Once the Sister had taken over the cleaning of the old church, Kellen asked Lulumia to send the students away. For one, the students were not as easily managed as the Sisters, and for another, Kellen felt embarrassed always taking advantage of Lulumia. After all, the students were here at her request, not as members of the Church.
So Lulumia went along with the flow, directing the remaining students to clean out the storage rooms and warehouses needed by the newspaper office. But the time was short, and there was too much clutter in the storerooms. By the time the sun was about to set, they had only managed to clean out two rooms.
Therefore, Lulumia simply let everyone rest, deciding to continue the cleaning tomorrow. At that moment, everyone was busy and sweating, some had even taken off their Academy Uniform, and now they gathered in a relatively spacious storage room, listening to Lulumia explain the tasks at the newspaper office—how to write news.
“So, what we need to do is pick out the key points from the information we’ve collected, and write what the readers want to know—is that right?”
A scholarly-looking boy raised his hand and asked.
“That’s the general idea.” Standing before the desk in the role of teacher, Lulumia nodded in agreement. “But remember, when you write, it’s not as simple as ‘just write whatever the readers want to know.’ You have to be selective. Report with discernment.”
“But isn’t writing books about writing what the readers like?”
“Not exactly.” Lulumia shook her head and pressed her hand down on the Wallet on the desk, making it jingle with the clear sound of gold coins.
She did that on purpose. She and most of the students present were meeting for the first time, with neither the strength nor seniority of the upperclassmen, so she lacked authority. If she didn’t show something real, it would be easy to be underestimated. Only by putting tangible gold coins before everyone could she make them realize who held the right of distribution and was worth listening to.
“Let me give you an example.” She paused for a moment to think.
“The public likes to hear gossip about nobles, and the higher the rank of the protagonist, the more they love to listen. But if the gossip involves the king—especially if it would embarrass the king—then we absolutely must not write about it. The same goes for the Church.”
“So it’s about avoiding offending people…”
“That’s part of it, but there’s more. You also need to know how to pick out the parts that grab attention. Take, for example, the recent operation where the Church cracked down on smugglers. If we write plainly, ‘The Istel Church, under the leadership of the Immaculate Son, successfully uncovered a kidnapping and smuggling case involving Magitech Puppets and wiped out the smuggling gang in one fell swoop,’ there’s nothing wrong with the content, but it’s too broad and vague. Now that some time has passed and most people in the city already know about it, it won’t catch their interest.”
“But if we change it to: ‘The Immaculate Son, who joined the raid against the smugglers, encountered a formidable foe in battle, transformed into a vampire, and cornered the enemy. In the end, the smugglers offered over a thousand gold coins for their lives, but the Immaculate Son was unmoved and struck them down with his sword, rescuing countless Magitech Puppets who nearly fell victim to evil hands.’ With this as the focus, and then expanding on it, the result will be far more effective. The transformation into a vampire, the attempted bribery, and the heroic rescue are all topics people love to talk about.”
◎
“In short, you need to flesh the story out to specific people and events, to make it exciting and stir up a sense of connection in the readers.”
1000
The same scholarly boy from before still looked hesitant. “But if we don’t know the exact details, how are we supposed to write about them?”
“Simple. You go and ask. Visit the people involved on behalf of the newspaper, learn the facts from them, and then adapt the story a little. That’s all it takes to write an article. As long as your praise is clever enough, and the interviewee enjoys hearing it, you’ll have plenty of people happy to let you interview them in the future.”
Lulumia looked utterly matter-of-fact. She turned around, picked up a stone stylus, and used the wall as a blackboard, sketching out the shape of a newspaper and dividing it into sections with lines.
“The example I just gave would be important news, taking up the largest and most prominent space in the paper—here. There are also smaller sections, the content at the edges and corners can be more humorous, quirky, or even bizarre. For example: ‘A Farmer Accidentally Finds Strange Stone, Claims Licking It Restores Mana—Turns Out It’s Dragon Dung’; ‘Stench Emanates from Temple at Midnight—Has Someone Made a Pact with a Demon?’ Or, ‘A Noble Discovers His Back Door Opens Itself Every Night, Suspects Ghosts—Turns Out His Wife Is Meeting a Lover in Secret’—”
“Pfft, hahaha!”
Before Lulumia had even finished, the students in the storage room burst out laughing. Students like Lijie and the scholarly boy still tried to be reserved, covering their mouths and stifling giggles, but the others were laughing so hard they nearly fell over, pounding on the tables and shouting, “How do you even come up with this?” “This is just too weird!”
After a few seconds of this lively atmosphere, everyone gradually calmed down.
Even Lulumia couldn’t help but curl her lips into a smile.
“The fact that you’re laughing shows my examples are spot-on. Compared to important news that grabs the most attention, this kind of content is even more effective at hooking readers’ interest. From now on, most of your work will be to investigate these sorts of rumors and write up the stories.”
“For every rumor that gets published, the newspaper office will pay you at least five copper coins, with no upper limit. As for the important news I mentioned at the start, if it’s published you’ll get at least two silver coins, also with no upper limit, depending on the quality.”
◎
As for the Spring and Autumn Writing Style, Lulumia had no ideas for now. The newspaper office had just been founded, and it was too early to talk about such things. Once she published a few examples of the Spring and Autumn Writing Style herself and the students saw the results, they would naturally pick it up by immersion.
“Wow… Just writing a story earns five copper coins!”
If I write one a day, that’s one gold and five silver coins a month?
That was what many of the students were thinking.
In that moment, everyone’s enthusiasm was ignited, their eyes burning with desire, as if they could already see the gold coins beckoning to them.
For most of their parents, even if they worked together for a month, they couldn’t make that much. A salary of one gold and five silver coins a month was the highest of high pay in their eyes.
What’s more, Lulumia had said that five copper coins was just the starting rate—the higher the quality, the more you earned.
“Th-then, when can we start?” one student asked, raising his hand high.
“You can start as soon as you get home today. I have two requirements: First, whatever you hand in to me must be based on actual investigation and real information. If you make things up, you bear the consequences yourself. Second, your news reports can’t be too old—they can’t be about things everyone already knows. The closer the news is to the time it happened, the better.”
“No problem!”
“We promise to get it done!”
Though the students sounded enthusiastic, Lulumia actually didn’t have much hope in her heart. The concept of “news” didn’t even exist in this world yet; it was unrealistic to expect a few students to learn everything from her teaching in one go. This would have to be a gradual process.
Tonight, she’d write up a sample newspaper and print several copies for the students to use as a reference.