世界著名作家的十大写作小贴士

10 Writing Tips from the World’s Greatest Authors 世界著名作家的十大写作小贴士

If you ask the average author why they chose to pursue writing as a career, they’ll probably look at you as if you were mad. Those who dedicate their lives to wordcraft tend to do so because they’re passionate about storytelling, about the written word in every form it chooses to take; they didn’t choose to write any more than you may have chosen to breathe.

倘若你问作家拿写作当成事业的原因，他们可能会认为你是个疯子。他们热衷于讲故事，把毕生精力都贡献在写作上，不拘泥于写作形式，正如你离不开空气。 That said, honing one’s craft is a daunting-yet-rewarding lifelong endeavor in which there is constant evolution, but never perfection. I believe it was Ernest Hemingway who said that when it comes to writing, we are “all apprentices in a craft that has no master,” and he’s right: writers will always doubt their abilities, adjust their prose style, think of giving up, have a love/hate relationship with their editors, and keep plowing forward because we have to.

也就是说，语言功底是一件令人生畏却又毕生努力的循序渐进的过程，没有最好，只有更好。海明威说过，在写作这件事上，我们都是学徒，没有师傅。他还指出：作家们总是怀疑他们的能力，调整散文风格，想过要放弃，对编辑爱恨交加，不得不努力把自己推向前进。

For everyone whose soul is brimming with tales demanding to be told, here are a few writing tips from some of the world’s greatest authors. Maybe they’ll inspire you, or perhaps you’ll disagree with them entirely, but they’re all worth contemplating.

每个人的灵魂都充满了故事。下面是几个世界著名作家的小贴士。也许他们可以

激励你，你可能不全认同他们的观点，但是可以借鉴。

Be Disciplined

自律

“All through my career I’ve written 1,000 words a day—even if I’ve got a hangover. You’ve got to discipline yourself if you’re professional. There’s no other way.”

不管你决定一个星期写两页还是一天2000字，都要保证完成任务，并持之以恒。我的一生中一天会写1000字，即使在宿醉的情况下。如果你够专业就能做到自律。别无他法。——杰拉尔德

Keep a Notebook Handy

随身带笔记本

Inspiration can strike at any time, and it’s not uncommon for writers to scrawl ideas on receipts, napkins, bits of toilet paper, or anything within reach that can be written upon. If you have a good notebook with you at all times, you don’t have to risk losing some scrap or another upon which you’ve written the epiphany of a lifetime.

灵感随时都会光顾，作家可能会把想法写在收据、餐巾纸、厕纸或者任何可以记东西的地方，这是不足为奇的。如果你时刻备着笔记本，就不用冒着会丢失的危险。

“Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.”

时刻备本笔记本。短时记忆只能保持三分钟，不记下来的话会忘掉一个好的想法。——威尔.塞尔夫

Write What You’d Like to Read

把你想看的东西记下来

Don’t write what you think other people want to read: create something that you would fall in love with if you read it. Chances are that if you enjoy something that you write, others will too.

不要写那些你认为别人想读的，而要写一些你自己读完会爱上的文章。你喜欢的文章别人可能也会喜欢。

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

“如果有这么一本书，你非常想看，却还没人写，那你得马上把它写出来。”——托妮·莫里森

You Have to Read So You Can Write

写作前必须多读

Imagine going to a restaurant where you’ll be served food that’s prepared by someone who isn’t fond of eating, or having a personal fitness session with a trainer who doesn’t like to exercise. Both scenarios are rather absurd to think about, aren’t they?

试想一下，你来到一个餐馆，上来的食物都是由不爱美食的厨师准备的，或者你的私人健身教练不爱运动。两种情况都很荒诞，不是吗？

The best writers tend to be avid readers, as they have extensive vocabularies, awareness of what makes a story interesting, and a solid grasp of cadence and flow. I’d be afraid to read anything by someone who’s written more than they’ve read. Read all that you can, and not merely the subject matter that you know you enjoy: read outside your comfort level, in subjects you’re unfamiliar with.

最好的作家往往都是孜孜不倦的读者，因为他们词汇量大，懂得什么故事能吸引

眼球，掌握了抑扬顿挫的手法，将文章衔接自如。对于那些多写少读的作家作品，我总是敬而远之。尽可能地多读，不要仅仅局限于你感兴趣的方面：涉猎你舒适度以外的、你不熟悉的内容。

“Read, read, read. Read everything: trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”

“读,读,读。阅读一切垃圾的、经典、好的和坏的，看看他们是如何做到这一点的。就像木匠学徒，研究手艺一样。多读！读了你就能吸收它，然后再去写。好的东西你必能领会，不好的大可扔出窗外。”——威廉·福克纳

Allow Ideas to Flow, Even When You Feel You Have Nothing to Give 让想法飞一会

Scrawl nonsense. Make up little poems about toast or squirrels. Write out a rough draft by hand on construction paper, drawing little icons alongside written streams of profanity, if necessary. Know that most other writers before you have experienced the exact same doubts, frustrations, helplessness, and bouts of writer’s block as you have.

记下不成熟的想法。你可以作关于祝酒或松鼠的诗。你可以在纸上写下大致的草稿，必要时也可以记下所需图标。要知道，很多其他作家都和你一样，也经历过同样的自我怀疑，沮丧挫折，困顿无助，以及一次又一次的阻碍。

Go full stream-of-consciousness writing with the full knowledge that 3/4 of what you’re creating is absolute crap, as there will undoubtedly be some flecks of absolute gold within the dross that you can pick out later and polish ’til they shine.

完成终稿时，要清楚地认识到，你所写的3/4都一无用处，当然，其中肯定也有不少有价值的内容，因此，你要把那些有用的部分挑出来加以润色修饰，让它们

大放异彩。

“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”

“我写作时，总觉得像是个缺胳膊少腿的人，只能用嘴衔着笔写作。”——库尔特·冯内古特

Write Hot, Edit Cold

趁热打铁

When you have an idea, write it down. If you wake in the middle of the night with a paragraph fully formed in your head, write it down before you pass out again: you will have forgotten it by morning. Spew forth all you can in the moment, and then go back over it all with fresh eyes later on. This first draft is just the brain-spew that you have to get out, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll spend far more time editing than you did writing.

有了想法就立即写下来。如果你半夜醒来，脑中有了完整的段落，那就趁再次睡着前记下来，因为到了第二天你可能会忘光。趁热写下所有内容，过后再用全新的视角浏览。初稿是你急于拿出的脑中之物，而倘若你知道如何做对你有益，那你必定会在修改稿件上花费更多时间。

“The first draft of everything is shit.”

“我为了杰作的每一页，写了99页的废话。”———欧内斯特·海明威 On a similar note:

类似的一点是：

Write, and Write, and Write. Then Write Some More.

写，再写，继续写。

The only way you’ll get anything done is by writing. You may churn out a two-hundred-thousand-word behemoth and then cut it down to a quarter of that length, but you won’t be able to cut and refine anything if all you do is sit on your ass, staring numbly at your screen, not writing anything at all.

完成一件事情的唯一方法就是写。你或许写出二十万字的长篇文章，然后把它缩短四分之三，但是你只是坐着，呆呆地注视屏幕，什么都不写的话，就没有任何删减和修饰可言了。

Don’t say that you’re writing a novel: write it. Don’t spend all your time researching things and wasting time on Pinterest for inspiration: write. Then write some more.

别说你要写一部小说：先写了再说。不要把所有时间花在搜索资料上，不要把时间浪费在图片应用上找寻灵感：去写。越多越好。

“Planning to write is not writing. Outlining „ researching „ talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.” “打算写并不是是真的写。大纲、搜索、告诉别人你在做什么，这些都不是在写作。写作就是去写。”——多克托罗

Allow Yourself to Make Mistakes

不惧犯错

You’re going to do some great work, but you’re also going to craft some absolute dreck that you’ll look back upon and cringe. That’s absolutely okay: learn from it. Children don’t learn to walk without falling all over the place, right? By recognizing what doesn’t work, we can sort out what does, and move forward from there.

你将要做伟大的事情，但你首先也要造出一些废物，过后你会重新回顾，发现它们的不足。这是理所应当的事情：你所要做的就是从中学习。小孩如果不摔跤就学不会走路，不是吗？看清我们不好的作品，我们就能找出好的部分，然后继续

向前。

“We learn from failure, not from success!”

“我们是从失败而不是成功中吸取教训！”——布莱姆·斯托克

Show, Don’t Tell

展现自我，切忌枯燥乏味

Many novice writers make the mistake of over-describing items, situations, people, etc. It’s far better to imply descriptions and let the reader form an image in their minds than to spoon-feed every detail.

很多新锐作家都犯了过度描述的错误，他们过度描述场景、人物等等。更好的方法是运用描述的手法，让读者在头脑中形成图像，而不是把每一个细节都硬塞给他们。

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

“别告诉我说月亮很亮，拿一片碎玻璃让我看看它折射出的光。”——安东·契诃夫（Anton Chekhov）

Last, but certainly not least, one of the best tips than any author could take to heart:

最后一点同样重要，这也是每个作家都要放在心上的一点：

Write What You Know About

写你所知

Truth is stranger than fiction, and it’s more than likely that you’ve had some incredible experiences that you and you alone are qualified to write about. You’ve had amazing adventures, and you have a special and unique

voice with which to share them, so do so.

事实比科幻更新颖，很可能你的一些经历只有你能够描述。譬如你有奇妙的冒险经历，那你就有独一无二的话语权来与大家分享，与之相似的一些经历也是如此。 Have you been struck by lightning twice and lived to tell the tale? Were you raised by ferrets? Have you been abducted by aliens so they could teach you how to knit stuffed animals? Write about it.

你曾被闪电击中两次而死里逃生来讲述这段经历吗？你曾被雪貂抚养长大吗？你曾被外星人劫持并学会如何编织毛绒玩具吗？你大可以把这一切写下来。 “Tell your story. Don’t try and tell the stories that other people can tell. Because [as a] starting writer, you always start out with other people’s voices—you’ve been reading other people for years„ But, as quickly as you can, start telling the stories that only you can tell—because there will always be better writers than you, there will always be smarter writers than you „ but you are the only you.”– Neil Gaiman

“说出你的故事。不要试图用别人的方式把你的故事讲述出来。因为作为新手，你习惯了以别人的口吻开头——你过去那些年一直在看别人的作品……但是，你要学会尽可能快地学会用自己的方式讲述故事——因为永远有比你更优秀的作家，永远有比你更聪明的作家……但是你就是你，独一无二的你。”——尼尔·盖曼