Thriller novelist began on Internet
By Li Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-12 10:27
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Hollywood interested in filming books from Chinese best-seller
A man dressed only in black edged his way onto the stage as music set the mood. It was enough for the audience to scream in a wild frenzy. This man, Xu Lei, is an author and a legend at the age of 28.
Not every best-selling novelist would like to promote his or her new book this way, but the mysterious atmosphere was just right for Xu, who is a rising star in the thriller novel genre.
Xu, popularly known as Nan pai san shu (an online moniker) is the author of the best-selling series Secrets of a Grave Robber, which includes six books so far.
The series has sold two million copies and been translated into seven languages.
At the end of last year, Hollywood's Paramount Pictures bought the copyright to Secrets of a Grave Robber, with a plan of making a series of three films.
"The movies might be like Indiana Jones,"he said.The deal made Xu the envy of many Chinese writers and one of the wealthiest novelists in China.
Xu told METRO Paramount approached him about the deal after reading a comic book by US-based Concept Art House based on his series.
Xu said he's happy about the deal, but would have liked to sell it to a domestic film company if one had been interested.
He said he is concerned that his typically Chinese story will not attract many A-list Hollywood stars.
Xu added his newly published novel, Battle of the Nujiang River, which tells the story of a band of Kuomintang soldiers who encounter mysterious phenomenon on the border between China and Myanmar(Burma) in 1940s, would also be adapted as a screenplay.
As a sixth-grade pupil, Xu once wrote a 40,000-word fairy tale, starring his classmates as a squad of explorers in search of a secret city.
But Xu was also fascinated by the Internet as a child and initially went into online commerce before pursuing his writing talent.
"When I was a young boy, I dreamed of being a information technology millionaire like Bill Gates," he said.
When Xu was a college junior student, he registered an online company, selling toys and gambling parts abroad.
In 2007, when his business shrank, his writing blossomed.
"I like reading and I had a lot of ideas for stories," said Xu.
He wrote some of them up and began posting them on Baidu. After posting the first chapter of story about tomb raiders, he was surprised to find a lot of followers, with millions of hits and replies. He received calls from book editors. Four months later, his first book was out.
Xu, then 25, quickly shot to fame, selling 600,000 copies in just a month and topping best-seller lists.
He said his imagination is inspired by his grandmother, who told him a lot of stories, especially ghost stories, and his uncle's antique store, which he says was always filled with a lot of mysterious items.
But Xu says writing is not always easy for him.
"I can write between 10,000 to 20,000 words on a good day. But sometimes, on bad days, I can only write 100 to 200 words," he said.
Xu initially attempted to conclude his series in only three books, but his publisher pushed him to write more, because the first three sold well. Under contract, Xu had no choice.
"I struggled mightily to develop the fourth story," he said.
He suffered insomnia and could think of nothing but his inability to come up with a decent plot, he said.
"I was really physically and mentally exhausted. It was a nightmare," he said. "I was really depressed."
He compared writing with Zen.
"Like practicing Zen, I have to go through sadness, happiness, pride and disappointment when I write. Through the process, I garner maturity."
Xu eventually got past his writers' block and finished not only the fourth story but the three more sequels as well. He said he will conclude the series in the eighth book.
Xu has set up a writing cooperative, to help authors who are struggling alone with stories.
He said that the writing team is open to those who have either story ideas or know how to develop a story.
"Like joint ventures between playwrights and directors, the club employs new ideas and develops them into a story," said Xu.