beautifully made up, speaks slowly, and looks weak. Her most exquisite appearance seemed to show a ruthlessness of discipline. 

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Now Yan Gelling writes at home every day. At three o'clock in the afternoon, she will stop, put on makeup, change into beautiful clothes, clean up the room, and wait for her husband to return. Every day, without exception. Chen Chong, a good friend, made fun of her: "you writers, cats, and dogs for three days, such restraint every day, why to bother." Yan Geling retorted: "if you love your husband, you can't eat out of shape, you can't relax your muscles, and you can't look haggard. This is the discipline of love, otherwise, it's disrespect for him and disrespect for love." Yan Geling obeys strict discipline and tries her best to meet high requirements in both writing and life. This kind of strictness carries an effort to avoid being swallowed up by the terrible life if you can't write or do well. This kind of cruelty is also written by her in the novel. The woman in Yan Gelling's book works hard for her children all her life on the potting table and can knit clothes when she sees wool. A quarrel is a sacrifice of face, a fight is a sacrifice of life. Play, dare to take off men's pants, make a scene, dare to take off their pants door-to-door quarrel. Yan Geling wrote the best of this kind of ruthless woman.