Writing Web Novels In America-Chapter 138 - 136: Riding the Hype

Like Wozniak, another author who was watching the updates of "Anomalies and Creatures" was Neil Gaiman, currently the most famous author on the website, aside from Wang Jian.

To tell you the truth, Neil Gaiman was actually quite arrogant.

For example, when he won the World Fantasy Award in 1991, he publicly said, "Considering solely creativity, the only writers who could compare with me throughout history are Jules Verne and Kafka." ƒreewebηoveℓ.com

Although this statement drew a lot of criticism from the media and his peers for "not knowing the heights of heaven and the depths of earth," Neil still held on to this idea.

It wasn’t until 1995, with the sudden emergence of "Arcane Throne," that the young Asian boy finally entered his field of vision.

What truly made him realize Wang Jian’s exceptionality was the period when they both serialized "American Gods" and "Extreme Heavenly Demon" on the website.

Although, he thought the ideas of having a grand melee of deities and the datafication of forces crushing the gods were equally great.

But the key issue was, that Wang Jian wrote too fast!

On countless nights, facing his readers’ clamor for updates, he couldn’t help but lament that such a writing method was really an extraction of the authors’ energies.

Yet, while he was racking his brains for the next plot twist, "Extreme Heavenly Demon" had already concluded!

After that, Wang Jian even wrote a book about feminized characters in Medieval Europe.

Alright, before this work, Neil finally had to admit his inferiority.

As a straight male, he really couldn’t portray the female psyche as vividly and intricately.

Then, that Wang Jian, without missing a beat, started a new book.

You should know, his "American Gods" had only just reached the halfway point!

So, Neil opened this work called "Anomalies and Creatures" with a sense of disbelief.

And then, he just chuckled to himself.

Although this "Anomalies" had interesting character settings and dialogues, its core was not much different from "American Gods"; both put mythical creatures into the real world.

While he read "Anomalies," he compared it with "American Gods" to see which author had better writing prowess under a similar theme.

Then the protagonist in "Anomalies" just went to space...

"This..." Neil Gaiman dumbfoundedly clicked the mouse, watching the protagonist’s experiences on another planet.

"How many novel ideas can this Wang Jian have in his head!"

He hesitated for a moment but still picked up the phone to call his friend George Martin.

After some pleasantries, Neil got to his real point.

"George, how much creativity should a writer have, and what should their writing speed be?"

"No way, Neil! Are you also doubting creativity and writing speed now?" George Martin asked in surprise.

"You are the one among us nominated for the World Fantasy Award who publishes new works the most frequently!"

"But do you know Wang? The one who writes ’Arcane Throne’?" Neil asked again, "How does he manage to be so creative and also write so quickly?"

"What, you’re talking about Wang?" Neil felt George’s voice become distant, "I’m sorry, Neil, I’m about to go through a tunnel here!"

Hearing the ’beep beep’ sound, Neil Gaiman looked at the phone in confusion.

"I dialed George Martin’s home phone, where is the tunnel coming from?"

On the other end of the phone, George Martin let out a heavy sigh.

Why compare himself with that guy Wang Jian of all people?

"Forget it, forget it. Just hearing that name gives me a headache." He hesitated for a moment, but still shut down the computer.

"I’m not feeling inspired today, better continue tomorrow!"

Meanwhile, Wang Jian had already finished writing the first part of the space saga, officially unfolding the world of the book.

He casually clicked on the comment section to see the readers’ reactions to this part of the story.

"The protagonist has gone to space, a Vampire battling a Jedi Knight, a goddess fighting the Death Star can’t be far off, right?"

"Just with the trait of the vampire heroine betraying her allies, she could totally join the Empire, right? That way, the Rebel Army could just watch the Empire crumble!"

Wang Jian swiftly scrolled past the Star Wars fan comments with a quick click of the mouse.

"What do you think, how would Spock react if he met a Husky? He’d probably get irritated enough to show human emotions, right?"

"In my mind, I’m already picturing what Spock would look like when he meets a crazy goddess! ’Spock, want a burger? I bought too many today.’"

Wang Jian couldn’t help but acknowledge the massive influence of Star Wars and Star Trek in the United States as he saw the comments.

However, due to copyright issues, if he wanted to leverage the popularity of these two classics, he had to be very, very subtle.

Wang Jian noted this down in his notebook, and then he switched over to look at Twitter topics.

Compared to the science fiction fans in the book review section, there were more character fans here.

Most of the comments were: "If I had such a beautiful Vampire living in my house, I’d let her suck my blood every day!"

"I’ve already fed my Husky four tacos, why hasn’t it transformed yet? Does it have to be a full moon? It’s even chewed up the sofa at home that it doesn’t look good anymore!"

"Merbaby is the cutest! Such a cute little thing, I really want to give it a hug!"

Wang Jian nodded with a smile, feeling quite good about it.

In the discussion, nobody expressed any objections to the fantasy turning into space.

On the contrary, they showed great interest in the combination of fantasy and science fiction.

He clicked the mouse and continued to browse the comments.

Suddenly, a few replies caught Wang Jian’s interest.

"Respected Mr. Wang, I am a college student and a book fan, as well as a member of an organization that protects stray dogs.

In your work ’Anomalies and Creatures,’ I saw the efforts made by the protagonists to protect the stray dogs!

I have recommended this book to the other members of the organization, and they were all deeply moved by these parts.

We are planning to hold a demonstration soon to protest against the United States government’s inhumane policies about stray dogs.

We hope the characters in the book can become one of the symbols of the protest, just like Goofy and Snoopy.

I wonder if you could grant us the right to use this character in the protest.

Of course, we also look forward to your participation in the protest.

So we can all do our part to protect stray dogs.

This is my phone number: xxx.

If convenient, please contact me as soon as possible."

Wang Jian looked at the computer screen and silently took a sip of tea.

He made many modifications to his work just to ride the wave of popularity and pad the word count.

As for attending a protest, Wang Jian was genuinely not interested.

He continued to flip through the comments, and found more similar replies from "scientific HIV prevention organizations," "xx environmental organizations," and the like.

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