How I Came to Write StoriesLu XunHow did I come to write stories? I sketched the reasons in my preface to Call to Arms.* I should add here that times have changed since I first took an interest in literature: in China then fiction was not considered as literature, and its writers could not rank as men of letters. Thus nobody thought, either, of elevating short stories to the level of literature. I simply wanted to use them to reform society. I did not set out to write, being more interested in introducing and translating -- short stories in particular, especially those by the writers of oppressed peoples. For in those days there was a great deal of talk about driving out the Manchus, and some young people found moral support in these monitory, insurgent writers. So though I never read a single book on the art of writing fiction, I read not a few stories, some for my own enjoyment, most because I was looking for material to introduce. I also read histories of literature and literary criticism, to find out different writers’ characteristics and ideas in order to decide whether they were suitable to introduce to China or not. There was nothing at all scholarly about this. As I was looking for monitory, insurgent works, I inevitably turned towards Eastern Europe and read many books by writers from Russia, Poland and the Balkan states. At one point I was searching eagerly for stories from India and Egypt, but to no purpose. I recollect that my favorite authors at that time were the Russian, Gogol and the Pole, Sienkiewicz. Also two Japanese -- Soseki Natsume and Ogai Mori. After coming back to China I taught in school, and for five or six years had no time to read stories. I need not go into my reasons for starting again, having already done so in the preface to Call to Arms. I started writing short stories not because I thought I had any particular talent, but because I was staying in a hostel in Beijing and had no reference books for research work and no originals for translation. I had to write something resembling a story to comply with a request, and that was A Madman’s Diary. * I must have relied entirely on the hundred or more foreign stories I had read and a smattering of medical knowledge. I had no other preparation. But the editors of New Youth came to press me again and again until I wrote something. And here I must remember Mr. Chen Duxiu, who was the one who urged me the most strongly to write. Of course, a man who writes short stories cannot help having his own views. For instance, as to why I wrote, I still felt, as I had a dozen years earlier, that I should write in the hope of enlightening my people, for humanity, and of the need to better it. I detested the old habit of describing fiction as "entertainment," and regarded "art for art’s sake" as simply another name for passing the time. So my themes were usually the unfortunates in this abnormal society. My aim was to expose the disease and draw attention to it so that it might be cured. I did my best to avoid all wordiness. If I felt I had made my meaning sufficiently clear, I was glad to dispense with frills. The old Chinese theatre has no scenery, and the New Year pictures sold to children show a few main figures only (though nowadays most of them have a background too). Convinced that such methods suited my purpose, I did not indulge in irrelevant details and kept the dialogue down to a minimum. After finishing something I always read it through twice, and where a passage grated on my ears I would add or cut a few words to make it read smoothly. When I could not find suitable vernacular expressions I used classical ones, hoping some readers would understand. And I seldom used phrases out of my own head which I alone -- or not even I -- could comprehend. Only one of my critics spotted this, but he dubbed me a "stylist." The happenings I described generally arose from something I had seen or heard, but I never relied entirely on facts. I just took one occurrence and modified or expanded it till it expressed what I had in mind. The same was true of the models for characters -- I did not pick on specific individuals. My characters were often a mixture of a mouth from Zhejiang, a face from Beijing and clothes from Shanxi. Those people who said such-and-such a story was aimed at so-and-so were talking nonsense. One difficulty, however, of writing this way is that it is hard to put down your pen. If you finish a story at one sitting, by degrees the characters come alive and play their parts. But if something happens to distract you, and you do not go back to the story for a long time, the characters may have changed and the story may turn out quite differently from what you intended. When I started Buzhou Mountain, for instance, I wanted to describe the awakening of sexual desire, its creation and decline. But in the middle I read an article by a moralist attacking love poems, to which I took great exception. So in my story a little creature ran up between Nu Wa’s legs. This was not only unnecessary but destoyed the scope of my plot. Still, probably no one else can recognize such places. In fact, our eminent critic Mr. Cheng Fangwu says that was my best story. If you base a character on one particular individual, I imagine you can avoid this trouble, but I have never tried it. I forget who it was that said that the best way to convey a man’s character with a minimum of strokes is to draw his eyes. This is absolutely correct. If you draw all the hairs of his head, no matter how accurately, it will not be very much use. I keep trying to learn this method, but unfortunately have not mastered it. I never used any superfluous padding, or forced myself to write when I felt I could not; but that was because I had another source of income at the time and did not live by my pen. That can hardly be considered a general rule. Again, while writing I paid not attention to any criticisms whatsoever. Because if Chinese writers were childish in those days, Chinese critics were even more so. If they did not laud you to the skies, they damned you utterly; and had you taken them seriously you would either have thought yourself a prodigy or committed suicide to expiate your crimes. Criticism can only be of use to writers if it condemns what is bad and praises what is good. I often read foreign critical essays, however, because those critics were not prejudiced for or against me, and although they wrote of other authors, there were many judgements which I could apply to myself. But of course I made a point of finding out their political affiliations too. All this was ten years ago, since when I have neither written nor advanced. When the editor asked for an article on this subject, what could I write? This hodge-podge is all I can offer. The night of March 5, 1933.Translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Lu Xun, Collected Works, Foreign Language Press, China, 1956.* Call to Arms and A Madman’s Diary can be found at http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/hsun/hsun.htm.Two Eyes Magazine: Home | Issue 1 contents |