Chapter 248: The Night the Comet Came
After arranging Feng Kan's work, Liu Hongmin was free again.
After Liu Hongying went to college, the family became much quieter. Little Liu Guoqiang was about to turn one year old and could already speak. In order to get him to call her mom more often, Li Lizhen basically stayed at home every day and taught him over and over again, never getting tired of it.
This gave Liu Hongmin more time. Liu Hongmin happened to be interested in writing during this period, so he found an outline for a soft science fiction novel from the outline he had written before.
"The Night the Comet Came" tells the story of eight friends who are going to have a dinner party. Before the dinner party, a comet streaks across the sky. The eight friends start a time travel, but they are still unaware of it. It was not until a power outage that interpersonal relationships and even the world order have undergone amazing changes. At this time, they know the existence of parallel time and space.
Parallel universes are more difficult to write about than reincarnation. In The Night the Comet Came, there are not just one or two parallel universes, but countless parallel universes. According to one choice, at least two different parallel universes will appear. From beginning to end, these eight people made dozens of choices, and the parallel universes that were born would be countless.
This is a great test of writing skills. If Liu Hongmin had not been writing novels for ten years, he would not have dared to try to write "The Night the Comet Came". It is too brain-consuming and easy to write poorly. Once a serious bug appears, the whole novel will be ruined.
Although Liu Hongmin doesn't care about fame, he writes novels to make money. A novel that doesn't make money, unless it's "The Forgotten Catastrophe", has no need to exist.
"The Night the Comet Came" was a challenge for Liu Hongmin, so he chose to write this novel when he had the creative passion.
Once it is finished, this book will make Liu Hongmin a legend in the world of science fiction writers.
Although the movie "The Night the Comet Came" is not ranked among science fiction movies.
Just for the changes of the characters, Liu Hongmin used sticky notes to cover three blackboards. He did not write completely from the movie, because the story in the movie was a bit too simple and did not maximize the advantages of countless parallel time and space.
Otherwise, the director and editor would probably have a brain crash before the film is even finished.
Liu Hongmin used his expertise to write "The Night the Comet Came" into a suspenseful science fiction novel. Every change is a suspense point, and when all the suspense points are solved, it is a sign of a turning point in the story.
Of course, in order to make the readers understand, Liu Hongmin set eight story turning points. The first seven are when the heroine finds that her seven friends have been replaced. The eighth is when the heroine leaves her hut (the original world) and searches for her boyfriend who gets along well with "herself" in each hut (other parallel worlds), and then knocks "herself" unconscious in the bathroom.
Just like the movie, the final suspense point is also set on the heroine. The hero is about to take the heroine away, but he receives a call from the heroine. The hero looks at the heroine in confusion and asks, "Who are you?"
The film is handled very subtly, as the director wants to give the audience an open ending.
But in fact, at this time, there is no need for an open ending, but a clear ending to tell the audience what kind of story this movie tells.
The theme should be mentioned at the end, otherwise many viewers will not understand it. Although many people will watch it twice or three times, more people will still read the plot analysis in the comments to understand the story.
For a director, this is actually a failure because you didn't tell the story clearly.
When Liu Hongmin set the ending, he wanted the heroines in the two worlds to have an indirect dialogue, thus highlighting the theme of the story - parallel time and space. The story was very difficult to write. Liu Hongmin started writing in late September and finished it in December.
"The Night the Comet Came" only has 200,000 words, but Liu Hongmin spent 50 to 60 days to finish it. If it were any other novel, it would only take more than 10 days. This shows how difficult it is to write this novel.
During this period, Li Lizhen came to the study room many times to bring food to Liu Hongmin, but she saw Liu Hongmin constantly scratching his hair and staring at the blackboard, thinking hard.
She didn't dare to disturb Liu Hongmin any further, so she put down the food and left.
Ma Weidu often came to report on his work, but seeing how Liu Hongmin defeated Ma Zhangfei, he would not disturb Liu Hongmin unless it was an important matter, for fear of interrupting his train of thought.
Fortunately, after three months of seclusion, Liu Hongmin finished writing the book.
After making several copies of the manuscript, one copy was mailed to Yang Xiao to be published in Science Fiction World. One copy was sent to Beijing University Press to be distributed in China. One copy was mailed to Hong Kong to be translated into traditional Chinese by Sanlian Publishing House and distributed in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. One copy was mailed to the United States to be translated into various languages by Random House and distributed worldwide.
Li Lizhen reminded him, "Old Ma has put a lot of documents here, take a look!"
When Liu Hongmin heard this, he remembered that he had not handled official business for almost three months. So he took the documents left by Ma Weidu and read them one by one.
First of all, the Tomorrow Film Company, the three giants have already formulated a development plan for next year, preparing to shoot multiple films around the two director-star combinations of Wang Jing-Zhou Xingxing and Xu Ke-Li Lianjie. As for He Jiajin, Liu Dehua, the Kung Fu Twins and others, they also have several film plans, but compared with the former, they are far behind.
Liu Hongmin took a quick look and approved it. He had not been involved in the affairs of Tomorrow Film Company for a long time. Wang Yaowei was fully capable of managing Tomorrow Film Company. Xu Xiaoming had been working hard for many years and had slowed down the pace of filming in the past two days and entered a period of rest and recuperation.
As for Zou Shifang, he is still obsessed with martial arts novels. If he focused on finance, he might have become Liu Hongmin's chief financial officer.
Liu Hongmin couldn't force him to do this. After all, everyone has their own aspirations, and even if he and Zou Shifang had a good relationship, he couldn't force Zou Shifang to do something he didn't like.
In addition, Liu Hongmin has many talented people under him, and he also has Zou Shifang, a finance expert who changed his career path late.
Next up is the film company's document for tomorrow, but it's about co-productions.
"Let the Bullets Fly" earned million yuan at the mainland box office and 3000 million Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong. It can be said that it was a success in both the mainland and Hong Kong.
Its success has made China Film Group more certain about co-productions. China Film Group plans to shoot ten co-productions in the next three years. However, it is no longer limited to Tomorrow Film Company, but all Hong Kong film companies can apply.
Tomorrow Film Company got three places based on the advantages issued.
(End of this chapter)
