Thread by @cloudrecession, i keep seeing sweeping criticisms of tgcf on my tl and that's [...]

i keep seeing sweeping criticisms of tgcf on my tl and that's really a head-scratcher for me. like sure, there are a few parts i found dragged a little and some where i had no idea what was going on because so much was withheld for the sake of a later reveal

but plot-wise, tgcf is a masterclass. that a single human mind created this epic-length saga with a dozen characters all with their own motivations, history, and voice; and it's all woven together in one pretty cohesive conflict

while also exploring complicated themes of fame and expectation, the nature of loyalty and love, and maintaining a really high-level social allegory; while also walking a moral divide and being totally aware of it--i mean, it doesn't even seem possible??

and i don't want to say i'm an expert or anything, but i am getting a doctorate in this. and people pay me to fix their plots. so when i see like, "tgcf is bad" or "this should have happened instead of that" or "we should have learned more about this other thing" i just.

i mean, yeah, no story is above criticism. but 1) most of the criticisms i see are actually personal preferences and i think instead of complaining ppl should just write fic; and 2) if you're complaining, i don't know what to tell you. plot-wise, it doesn't get better than this

and even when i look at tgcf with my professional editor goggles on, all my criticisms are actually just the affordances and expectations of the genre? danmei, like fanfic, exists in part to be inhaled. something that is made to be so rapidly consumed

is often written in a style that values explanation. in other words, to use a phrase i hate, telling over showing. but that's not quite right, because mxtx shows *and then* tells. after each action sequence or reveal, there's an explanation of what just happened.

tgcf: a man in red walked through the door.
me: ah yes, hua cheng. i know that because hua cheng wears red and it is likely he would arrive at this moment.
tgcf: it was hua cheng!!!
me: thank u for that confirmation

in any graduate fiction workshop, this would be labeled "bad writing." many writers believe you should let your reader figure out what's happening, not tell them.

but idk, with a book as long as tgcf, which for me was read in translation, i didn't mind the explanations.

everything that would normally be a criticism for me was so clearly an intentional stylistic choice. everything about the text felt so chosen and known, as if all possible options had been considered and mxtx plucked what she liked best from all of them and put it into the story.

"we should have learned more about hua cheng's backstory." well, no, because there are only 2 constraints of the narration. we have access to everyone except for hua cheng and jun wu. and given that we still know so much about them despite not being in their pov is pretty amazing

"guoshi is a flat character who only exists to deliver exposition." except he's not. he has a distinct voice, his own drives and motivations, and he offers a new perspective on hua cheng's ~problematique stalking which shows us that hualian is romantic but not romanticized

also the plot is episodic and the conflict relies on mystery. in a mystery, the tension is built by withholding information to reveal at a later time. guoshi reveals a good bit of this information, and yeah it's all at once, and it's a lot, but if mxtx handed me her ms and asked

how to better pace out the informational reveals, i wouldn't be able to answer without changing the fabric of what she's built. all i would be able to offer this story is a spot-by-spot fix. which, as someone who spends most of her time analyzing narratives, is really a rarity.

i'm going to end this thread here before it gets away from me and i start talking about the mastery of hualian's romantic arc.

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