How a Classic was Conceived

Do you like the idea of writing a book of 500 ghost stories and have the book translated into many languages, made into movies and read by billion of people?

Do you like the idea that you do not even need to think of the plots and characters and your job is just to write down what you hear?

Do you like the idea that this book will survive for more than 400 years after your death and make you world famous?

Is it possible? Yes. A classic was conceived without the author cracking his head for any plot. This compilation of five hundreds ghost stories had survived for the past 400 years and is still widely read.

How was it done? Please sit down and listen to the story.

Long, long ago, there was a man with nothing better to do. He had no success in getting a government position. His family was not rich. He had nothing better to do except to teach naughty children reading and writing.

Most of the time he had nothing better to do, so he wandered the street and listening to people talking.

One day, he hit the idea of writing a book. He wanted to write a compilation of ghost stories. The problem was that he was too lazy to think of anything to write. What could he do?

He took a table out of his house, set up a stall near the stream, prepared a pot of tea, some papers and ink (in those days, there was no pen or pencil). He invited the passers-by to sit down, have a cup of tea and to tell him a ghost story.

As he listened to the ghost story, he wrote the idea down. When he heard enough, he went home and completed the ghost story. With some imaginations as spices and his literary skills, he was able to cook up a lot of scary ghost stories.

Some other sources of ghost stories came from the oral storytellers. In those days, storytellers were a special breed of creatures that traveled from town to town and told stories. They had the special irritating skills of bringing the story to a climax and stopped there.

They would take out a bowl and passed around the audience to collect money. Once they were satisfied with the collection of money, they would continue the story till the next interesting climax.

This writer was Pu Song Ling[1]. He entered the world in the year 1640 and left the world in the year 1715. That was in China during the Qing Dynasty[2].

The book that made him world famous was translated as Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (also known as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio or Strange Tales of Liaozhai).

It was a compilation of five hundreds ghost stories. The bulk of the book was written before 1700, but he was too poor to print all the ghost stories and sell in book form. The known printed version dated to 1766.

Some of the stories were translated into English by Herbert Giles as early as 1880. The third edition of the translated stories (only 164 of them) was completed by 1916 and was available for download[3].

So folks, whenever you hit the writer block, please do not panic. Remember what Pu Song Ling did. Go for a walk, talk to people, ask them to tell you a story and write down the story. You need not compile just ghost stories, you can write so many different stories and post on the web. You may become the next Pu Song Ling and become world famous for the stories that are not even your own.

If Pu Song Ling lived till our time, he will be the greatest internet writer on ghost stories. I bet his blog will be followed by a million readers.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu_Songling
[2] http://baike.baidu.com/view/7721.htm (in Chinese)
[3] http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/7207/GilesTOC.htm