"I have the beginning of a story, and I'd like to ask all of you to help me with the rest!" Huang He's opening statement surprised everyone present.
"Don't be surprised, everyone. As I said, I'm also a science fiction enthusiast and I want to write science fiction novels, but my personal abilities are insufficient to produce excellent science fiction works. So, I can only give you a beginning and ask you all to help me complete the rest!" Huang He explained with a smile.
"So that's how it is!"
"No problem!"
"Mr. Huang, please give me the beginning. I guarantee I'll continue writing it!" The faces of the authors lit up with brilliant smiles, and they readily agreed.
Frankly, if it weren't Huang He making this request, they would have spat on him long ago. What made him think he could ask them to write a sequel for him? Did he think he was Cao Xueqin writing Dream of the Red Chamber?
However, if the request came from Boss Huang, then it was a different story. Could Boss Huang's beginning be just any ordinary beginning?
"Thank you all for your strong support. I won't let you down either. I will jointly launch a writing competition with Science Fiction World. The editorial department of Science Fiction World magazine will serve as the judges. Each month, a piece of writing that fits the relevant continuation will be published, whether it's a novella, short story, or even a novel. All articles that pass the review will have their copyrights purchased by our Jiangnan Group. The price will be no less than 200,000 yuan, with no upper limit, depending on the specific quality of the article."
"After that, our Jiangnan Group will select works suitable for adaptation into movies and TV shows and help them appear on larger platforms!"
After Huang He finished speaking, many people present fell into contemplation. Although they had all verbally agreed to continue writing for Boss Huang, they were just giving him face at the moment. None of them would truly spend a lot of time writing a work that wasn't entirely their own creation, just to fawn over him.
But if excellent works could be directly purchased by Jiangnan Group, and even have a chance to be adapted into film and television, then it was another matter entirely. In other words, it made everyone online full of fighting spirit. After all, for all the authors present, including Da Liu, their works had almost never been sold.
And even if they were sold, they never fetched more than 50,000 yuan. The reality was that grim; writers also needed to eat.
"Mr. Huang, what kind of beginning is it? Could you tell us now?" Someone asked impatiently, already planning to start writing as soon as they returned.
The reason was simple: since one article was guaranteed to pass the review each month, faster writing would definitely have an advantage.
This was because everyone present knew each other well, and most of them were procrastinators who would drag things out. Few of them were fast writers. Moreover, this beginning wasn't written by themselves but given by someone else, which required even more time to ponder.
Therefore, most authors would likely not produce their work until the second, or even the third or fourth month. If they could be the first to write a decent piece in the first month, they would have a great chance of securing the minimum copyright fee of 200,000 yuan!
Boss Huang, you'd better reveal the beginning now, and I'll go home immediately to start conceiving and writing, striving to submit as soon as possible.
Huang He did not refuse this either. He still said very straightforwardly, "My beginning is actually a world in a state of destruction and devastation in the future."
"In the year 2050, a meteorite fell to Earth. This meteorite hit the Pacific Ocean, and the waves it generated formed a tsunami that almost submerged the entire Earth!"
"However, the tsunami quickly receded, and a large number of humans survived the disaster. But after a while, humanity discovered with horror that a mysterious virus had descended to Earth along with the meteorite."
"This virus normally shows no reaction, but it forces humans to be in a state of constant displacement! Note that it's displacement, not movement. Once humans stop in space, a part of their body will begin to petrify. After research, it was found that after contracting the disease, if humans stop moving for more than 1024 minutes, their bodies will completely petrify and turn into fossils!"
"Moreover, they cannot move in the same place. The straight-line distance they move each day must exceed 100 kilometers, otherwise, they will not escape the fate of their bodies petrifying."
"Thus, under the threat of such a perverse virus, humanity fell into a terrible predicament where they had to remain in a state of constant spatial displacement. Furthermore, they couldn't do it by walking. Firstly, let alone whether humans can walk 100 kilometers a day, the fact that they might wake up to find half their body petrified means that walking is a path to death."
"Therefore, humans can only keep themselves in a moving car, train, or airplane, or any other means of transportation that can travel more than 100 kilometers a day. By constantly moving across the Earth, they can preserve their chance of survival!"
"Alright, this is the beginning of my story. I'm not afraid of being laughed at for saying this, but when I designed this beginning, I felt incredibly excited. This is an unprecedented sci-fi worldview."
"Around such a worldview, one can write about all aspects of humanity, animality, science, society, men and women, etc. I even feel like the Galaxy Award is beckoning me!"
"But when I actually prepared to write it down, my own abilities were simply unable to handle such a worldview. What I ended up writing might just be an extremely cliché and nutritionally void melodramatic story!"
"So, I hope to hand over this world to all of you. You can freely improvise. As long as it's a story that happens in such a world, it's all good!"
"You can write about the daily life in this world, or the wars in this world, or the ugliness between people, or the ultimate beauty between people, etc. Write whatever you want, as long as it's a good story, that's enough!"
"This requirement is not limited to the authors present. It includes the audience and readers in the hall, or anyone in the world who hears this beginning of the story. You can all submit your work to Science Fiction World!"
As Huang He finished speaking, the scene fell into silence. It wasn't that they weren't giving Boss Huang face, but rather that they were all immersed in thinking about the story. Firstly, they had to admit that the beginning of the story provided by Boss Huang was indeed quite innovative. A world where all humans must move more than 100 kilometers every day, and the entire world had already been almost destroyed by a great flood. Then the whole world must be in a semi-ruined state.
In such a world, being able to move 100 kilometers every day, and not being in a state of stopped movement, was indeed a world that would drive humans mad.
Some sharp-minded authors already had ideas.
For example, some authors felt that humans in such a world must own a car, and this car needed to be modified to allow for all daily activities to be carried out within it.
At the same time, it must be two or even three people in one car, because only in this way could they drive in shifts around the clock. Otherwise, as soon as the car stopped, people would start to petrify.
But this also created another conflict: cars needed fuel, but in such a dire world, the gasoline at gas stations would quickly be depleted, and there would certainly be no more oil supplies.
So, how could humans in such a world ensure that vehicles kept moving and that enough food was supplied to keep themselves alive? This in itself was a story structure of immense scale.
Another author had a different idea: humans didn't necessarily have to sit in cars; they could stay on a train.
As long as the train driver kept driving the train on the tracks, the humans on that train would be spared the petrification crisis.
Of course, the key to the new problem was how to provide the train with an inexhaustible energy source and how to maintain the food on the train, etc. These required further thought and creation, and this was precisely where a writer could unleash their imagination.
Some authors even discarded transportation methods like trains or cars entirely, believing that this would usher in an era of human physical evolution.
Under the coercion of such a virus, most humans would die, but those who possessed sufficient spirit that didn't require sleep, and strong physiques that never stopped, could survive. And these humans, by mating and having children, could give birth to a new generation of humans, allowing humanity, which had stopped its physical evolution, to once again begin its strong physical evolution, entering an era of physical civilization, and so on.
In a very short period, many authors had developed story concepts and entirely different unfolding methods, which, from another perspective, also indicated that the beginning of the story was indeed excellent and possessed the potential for continuous expansion.
If many authors had been worried about how to continue the story created by Boss Huang just now, then those worries were unnecessary. This world would be a world where they could fully unleash their imagination!
And amidst this atmosphere full of imagination, this seminar ended. Da Liu immediately stood up and aimed for the back door, intending to leave immediately.
As a result, a large hand firmly placed on Da Liu's shoulder. Da Liu turned his head helplessly and saw Boss Huang smiling at him, saying, "Mr. Da Liu, I am your loyal fan. Would you give me a chance to treat you to a meal!"