Chapter 143: The Script is Very Crude

Three choices lay before Zhang Tan.

He could ride the massive wave of success from *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* and the impending boom of *The Return of the Condor Heroes*, striking while the iron was hot to write the final installment of the Condor Trilogy, *The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber*.

However, although *The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber* followed the narrative of the first two books, it did not feature Guo Jing or Yang Guo as protagonists. Instead, it set its gaze a century later, where the character connections were no longer as tight. Therefore, Zhang Tan felt it best to put the Condor Trilogy on hold temporarily.

Let the first two parts fly for a while to solidify the trilogy's brand before tackling *The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber*; that approach would likely yield even better results.

If not *The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber*, he could write something entirely new.

Among Jin Yong, Gu Long, Huang Yi, Liang Yusheng, and Wen Ruian, Liang Yusheng's *Seven Swordsmen from Heaven Mountain* and *The Bride with White Hair* were absolute classics. Huang Yi, though slightly weaker in overall foundation, pioneered a whole new subgenre with *Twin Dragons of the Great Tang* and *A Step into the Past*, though their adaptations for film and television were somewhat lacking.

When it came to competing with Jin Yong's novels in the realm of film and television, perhaps only Gu Long could hold his own.

The Little Li Flying Dagger, Lu Xiaofeng, and Chu Liuxiang series possessed truly brilliant achievements. Zhang Tan deeply loved the character Li Xunhuan from *Brave and Brutal Swordsman*: culturally accomplished enough to place third in the imperial examinations, martially formidable enough to rank in the top three, forced to abandon romance for the sake of brotherly loyalty. Such a tragic, disillusioned life was the ultimate embodiment of coolness.

When he read this book in his youth, Zhang Tan often fantasized that he was Li Xunhuan, putting on the air of a down-and-out, world-weary uncle whose heart was in agony while his exterior remained utterly nonchalant.

It was much like reading *The Return of the Condor Heroes*, where one always liked to tuck an arm inside their clothes and pose as the One-Armed Hero.

The principle was identical—both were simply pretenses of cool aloofness.

Yet Gu Long's literary style differed vastly from Jin Yong's. While the stories could theoretically be written in a similar vein, whether one could truly capture the distinct flavor of Gu Long was another matter entirely. Although Zhang Tan claimed he aimed to become the ultimate master of wuxia, his personal writing style was still much closer to Jin Yong's.

Furthermore, Li Xunhuan was introduced as a down-and-out middle-aged man; for someone like Zhang Tan to write such a character felt inherently discordant. After all, his legal age was only seventeen. Writing a character like Guo Jing was already astonishingly prodigious; to truly bring Li Xunhuan to life would genuinely risk getting him dissected like a lab rat.

Thus, *Brave and Brutal Swordsman* would have to wait for another day.

Right now, Zhang Tan's best choice was to continue writing the Four Great Constables series.

Wen Ruian's Four Great Constables series was somewhat fragmented and chaotic, filled with loose threads and unfinished plots. Zhang Tan certainly wouldn't copy the entire mess of hits and misses wholesale; the first two books he had written, *Shaking the East* and *Meeting in the Capital*, were the restructured and consolidated tales of the Constables.

This time, he could focus on crafting the absolute finest portions of the series. In Zhang Tan's personal opinion, *The Four Constables: Adversity and Cold Water* was the highest in quality, featuring a grand layout and spectacular battle scenes. Only a work of this caliber could truly prove that Wen Ruian deserved to be ranked alongside Jin Yong, Gu Long, Huang Yi, and Liang Yusheng.

Meanwhile, *The Four Constables and the General* was also quite good, depicting the Constables in their youth with a remarkably high level of skill and flavor.

Zhang Tan had made his name with the Four Constables, yet up to this point, the Condor Trilogy had achieved monumental success while casting the Four Constables into obscurity, which left him with a lingering sense of regret. The Four Constables series had been adapted into film and television dramas just as often as Jin Yong's works, and right up until his rebirth, adaptations were still rolling out continuously, proving its enduring popularity.

There was no reason to leave it shelved.

"Then I'll write the Four Constables."

With his mind made up, Zhang Tan hesitated no longer and began drafting the outline. To do a good job, one must first sharpen one's tools. Without a well-planned outline, a creative work easily loses its direction, straying far from the intended content.

The way Zhang Tan wrote outlines was quite unique.

He would take the story summaries he had previously copied into his notebooks, rearrange and combine them, and then seamlessly connect these combinations in chronological order to form a complete main plotline. Once the primary plotline was established, he could map out the subplots or bury foreshadowing and hooks along the main thread using flashbacks and nonlinear narrative techniques.

After that, he would organize both the main and subplots into detailed chapter-by-chapter breakdowns, listing precisely what content needed to be covered in each individual chapter.

Truth be told, just writing the outline alone would consume nearly seventy or eighty thousand words.

Only by writing in accordance with such a clear and well-defined outline could he minimize oversights and make the overall content flow more smoothly. Moreover, during the actual writing process, all he needed to do was push the story forward with an appropriate literary style, without having to rack his brains at every turn to figure out what to write next or where the plot should develop.

His writing efficiency soared straight upward.

Especially given Zhang Tan's exceptional memory; recalling the plots of many novels and television dramas he had consumed in the past, he could organically interweave them into the book he was creating.

He wouldn't end up swinging wildly in every direction to cobble together a chaotic hodgepodge.

Nor would he find himself halfway through writing only to realize he had veered off into an entirely different subplot.

...

Three days passed in a flash. Tomorrow would be August 10th, and he needed to fly to Nanjing to attend the second book-signing event of the month.

Zhang Tan felt somewhat conflicted because he had already discarded the main storyline of his outline three times.

*The Four Constables: Adversity and Cold Water* was undoubtedly the peak of the series, but it had its flaws. The most brilliant characters within it were Qi Shaoshang and Liu Duhong, while the rest felt somewhat overly formulaic and lacked distinctive individuality.

The plot remained suffocatingly oppressive from start to finish, centering around Qi Shaoshang's escape route and kicking off a storm of blood and violence whose widespread ramifications were arguably the greatest among all of Wen Ruian's works.

Yet with so many characters entering the fray, it was inevitable that certain figures who should have possessed distinct personalities ended up reduced to mere passersby playing bit parts, considerably dimming the brilliance of the work.

Zhang Tan did not intend to write extensively about the Four Constables forever, so he wanted to resolve everything once and for all within *The Four Constables: Adversity and Cold Water*, bringing every facet of the human condition vividly to life.

He aimed to skillfully integrate the superior Four Constables stories he had read into this bloody, desperate escape.

That was difficult.

Extremely difficult.

The main plotline of the outline proved stubbornly hard to nail down.

The original novel, *The Four Constables: Adversity and Cold Water*, had Qi Shaoshang as its protagonist. Qi Shaoshang was originally a minor antagonist in the earlier *The Four Constables Meeting in the Capital*, where he was defeated through Iron Hands' tactical scheme and managed to make a clean getaway. Consequently, the Lianyun Stronghold that he had painstakingly built was betrayed by his closest sworn brother, with the entire stronghold surrendering to the imperial court.

Severely wounded and abandoned by all, Qi Shaoshang lacked the capability to turn the tide and was forced to flee for his life, hunted relentlessly by his former brothers and imperial constables alike. Fleeing and fighting all the way, he dragged Iron Hands into the fray, dragged his former romantic confidante Xi Honglei into the fray, and pulled one person after another into the vortex.

He dragged Emotionless, the eldest of the Four Constables, into the fray, and dragged the imperial divine constable Liu Duhong into the fray as well... Revolving around Qi Shaoshang's flight, it operated like a whirlpool sucking everyone in. Qi Shaoshang, who pulled off a counter-attack from minor villain to protagonist, burst forth with intense protagonist halo and ultimately survived.

And when Iron Hands left the Four Constables to clear his mind after questioning what true "justice" and "banditry" really meant, he caught the eye of Marquis Zhuge and temporarily stepped into Iron Hands' position.

This character mirrored Wen Ruian himself, for Wen Ruian had been arrested in his early years by the Taiwan authorities on "suspicion of rebellion," after which he began a wandering, miserable period of exile before finally settling in Hong Kong. He poured all of his turbulent resentment and lingering hope from those fugitive years into Qi Shaoshang.

That was what forged Qi Shaoshang's immense charismatic appeal.

One could easily imagine the difficulty of enriching and expanding the plot while preserving the charismatic charm of Qi Shaoshang's character.

Yet Zhang Tan found copying a book without any challenge whatsoever to be rather dull.

Challenging difficulties were the only way to truly test his own caliber.

"No need to rush this outline. I'll polish it slowly until it reaches absolute perfection!"

Carrying this mindset, Zhang Tan boarded a flight to Nanjing early the next morning, embarking on the second leg of his promotional tour for *The Return of the Condor Heroes* to sign books for his readers in Nanjing.

At the same time, he kept a close eye on the progress of the television adaptation script for *The Legend of the Condor Heroes*.

After being repeatedly hacked, slashed, and rewritten by several industry screenwriters, the novel had transformed into a script so full of plot holes it was unspeakable. Upon reading the script sent via email, Zhang Tan immediately called Big Beard Zhang to express his dissatisfaction and demand a complete rewrite.

When writing his novel, Zhang Tan had deliberately structured many parts in accordance with television pacing—for instance, Ouyang Ke, who was a mere bit player in the original text, had been given a substantial amount of screen time in his book. All the screenwriters needed to do was summarize and refine the novel Zhang Tan had written, and it would naturally constitute an exceptional script.

Yet these screenwriters insisted on making random changes. Crucial details that warranted emphasis were presumptuously deleted; for instance, the psychological progression of Huang Rong falling in love with Guo Jing ended up fractured and disconnected. Although the supporting characters in his book were well-written, the novel still fundamentally centered on Guo Jing and Huang Rong as protagonists, and all supporting figures existed to serve those two main characters.

The supporting cast must never overshadow the main leads.

"Director Zhang, this draft of the script completely inverts the primary and secondary elements; it has to be revised. I'll summarize my feedback shortly and email it over. Please have the screenwriters put in a bit more hard work and rewrite a fresh draft," Zhang Tan stated directly over the phone to Big Beard Zhang.

Big Beard Zhang quickly replied, "Alright, I'll have them take another look and make adjustments."

Once Zhang Tan mailed his feedback, he stopped paying close attention to it.

He trusted that with his guidance, the screenwriters would be capable of producing a stellar script.

Consequently, Zhang Tan busied himself running book signings on one hand while organizing the outline for *The Four Constables: Adversity and Cold Water* on the other, incidentally sorting out the outline for *The Four Constables and the General* as well.

Little did he know, complications would arise within just a few days.

Word came from Big Beard Zhang's studio that the screenwriters were deeply dissatisfied with the revision suggestions Zhang Tan had pointed out, believing that there was no need to modify things according to his demands. Although they had reluctantly cobbled together a revised draft under Big Beard Zhang's persuasion, they had barely touched anything beyond a few minor locations, leaving the rough details Zhang Tan had criticized completely unchanged.

"Little Zhang, do you think this script works now? The editors all say it's fine. What do you think?" Big Beard Zhang called to inquire.

Scrolling through the computer screen and looking at the virtually unaltered script, Zhang Tan suppressed his displeasure and said, "Director Zhang, I feel that since the studio is investing on such a large scale for production, traveling across the country for various location shoots in pursuit of realism, and has already paid such a huge price, there's no reason not to put genuine effort into the script... I'll speak plainly: this script is far too crude and fails to capture the true essence of the novel."

"Which aspects do you find particularly crude?"

"First, the plot lacks coherence; second, the portrayal of characters' psychological activities is weak, especially the mental dynamics between Huang Rong and Guo Jing. The script reads almost like bone-dry transitions without a single ounce of nuance. The jianghu must have flashing blades and clashing swords, but it also needs romance and affection, right? Director Zhang, please talk things over with the screenwriters and have them put in more effort to make the script exceptional. Only with a good script can the story be filmed properly, don't you agree?"

Big Beard Zhang readily agreed, "I'll have them rewrite it."

However, the outcome completely defied Zhang Tan's expectations.

Three days later, Liu Changshan, one of the screenwriters, accepted a journalist interview and openly complained that Zhang Tan, the original author, was meddling in the script and interfering with their creative work as screenwriters.