sbdcsierra Chapter 62: The Situation Is Not Optimistic
Chapter 62: The Situation Is Not Optimistic
this day.
An emergency internal seminar was held within the Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House to discuss the essay competition.
The seminar content was quite simple: to explore and analyze the numerous submissions that had recently been received.
To put it bluntly, the editorial department has received hundreds, even nearly a thousand, submissions in the past week, and the quality of these submissions is truly worrying.
A truly high-quality manuscript, one with a substantial and meaningful story, is hard to find even among a hundred submissions.
Moreover, this standard only applies to the content of the manuscript, which barely qualifies as a science fiction story.
The situation is not optimistic.
After a brief meeting, the editor-in-chief He Chengwei and two others immediately convened a meeting to discuss and find remedial measures.
"It's really weird. Of the dozens of manuscripts I've reviewed, at least a third of them have the protagonist inventing things. They either invent a perpetual motion machine or a water-to-oil formula. Some are even more outrageous, with the protagonist being able to use qigong to influence satellites in space and directly shoot down enemy spy satellites that have invaded the country."
Oh my god, I'm really fed up with these people who submit their work...
"Old Bao, what's so special about that? Among the manuscripts I've reviewed, there's one where the protagonist can walk through walls, become invisible, and change their facial features at will."
For example, you can read a book while lying down with your ears, and if your mouth gets tired, you can simply speak with your eyes...
"Well, no matter what, what you've mentioned still has some semblance of science fiction."
In the manuscripts I reviewed, the cats and dogs could talk, people raised them like their own children, and the food they would eat in the future would be far superior to the current state banquets.
Damn it, they can't even tell the difference between humans and animals! Tell me, doesn't the author who submitted this kind of nonsensical and fabricated content have any conscience?
Don't you have any self-awareness about the garbage you write? How dare you even participate in our [Xinghan Cup] National Science Fiction Literature Creation Competition?
They're really just aiming for the grand prize of 100,000 yuan, and they don't even need to explain the slightest bit of basic logic in their writing...
"Ugh, this is so annoying! I keep getting submissions of this kind of low-quality writing every day. It's exhausting, really exhausting. I can't keep going like this. Not to mention there's still a year of submissions and competitions to go, if I keep going for another ten days or two weeks, my menopause will probably start ten years or more early..."
The editors were all complaining endlessly.
There's nothing I can do about it. I never expected that after organizing the nationally sensational "Xinghan Cup" science fiction writing competition, I wouldn't receive a single good submission. All I got were submissions from people who churned out literary garbage.
With limited human resources in the entire editorial department, and constantly bombarded with such appalling garbage manuscripts, who can possibly keep going? Won't this turn the essay contest into a gold-digging contest out of shit?
Moreover, this matter will become especially important once it spreads both inside and outside the circle.
This is such an embarrassing thing that it's made our colleagues all over the country laugh their heads off!
When you're out and about, who would dare to mention that their publishing house went to all that trouble to organize this science fiction writing contest?
Furthermore, turning the essay contest into such a disgraceful situation is truly a disservice to the trust placed in us by the great writer Yu.
To be honest, the editors didn't have high expectations for the first batch of submissions.
After all, the call for essays was only posted a few days ago at the end of last month.
In just ten days to half a month, a flood of submissions have arrived. How many of these authors actually wrote their manuscripts carefully before submitting them?
Do they really think that everyone can be like the great writer Yu, writing manuscripts in one go without ever needing to revise them?
The problem is that once a submission is received, the editorial department can't just leave it aside and not even bother to open it.
You still need to have the most basic professional qualities!
Moreover, what's even more alarming is that only ten days to half a month have passed since the call for submissions was announced, and there have already been nearly a thousand submissions. As time goes on, the number of submissions will definitely increase exponentially.
However, the editorial department's manpower and resources are currently limited.
Are we really going to have to spend all our energy reviewing these garbage manuscripts and not do anything else?
Even if we temporarily expand the editing team, it's simply not enough time!
The unique nature of the editing profession dictates that a new employee will need at least six months, or even longer, to truly become competent in all the duties of a full-time editor.
No emergency response plan has been discussed at the meeting.
Someone entered the room carrying several newspapers and magazines, and then began to grumble and curse as he showed them to the attendees, displaying the scathing and pessimistic editorials.
It turns out that someone had seen the articles published in the newspaper by Liu Xinwu and his ilk.
"Those in the same trade are always enemies, tsk tsk tsk, that saying is really true."
If you're interested, take a look and see how our colleagues in Beijing are evaluating our "Xinghan Cup" National Science Fiction Writing Competition in the media...
The editors then grabbed the newspapers and sold them.
They all started flipping through it.
Soon, someone started shouting:
"Ugh, it's that idiot Liu from the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau again, spouting sensationalist nonsense in the media. It's the same old thing: science fiction is seriously influencing the establishment of real-world scientific values."
"Damn, is this guy out of his mind?!"
"Oh dear, look at this editorial, the tone is so sour, actually saying that we set the prize money too high, seriously corrupting social values and deliberately making young writers across the country only care about money..."
"Huh, this idiot surnamed Liu actually publishes editorial articles in multiple installments?"
Someone stumbled upon an editorial with an exaggerated headline, cleared their throat, and began reading it aloud on the spot.
"Let me read to you this editorial by Liu Shaque from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, entitled 'What is High Technology?'"
In the eyes of primitive people, making fire by friction was high technology;
In slave societies, the ability to make coarse pottery was considered high technology.
In feudal times, gunpowder, printing, paper, and the compass were considered high-tech.
In modern times, Watt's steam engine for boiling water was a high-tech achievement;
Therefore, we, the people of this nation in this era, must earnestly take root in the reality of our industrial foundation, which lags behind Western technology by fifty years, and not live in a fictional world of technological fantasy. This is how we truly stand on solid ground and walk on the broad road to building a high-tech future…
"Ugh, this guy's insults are really filthy. He doesn't use a single dirty word, but he's throwing mud at us right at us..."
"This is considered 'filthy'?! Let me read you another one, this one about the future of computer networks and information..."
The man surnamed Liu described it this way: he said that after conducting some real visits and investigations at several scientific research institutions in Beijing, he found that even now, the most basic efficient input and processing solution for Chinese characters in the field of computer high technology has not been solved.
Moreover, it is expected that the domestic science and technology community will find it difficult to overcome such a problem in the next three to five years, or even ten years, or even indefinitely.
Meanwhile, Westerners are indeed, really close to, the era of the computer internet information superhighway.
Our country's technological backwardness is such that we can't even solve the problem of how to quickly input Chinese characters into computer systems. Chinese square-shaped pictographic characters are naturally incompatible with modern high-tech computer systems...
"Then, this man surnamed Liu came to an even more exaggerated conclusion, saying..."
Our much-hyped "Xinghan Cup" science fiction writing competition is clearly a way to lure young writers across the country with money, causing them to develop unrealistic and delusional fantasies.
They also mentioned this year-long science fiction writing competition.
It's like repeatedly brainwashing people who don't understand the reality of China's extremely backward scientific research, which is tantamount to forcing the entire nation to believe that the most beautiful castles can be built on the beach...