Chapter 395 - Danger! (1/2)

January 20th, Thursday…

Cui Geng ate his Fish-Catching Take-Out and listened to everyone else’s conversations.

“Ai, I was criticized badly by my readers for ending my chapter with a cliffhanger again yesterday.”

“What does that count for? Isn’t it normal to get criticized for leaving cliffhangers?” “That’s right, cliffhanger endings are so commonplace.”

“Huh? Is this normal to all of you?”

“Nonsense. Look at dramas and comics; won’t they have to end each episode with an unresolved problem, too? Readers might criticize the surface, but they cannot hide their genuine reactions. Once you upload the next chapter, they will come back and read it. Cliffhanger endings are good for making readers stick around.”

“If you don’t leave cliffhangers, your readers will stop reading after this chapter. Your next chapter will have fewer readers, then!”

“Writers who don’t write cliffhanger endings are bad writers!”

Everyone was engaged in this discussion. A significant number of people nodded profusely while a few writers smiled subtly, neither confirming nor denying that last statement.

Cui Geng looked at his calendar. He had arrived in Jingzhou last Thursday. Exactly one week had passed since then.

At the start, everyone had been unfamiliar with one another. Thus, they had only discussed very superficial topics.

Now, most people knew one another well. For some particularly close writers, nothing was taboo to talk about.

Naturally, they began to discuss topics related to writing as well.

Cui Geng whipped out his phone and read the comments section for his novel.

“This is so scary. The no-show has been uploading five chapters each day. At the start, I suspected that he had really been kidnapped. Now, there’s no need to suspect anymore; he’s definitely been kidnapped!”

“The novel’s quality seems to have dropped slightly, but it’s still nice to read!”

“No-Show, hang in there. If you do this for one more week, all of my votes will go to you!”

As Cui Geng read these comments, he had mixed feelings. He had to say that it was effective to upload as many chapters as he could…

The moment he started uploading more chapters, he gained a significant number of loyal readers, subscriptions, and votes.

Over the past week, Cui Geng had written about eight to ten thousand words daily. The old him would never have imagined that he would be capable of such a thing.

What’s more, the numbers were increasing mainly because he was working for longer hours. He had not added more words or diluted the story on purpose. Thus, the novel’s quality was more or less maintained.

Of course, there were some sick people among them. After an entire day of writing, those people would return to their hotel rooms at night to write one more chapter and tidy up the general plot. To Cui Geng, they were beasts.

Cui Geng would never do such a thing. He only worked for eight hours each day and wrote an average of a thousand words per hour. That was not considered fast, but it was already significant for him.

Now that he had gotten used to it, Cui Geng was even beginning to enjoy it. He had to admit that under exceptional circumstances, writing could be quite addictive. The only thing was that Cui Geng had run into a small problem now.

As he ate his take-out, he raised his problem at the table. “Everyone, I feel like my story has been developing too quickly. I can’t seem to continue writing anymore. What should I

do?”

Everyone looked at him and then simultaneously said, “Cut it here.” Cui Geng, “…”

Once Cui Geng brought this topic up, the heartless writers stopped offering serious advice.

as a

It was a common practice among writers to persuade those who were doing better than the rest to drop their novels halfway.

Of course, Cui Geng could not blame them. Too many writers were using ‘writer’s block’ as an excuse to boast about their achievements.

Thus, whenever writers suspected that someone was trying to boast about their achievements, most would choose to pre-empt it and say ‘cut it here’ to bring the topic to a close.

Cui Geng was speechless. He did indeed have that problem because he had not properly thought about the plot for the novel in the beginning His novel was doing well, and his plot was not horrible; however, the framework that he had laid was too small.

Cui Geng had only intended to write two to three thousand words per day. Progressing bit by bit that way would allow him to keep writing for a long time. However, he had ended up writing eight to ten thousand words per day in the past week. All of a sudden, he realized that he could not extend the main plot much longer.

He guessed that the book would be done once he hit a million words or so.

What should he do then?!

Of course, as a writer who was used to leaving his books incomplete, doing so again did not feel scary. He had already cut off many stories abruptly; it had become a breeze for him. Now, he could pick up the sword again without even looking.

The problem was what his new book would be about once he cut this novel here.

Cui Geng had no idea.

After lunch, Zhu Xingan said, “I’ll give all of you an hour to upload everything that you’ve written in the morning and get some rest.

“According to the schedule, we’ll be touring around Jingzhou this afternoon. We’ll have some activities to refresh our minds and gather new material.

“Cherish the time. We’ll gather at the hotel lobby in an hour.”

Exhausted, Pei Qian fell in and out of sleep in the car.

He had finally taken his closed-book exam. Over the past few days, he had buried his head in his books, so that he had had no time to work.

However, trying to cram everything at the last minute had been effective. Pei Qian guessed that he would get at least seventy marks.

If he had paid his way through the examinations, he would probably only have gotten sixty marks. Yet, he now had hopes of getting over seventy marks based on his own skills. It was worth being proud of!

To Pei Qian, the time that he had spent studying had not been wasted. As long as he could score slightly higher than Ma Yang, he would be satisfied.

“The next three exams are open-book; I don’t think I have to work that hard anymore. I can keep an eye on the company now. “That’s strange. For some reason, I feel like I’ve forgotten about something.”