Huayu: I Have a Doraemon

Chapter 19 Bug Detection

Lin An walked up the stairs.

Several black-and-white photos hang on the walls of the stairwell, featuring names like Xie Jin, Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang—all graduates of the Beijing Film Academy.

Lin An didn't look closely, quickly walked through the corridor, and pushed open the door to the east reading room.

Along the wall were rows of wooden bookshelves, with just enough space between them for two people to pass through, and each shelf was crammed full.

Many of the spines have faded and the edges are severely worn, as if they have been repeatedly caressed by countless hands.

Three long tables were placed across the center of the reading room, with glass placed on top of the tables and blue velvet cloth laid underneath.

A few students were sitting sparsely at the table.

Some people were engrossed in reading, some were catching up on sleep at their desks, and one boy was writing something with his head down, his brows furrowed, occasionally scratching his hair, looking extremely distressed.

Lin An walked quietly around the bookshelf.

Fingers glided across the spines of a row of books:

"Fundamentals of Screenwriting," "Story," "Theory and Techniques of Drama and Film"... Most of them are theoretical works, with only a few collections of screenplays. When you open them, the pages are yellowed and the edges are worn, clearly indicating that they have been read countless times.

Lin An pulled out a copy of "Story" and sat down by the window.

Browsing through the table of contents.

He had heard of this book when he was scrolling through Douyin in his previous life; it was said to be considered one of the "bibles" of the screenwriting world.

Author Robert McKee's work covers almost every aspect of screenwriting, from structure and characters to dialogue and genre.

Lin An looked around to make sure no one was paying attention, then took out the [Scriptwriting] cassette tape from his bag.

He took a deep breath and pressed the disk against the inside of his left wrist.

The cool touch was fleeting, and the next second, the sensation of information flooding into the brain returned.

Looking down, the Chinese characters in the story, which were originally just "recognized," suddenly seemed to come alive.

"Structure is not a formula, but the selection and arrangement of events..."

"Characters are not merely vehicles, but the sum of choices made..."

"Dialogue is not conversation, it's action..."

These sentences are no longer just printed words on paper, but have become conceptual modules that can be disassembled, analyzed, and reassembled.

The originally obscure arguments kept colliding, reorganizing, and merging in my mind, like a blurry jigsaw puzzle suddenly being pushed to the right focus.

"Is this what a professional's mind is like?"

Lin An exhaled a breath of stale air and muttered to himself, "I admit that the following actions involve an element of gambling..."

He opened the black hardcover notebook he always carried with him, picked up a pen, and began to deconstruct the contents of "The Story" according to his own understanding.

The moment the pen touches the paper, the concepts that flood the mind automatically pour out from the pen tip.

"Structure: The selection and arrangement of events..."

"Sequence: A collection of scenes pointing to a significant and impactful turning point..."

"Act: A collection of sequences that points to the biggest plot twist in the story..."

Lin An wrote very quickly, his handwriting gradually becoming messy from neat to illegible, but this did not affect the flow of his thoughts at all.

He was completely immersed in a state of near-flow, his pen scratching across the paper.

I don't know how much time has passed.

The pen suddenly stopped.

My previously flowing stream of ideas suddenly came to a standstill.

Lin An looked down at the half-sentence he had just written:

"The conflict between a character's inner and outer needs is..."

The remaining words were stuck in my head, and I couldn't seem to transform them into fluent text.

He instinctively flipped his wrist over.

Sometime later, the disk had emerged from under the skin, its black edges exposed to the air, and the "quill pen" pattern on it gleamed faintly in the sunlight.

The cheat time is up.

Lin An looked down at the book again and opened it to the page he had just read.

The text is still there.

I recognize every single word.

But they are no longer my brothers; I have lost the ability to communicate with them.

Lin An was not discouraged.

He took the cassette tape out, put it in a compartment inside his backpack, zipped it up, closed his eyes, and began to relive everything that had happened in the past hour.

Structure, sequence, scenes, character arcs, internal and external conflicts...

Lin An's lips curled up slightly.

Sure enough! Those concepts are still there!

The flood that rushes into your mind, if properly guided, will leave traces even after it recedes!

Lin An's gaze fell upon the countless books on the bookshelf to his right, and his breathing became heavy.

Even a pig could become a "super pig" if it could eat all the knowledge in this library, right?

Besides, he's not a pig.

He has countless stories from the future in his mind.

In the past, Lin An had no choice but to deal with these stories, but now he can completely recreate them as a script.

And one day, we might even go a step further and turn those stories into films by creating storyboards, hiring actors, and designing backgrounds!

Lin An's heart was pounding, and he quickly took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

calm down.

Taking too big a step can easily lead to injury.

He still has too few cards to play: no connections, no money, no points, and his only skill, screenwriting, is merely a basic theoretical understanding.

In this situation, let alone making a movie, even the script he writes might not be understandable to himself.

You should eat your food one bite at a time.

First, set a small goal: write a script that industry insiders can understand and be satisfied with!

The important thing is that the entire creative process cannot use cassette tapes or any props; everything must be done by yourself!

After making up his mind, Lin An took out "Structures and Patterns of Film Screenplays" from his schoolbag.

This is a film theory work written by Professor Wang Liu of the Academy, and it is also a textbook for advanced training courses.

Lin An was too lazy to compete with others for secondhand books, so he simply bought one.

He didn't rush to open the book, but instead closed his eyes and reviewed the knowledge he had just learned in his mind from beginning to end.

Structure, sequence, act, beat, scene, subtext of dialogue...

These concepts are like a newly drawn map; although some parts are still blurry, the main structure is already clearly visible.

He opened his eyes and opened "Structural Styles of Film Screenplays".

"The core of a play's structure lies in the creation of 'conflict'..."

Lin An read and took notes in his notebook.

He didn't use a cassette tape, but wrote it down word by word based on his own understanding.

The handwriting was crooked and there were occasional corrections.

But every stroke of his pen was his own.

Time passed by, second by second.

The light outside the window changed from golden yellow to orange-red, and then gradually took on a gray-blue hue.

When he finally finished completing the last paragraph, he was the only one left in the entire reading room.

The boy who had been engrossed in writing at the long table had disappeared sometime ago, and the one who had been catching up on sleep at the table was also nowhere to be seen.

Lin An looked down at the notebook, then looked up at the wall clock.

Just as he was about to insert the cartridge and test his skills, a middle-aged man with a traditional side-parted short haircut and a square face walked into the room and said with a friendly smile:

"Still here? You're working hard."

Lin An gave an awkward smile.

The middle-aged man pointed to the laptop and said, "May I take a look?"

Can I say no...? Lin An silently complained, hesitantly handing over the notebook.

Anyway, nobody knows that I wrote this in one day. No, nobody knows that it's my own work.

Lin An relaxed, thinking that if the other party pressed him for details, he would pretend to be an idiot and say that it fell from the sky.

The middle-aged man joked, "You seem quite kind, unlike the kind of person who randomly beats people up at the school gate."

Lin An's face darkened instantly.

Clench your fist tightly.

My inner universe is burning wildly.