Meanwhile, Ma Yiqun was also keeping an eye on Cui Geng’s new book.
Although Ma Yiqun was now the CEO of Terminal Chinese Website, and paying attention to new books should be the job of editors and chief editors, it was currently the New Year period, and he was just idling at home anyway.
Ma Yiqun had heard about author Cui Geng for a long time and was aware of his “notorious track record.”
However, no matter what, Cui Geng was still a talented writer.
A talented but lazy author was still better than a talentless but hardworking one.
After all, web novels were a creative industry, and often what mattered wasn’t how fast you wrote, but whether you wrote well.
If the content wasn’t good, writing faster would only accelerate the production of garbage.
“Butterfly Game” had just started not long ago, and the comment section was not in good shape either.
Ma Yiqun ignored all this and began reading the book directly.
The pace at the beginning was fast. After briefly introducing the protagonist’s identity, he directly acquired his special ability. After a simple introduction to how to use this ability, the official plot began.
On Lunar New Year’s Eve, Cui Geng had already released five chapters, and these five chapters had completed a small story arc.
From the protagonist gaining access to the “Butterfly Game” to helping the first supporting character, an independent game developer, achieve his dream.
The content of the first small story arc was very simple, serving as a preview of the core satisfaction point.
A poor but never-giving-up independent game developer had created a game with crude materials but interesting gameplay, yet it went unnoticed due to a lack of promotional funds.
The protagonist discovered him while observing parallel worlds and used his ability to find a game content creator. Through his special power, he made this content creator “coincidentally” download the game and start playing it.
Thus, under the promotion of this content creator, the game suddenly became popular and took off from there, allowing the independent game developer to continue pursuing his dream.
After reading this small story arc, the next was a single chapter posted by Cui Geng.
The content of the single chapter was simple. On the one hand, he apologized to all readers about the old book. On the other hand, he emphasized that this new book was well thought out, the content would be exciting, and he asked for a little patience. During the New Year period, he decided to seclude himself and update with 10,000 characters daily.
After reading all this, Ma Yiqun fell into deep thought.
Having written web novels for so long and keeping a close eye on web novel trends recently, he naturally could see some patterns.
Did this novel have problems? Definitely.
But it also had advantages!
The novels currently on the market were still mainly based on the “don’t underestimate the poor youth” hot-blooded template. The method of stirring readers’ emotions was primarily through relatively simple and crude means like suppression, inciting hatred, and revenge.
Urban novels had also developed well, but overall, they hadn’t broken out of this larger framework. Many special forces, campus beauty, and rebirth-themed novels still relied on traditional satisfaction points like showing off and face-slapping.
The novel “Butterfly Game,” however, could be seen to differ greatly from these popular novels in its fundamental structure.
First, while maintaining a fast pace, it had redesigned the early template.
Most novels today still follow the so-called “golden three chapters,” which was the fixed cycle of “suppression, acquiring special power, face-slapping.”
This formula wasn’t necessarily bad, but it was becoming overused, and many readers instinctively felt a bit sick when they saw it.
“Butterfly Game,” on the other hand, completely abandoned this formula. There was no suppression at the beginning; the protagonist directly acquired his special ability, and there was no “face-slapping” plot either. It went straight into its unique satisfaction point.
Second, the “satisfaction” in this novel was presented in a completely different way from other novels.
Current web novels offered “simple and crude satisfaction,” commonly known as “showing off and face-slapping.”
But the satisfaction point in “Butterfly Game” was a kind of secretive satisfaction. The protagonist used his orb to create very small changes that produced butterfly effects in parallel worlds, achieving some very interesting results.
The satisfaction the protagonist gained wasn’t as obvious as traditional showing off and face-slapping; it was more subtle, but this satisfaction could still bring mental pleasure to readers.
Moreover, setting aside the sense of achievement gained by the protagonist, if readers put themselves in the characters’ shoes, such as that unsuccessful game developer, they could also experience a kind of happiness.
This happiness was somewhat like a fairy tale for adults. Everyone knew that most independent game developers struggled due to a lack of promotion, and their games had little chance of success.
In reality, many independent game developers had to reluctantly give up their game dreams, but in the novel, his dream was realized because of the “butterfly effect” created by the protagonist. This was also a kind of satisfaction for readers.
If popular novels today were like braised pork, then this novel was like simple sugar-coated tomatoes.
Braised pork was certainly delicious, but when the table was full of various braised pork dishes, a plate of sugar-coated tomatoes would quickly be snatched up.
Not only that, Ma Yiqun seemed to see some shadows of Tenda in this book.
He felt that this story might have been inspired by Mr. Pei, because Mr. Pei’s “Lonely Desert Highway” had suddenly become popular due to a video by Qiao Laoshi.
With the income from that game, Mr. Pei had the money to make “Ghost General,” earning his first pot of gold to establish Tenda Group.
So, this story felt especially familiar to Ma Yiqun.
Considering these aspects, Ma Yiqun had a feeling that if this book were written well, it would explode in popularity on the Terminal Chinese Website!
But was the writing of this book perfect?
Ma Yiqun didn’t think so entirely.
There were still some places that could be slightly modified, and after these changes, the book could rise to another level!
Now was a good time, while Cui Geng hadn’t written much yet. A small boat was easy to turn around, so there was still time to make changes!
Thinking of this, Ma Yiqun directly called Cui Geng.
“CEO Ma, I’m writing right now! Don’t worry, I’ll write this book well and never abandon it halfway again! At least two million characters!”
Ma Yiqun hadn’t even spoken yet, and Cui Geng was already making promises.
“Haha, guess how many times you’ve said this?”
Ma Yiqun’s words left Cui Geng speechless.
“Alright, I didn’t call you to talk about that.” Ma Yiqun laughed and got to the point. “I do want to talk to you about the new book, but besides reminding you to write it well and not abandon it, I have some other things to discuss.”
Cui Geng was surprised: “Please go ahead, CEO Ma.”
Ma Yiqun said, “I have some personal suggestions. I’ll briefly share them with you. If you think they’re suitable, make the changes; if not, that’s fine too. Consider it a collective effort to make this book better.”
“I’m very optimistic about your book, so I want to help you polish the content to make it even better.”
Cui Geng was somewhat flattered: “Please continue.”
Ma Yiqun organized his thoughts a bit and explained his ideas in detail.
“I can see that the theme of the first small story arc seems to be inspired by Mr. Pei. Tenda indeed has many interesting stories that can be used for inspiration, but I think your artistic processing could be enhanced a bit more.”
“I mainly have two suggestions:”
“First, I think the protagonist, as a pure observer, doesn’t participate enough in the plot.”
“Using the protagonist as a pure tool character isn’t a big problem; some books indeed do this. But if he could have some connection with the plot, it would be more interesting.”
“Here’s what I envision: the orb the protagonist holds isn’t for parallel worlds, but for the real world he lives in.”
“Every action the protagonist takes is concretely changing this world, making his world better.”
“At the same time, the protagonist can also benefit from his actions. For example, if he helps an entrepreneur establish a trillion-yuan business empire, the protagonist could buy shares in this company before the empire forms, thus gaining substantial returns himself and changing his own life.”
“Moreover, as someone participating in these interactions from the shadows, the protagonist can meet these supporting characters in reality, which would also create many interesting plot developments.”
“Second, I think the tone of this book could be adjusted.”
“The current writing style mainly uses forward narration, with rather direct satisfaction points.”
“By direct satisfaction points, I mean: I want to do something, I go do it, I succeed.”
“While this writing style is certainly safe, it might not be very attractive to readers.”
“I wonder if you could use a kind of anti-formula narrative approach to further enhance the sense of coincidence in the ‘Butterfly Game,’ making the satisfaction points more torturous and the plot more humorous and witty.”
“Simply put: I didn’t intend to do anything, something unexpected happened, things went against my wishes, but I succeeded.”
“Specifically for the first story arc you wrote, the current satisfaction point outline is: Independent game developer wants to succeed, protagonist helps him through ‘Butterfly Game,’ independent game developer succeeds.”
“After modification, the satisfaction point outline could become: An Independent game developer didn’t want to succeed; he just wanted to make a game to get back at society. The protagonist finds this game interesting and helps him through ‘Butterfly Game,’ then the independent game developer succeeds.”
“In the writing process, try to use more humorous approaches. This kind of plot should be able to stand out among the current traditional plots.”
“Understand?”
On the other end of the phone, Cui Geng remained silent, seemingly trying hard to digest what Ma Yiqun had just said.
After a long while, he finally gave a meaningful “Hmm”: “CEO Ma makes very good points!”
“Indeed, when I was writing this beginning, I always felt like something was missing.”
“It’s like a dish where all the ingredients are there, the cooking time is about right, but it’s still missing something in the flavor!”
“If these two points could be added, the book would be more brilliant!”
“However… CEO Ma, I have a concern.”
Ma Yiqun: “Oh? What concern?”
Cui Geng hesitated for a moment before saying, “To be honest, the plot about the game developer is indeed inspired by Mr. Pei.”
“But with this writing approach, would it be kind of defaming Mr. Pei’s image?”
“Mr. Pei wouldn’t hold a grudge, would he?”