How to Create a “Book of Genius”
Mao Tsung-kang’s checklist of 25 literary techniques.
In the 17th century, the Chinese critic Mao Tsung-kang described twenty-five marks of genius in what he thought was the best work of literature ever written – the massive historical novel known in English as The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In China, this epic work is still considered one of the four great classics or “books of genius”.
Mao’s essay can be read as a “how to” on literary creation. He puts his finger on storytelling techniques that have strong effects on readers. Here is a condensed and generalised version of Mao’s twenty-five “marvels”, articulated not to describe the particular novel, but as aspects or questions of literary technique that any author might want to apply to their works of fiction.
- Is there a clear theme and is the message legitimate?
- Are the characters fascinating and captured at their most interesting?
- Are there plenty of intriguing minor characters and subplots?
- Are there foils? Is there parallelism?
- Is there variation and contrast between the characters?
- Are the subplots arranged according to structural principles?
- Does the story trace things to their roots according to cause and effect?
- Is there poetic justice in the story or moral justification in the subtext?
- Is there pre-figuring or preparation? Do certain incidents, characters or objects connect with others?
- Is there variation in the parallelism to such an extent that nothing is duplicated?
- Does every scene and subplot feature a reversal so that the reader cannot anticipate what will happen next?
- Is there a mix of consecutive and non-consecutive as a pattern?
- Is there a minor lead-up passage to prepare for every major passage?
- Is there a prelude and a postlude to every major scene?
- Is tension increased by stalling momentous events through acts of seeking advice or by prophesy?
- Are the exploits of men offset by the actions of women?
- Are all important developments prepared and pre-figured by foreshadowing?
- Is the distribution of events even and do earlier passages leave room for subsequent developments? Are the scenes thus inter-related?
- Is there a mix of directly described events in sharp focus in the foreground set against reported events in the background, like a landscape painting?
- Is there juxtaposition in order to bring out similarities or enhance differences? Is there such parallelism within the chapters and across the whole book?
- Does the beginning correlate with the end and are there linking passages in between?
- Is artistic success achieved by combining all the material into a single cohesive whole?
- Are there no breaks in continuity?
- Does the book encourage contemplation?
- Are the characters individually brought to life effectively?
Follow these guidelines and you too may create a “work of genius”.
Compiled from David T. Roy’s translation of Mao Tsung-kang’s commentary on the San-kuo yen-i in David L. Rolston’s book How to Read the Chinese Novel, Princeton 1990. The image is artwork from the 2008 film adaption of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms by John Woo, Red Cliff
Does your work pass the 25 point checklist? Work on your story here:
