The Flame is not so bright to itself as to those on whom it shines, so too the wise man

Hi, Ric.

I have just read the re-written version of The Man Chapter 3. Overall, it is better than last version. I have seen quite lot of nice comments from the readers.

But here I have some opinion, it may be not right, you may not agree with it but I would like to just share it with you.

To be honest, I cannot remember every word of the last version. But I do remember the ending..

What I want to talk about is a concept called  “the fourth wall”

” the fourth wall” is a very famous rule in art and literature.

When you write an article it is like building a house, but you should only build three walls, and give the readers a space to imagine the fourth wall. In essence you should allow the reader to “build” the fourth wall by their imagination, by their effort.

This enables the reader to become involved in the creation of the story and when that happens they get the optimal satisfaction from reading it.

A good end to an article or a chapter always looks like it is not the end. That way readers can use their imagination to construct their own ending. Different readers will see various endings of their own creation.

So, I think the end of last version was better.

I suggest you move the last paragraph of chapter 3 to the beginning of Chapter 4. That would also have the advantage that it may make new readers curious about what happened in the previous Chapter.

That is just my personal feeling, may not be right.

Look forward to reading Chapter 4 in near future.

Thanks Ric for your great effort for creating so nice a blog.

Susan LI

Author’s Reply:

Thank you Susan, I think that is a priceless lesson in how to write a good article. Which is why I have taken the liberty of posting your comment as an article. I think all of our readers, most of whom are bloggers themselves, will benefit from reading your advice.

I must admit I really stressed over that ending. I was worried because I know a lot of our readers do not speak English as a first language and I was concerned about making it too difficult for them.

I also think the problem was caused because I have not made up my mind whether each chapter is a stand alone story as well as being a part of a serial. To some degree I have been treating each post as a stand alone story but also as being associated with the other chapters.

In fact I need to make a decision one way or the other. I think because each “chapter” is relatively short as far as regular chapters in a book go but they are  definitely not short for a blog post, that it would be wise to go for the “continuous” model that you suggest as opposed to treating each post as a stand alone story, which entails a beginning and an end.

I would certainly welcome comments on this issue from our readers. Or on any other aspects you would like to discuss.

So to conclude, I think if I had had the benefit of your advice and had known about the fourth wall concept, I would have written it the way you suggest. Thank you for pointing it out to all of us.

To Be Continued …………