Regardless of the type of text, whether formal or informal, fiction or non-fiction, professional or amateur, vulgar or elegant, people seem to expect a thematic elevation of the text at the end, whether appropriate or not.
For example, in an article about intangible cultural heritage, the conclusion often mentions cultural confidence. This is certainly understandable and seems to be a matter of course. However, some articles do not deserve such an elevation of ideas, or the content they want to express is sufficient to benefit readers. Applying the writing paradigm of elevating the conclusion to such articles would be awkward, at least in my opinion.
Unfortunately, most people do not think so. For such an article, the author may receive suggestions such as "you can organize the language more logically" and very likely "you can elevate the conclusion." If the author really does so and publishes the article, the feedback received may also include praise such as "great conclusion, well done!"
I am not a literature major and I do not have much research on the Chinese language, so I cannot provide any good opinions on whether the technique of "sublimation" can be universally applied. However, as a reader, or more broadly, a recipient and evaluator of information, because the "article" mentioned in my previous text can actually be replaced with "podcast," "film and television," "video," and other media, some unfounded sublimation does affect the experience.
Nowadays, most people who write articles and produce podcasts have a basic level of writing skills that surpasses most people, but they are mostly amateurs like me. Among the video bloggers in the public eye, there are also few with strong writing skills. Many of them rely solely on talent, inspiration, and daily accumulation to write scripts, perhaps without much in-depth thinking about writing articles.
Of course, I am not saying that elevating the conclusion is a sign of "inability to write articles." I just happened to read a comment praising the sublimation content of a video blogger's video one day, and I felt that the sublimation was awkward, so I started thinking about it. I believe that authors with excellent writing skills will not produce content that feels awkward.
In other words, the phenomenon I have observed is that many amateurs, including myself, love to elevate the conclusion of the text without any reason, and treat this technique as a necessary template to use. However, we don't use it properly and don't write it well, which affects the overall impression of the work.
I think people are enthusiastic about sublimation because they pursue the quality of the work. According to the Peak-End Rule, the reading experience of a work depends mainly on the most exciting part in the middle and the ending. If the ending is too plain, it seems to overshadow the highlights before it. Elementary school teachers say that compositions should have a "strong beginning and a strong ending," probably for this reason. For general articles, especially those that do not originate from the author's own thinking and are only written to complete a task, they do not have remarkable viewpoints or descriptions, so they can only put a seemingly wonderful paragraph at the end that resonates with readers, at least not making readers underestimate the author's writing skills.
From this perspective, the fundamental reason why many people like to sublimate without cause is impure writing purposes and unpolished writing skills.
Impure writing purposes refer to authors who write articles not to express their own viewpoints. These authors may be completing a task, participating in a themed essay competition, or taking a language exam. However, all these types of writing are passive, and even active writing still lacks purity of purpose. I serve as a moderator in the Chinese-language wiki of a backroom, which is a collaborative online novel platform with a shared worldview. Most people on the site are around 17 years old. Although we have age restrictions, there are still many middle school and high school students, and even elementary school students who have built a community for creation. Many works on the wiki lack depth, which is not a problem for popular online literature, but many works have major problems in conception and plot arrangement. Their writing purposes may be driven by passion or to gain fame within the community, but regardless of the reason, they rarely have genuine emotions or feelings about what they write. They just want their works to be liked and recognized by more people. Because of this purpose, they rarely truly polish their writing skills and pursue "high productivity" and "high scores."
The examples I mentioned are the ones I have observed the most and felt the deepest. In fact, there are many cases where writing is not purely for the sake of creation, but rather for the sake of fans, popularity, or heat, rather than for the sake of ideas, thoughts, or beliefs. These cases can be found in abundance on self-media platforms. For example, after the popularity of "Zoo Rule Strange Tales," there was an explosion of various clichéd works that did not capture the essence of the rule (of course, there were also many good works, but they were relatively few). After the popularity of humorous Nestlé commercials, there were various "funny" short videos made by splicing clips from Sherlock Holmes and Doraemon cartoons. I have also created some low-quality works because I liked a certain trend.
I am not criticizing such authors, as the works they create have many merits and provide entertainment value or inspiration. Both the authors and readers can derive value from them. However, their quality is indeed uneven compared to serious writing.
The so-called unpolished writing skills refer to authors who do not understand when to sublimate, whether it is necessary to sublimate, and how to sublimate. I dare not say that I am very clear about the answers to these questions, but I have indeed thought about them when writing articles. I believe that if the theme of the writing is strongly related to a larger theme, appropriate sublimation can connect the smaller theme to the larger theme, allowing readers to have a deeper understanding of the smaller theme. In other words, although the purpose of sublimation is to apply the Peak-End Rule and enhance the reading experience, the basic function of explaining viewpoints is essential. If a paragraph does not help readers understand the author's thoughts, there is no need to write it.
As for sublimation, in my opinion, it involves summarizing and linking with more literary and rhetorical embellishments. Summarizing is the aggregation of previous viewpoints, and linking is the connection with related themes. In other words, sublimation should be highly relevant to the overall content and a higher-level theme. The relationship between "intangible cultural heritage" and "cultural confidence" mentioned earlier is an appropriate sublimation. Such articles often mention the origin, historical stories, production techniques, development process, domestic and international influence, status, and significance of a certain intangible cultural heritage, all of which reflect the culture of a country from ancient times to modern times and can be summarized as "culture." The theme of "culture" is related to the larger theme of "cultural confidence," and the significance of identifying with and inheriting culture and cultural confidence can be discussed. This theme can also be further linked to higher-level themes, such as national sentiment and patriotism.
Once the summarization and linking are completed, the purpose of helping readers understand the author's thoughts is achieved. Sublimation still needs to serve as the phoenix's tail, which relies on the author's own writing skills.
Writing up to this point, I seem to have clarified what sublimation is, why it is necessary, and how to do it. However, to be honest, the purpose of writing this article is not for that. I still have a question that I haven't answered and haven't figured out: Is sublimation necessary?
Let me reuse the example of intangible cultural heritage. If I write an article about iron flower, can't I just describe the breathtaking beauty of iron flower and the exquisite skills of the performers? If I write these contents to the extreme, allowing people who have never seen iron flower to feel the beauty of it as if they were there, arousing people's enthusiasm and awareness of intangible cultural heritage, wouldn't that be enough? Do I have to mention a larger theme at the end? If I don't write it, how will it affect the reading experience of the readers? Will it hinder their understanding of the message I want to convey?
You may say that sublimation is naturally better—but what is the reason for doing so? Why is it better? Is it because the article is related to a larger theme? But why is a larger theme better? If that's the case, why can't I just write about the larger theme directly instead of linking the smaller theme to it?
If I use the example of intangible cultural heritage again, it won't be very persuasive. So let me give an example from a novel. Edogawa Ranpo wrote a short story called "The Caterpillar," which tells the story of a soldier's wife who continues to care for her husband after he loses all four limbs in a war. However, she gradually develops a strange emotion towards her husband and uses him as a tool to vent her desires. In the end, she even cannot stand any human gaze in her husband's eyes and almost loses her sanity, almost hurting her husband. In the final scene of the story, the husband escapes and throws himself into an old well, twisting his body like a caterpillar.
In this imagination, both the caterpillar and the branch have symbolic meanings, and the event of the branch breaking also has symbolic meaning if you carefully savor it. Edogawa Ranpo is good at writing such gentle yet thought-provoking endings, which summarize the entire story, emphasize the ideas he wants to express, but do not link to a higher-level theme.
For the same story, if it were written by someone else, especially an amateur like me, it might not have such an ending. It is very likely that it would be extended to topics such as the plight of women or the dignity of the disabled. However, in fact, this article, even without sublimation, has triggered related thoughts. Forcing sublimation not only becomes awkward but also seems redundant. It is more like adding something unnecessary rather than a phoenix's tail.
Due to the lack of better ideas, sublimation at the end seems to be a universally recognized "good" writing technique, so most people do it, which can add a golden edge to their articles that lack ideas. Even many people, including myself, may not have thought about other ways to conclude the entire article besides sublimation.
However, after writing so much, have I thought of other methods?