写作建议 - 网闻录

# writing advice
# 写作建议

Over the years I've made a habit of writing down all the good writing advice I've read. I'll try to categorize it here. Some of the advice here is my synthesis of the advice I've read, but most of it is direct quotes.

多年来，我养成了记下所有读到的好写作建议的习惯。我将在这里尝试对它们进行分类。这里的一些建议是我对所读建议的综合，但大部分是直接引用。

## All writing
## 所有写作

#### High-level advice
#### 高阶建议

* In general, the goal of the author is to minimize the amount of brainpower needed to understand the text, while maximizing how enjoyable it is to read.
 
 总的来说，作者的目标是最大限度地减少理解文本所需的脑力，同时最大限度地增加阅读的乐趣。

###### [Steven Pinker's "The Sense of Style"](https://www.amazon.com/Sense-Style-Thinking-Persons-Writing/dp/0143127799)
###### [史蒂芬·平克的《风格感觉》](https://www.amazon.com/Sense-Style-Thinking-Persons-Writing/dp/0143127799)

> The key to good style, far more than obeying any list of commandments, is to have a clear conception of the make-believe world in which you’re pretending to communicate. There are many possibilities. A person thumb-typing a text message can get away with acting as if he is taking part in a real conversation. A college student who writes a term paper is pretending that he knows more about his subject than the reader and that his goal is to supply the reader with information she needs, whereas in reality his reader typically knows more about the subject than he does and has no need for the information, the actual goal of the exercise being to give the student practice for the real thing. An activist composing a manifesto, or a minister drafting a sermon, must write as if they are standing in front of a crowd and whipping up their emotions.
>
> 好的风格的关键，远不止于遵守任何戒律清单，而在于对自己假装在其中进行交流的虚构世界有一个清晰的概念。可能性有很多。一个用拇指打短信的人可以假装自己在进行一场真实的对话。一个写学期论文的大学生假装自己比读者更了解他的主题，他的目标是为读者提供她需要的信息，而实际上他的读者通常比他更了解这个主题，并且不需要这些信息，这个练习的实际目标是让学生为真实情况进行练习。一个撰写宣言的活动家，或者起草布道的牧师，必须像站在人群面前煽动他们的情绪一样写作。

###### [Julian Shapiro's "The Creativity Faucet"](https://www.julian.com/blog/creativity-faucet)
###### [朱利安·夏皮罗的《创造力水龙头》](https://www.julian.com/blog/creativity-faucet)

> Visualize your creativity as a backed-up pipe of water. The first mile of piping is packed with wastewater. This wastewater must be emptied before the clear water arrives.
>
> 想象你的创造力是一根堵塞的水管。管道的前一英里充满了废水。在清水到来之前，必须先排空这些废水。
>
> Because your pipe only has one faucet, there's no shortcut to achieving clarity other than first emptying the wastewater.
>
> 因为你的管道只有一个水龙头，所以除了先排空废水之外，没有捷径可以达到清澈。
>
> Let's apply this to creativity: At the beginning of a writing session, you must write out every bad idea that reflexively comes to mind. Instead of being self-critical and resisting these bad ideas, you must openly accept them.
>
> 让我们把这个应用到创造力上：在写作开始时，你必须写下所有条件反射般想到的坏主意。你必须坦然接受这些坏主意，而不是自我批评和抵制它们。
>
> Once the bad ideas are emptied, strong ideas begin to arrive.
>
> 一旦坏主意被清空，好主意就会开始涌现。
>
> Here's why: Once you've generated enough bad output, your brain starts to reflexively identify which elements cause the badness. Then it begins to avoid them. You start pattern-matching novel ideas with greater intuition.
>
> 原因如下：一旦你产生了足够多的糟糕输出，你的大脑就会开始条件反射般地识别导致糟糕结果的元素。然后它开始避免它们。你开始以更强的直觉进行新颖想法的模式匹配。
>
> Most creators never get past their wastewater. They resist their bad ideas.
>
> 大多数创作者从未能超越他们的“废水”。他们抵制自己的坏主意。
>
> If you've opened a blank document, scribbled a few thoughts, then walked away because you weren't struck with gold, then you too didn't get past it.
>
> 如果你打开一个空白文档，潦草地写下几个想法，然后因为没有灵感而走开，那么你也没有 vượt qua được nó.
>
> [Neil Gaiman and Ed Sheeran, users of this technique] know they're not superhuman. They simply respect the reality of human creativity: The brain has a linear pipeline for creativity, and the pipe needs clearing. In every creative session, they allot time for emptying the wastewater.
>
> [尼尔·盖曼和艾德·希兰，这项技术的使用者] 知道他们不是超人。他们只是尊重人类创造力的现实：大脑有一个用于创造力的线性管道，而这个管道需要清理。在每一次创作过程中，他们都会留出时间来排空“废水”。

###### I'm having trouble sourcing this one
###### 我找不到这个的出处

> The best cure for writer's block is to just write anyway, even if it's shit
>
> 治疗写作障碍的最好方法就是无论如何都写，即使写得很烂。
>
> When we talk about writer's block, it usually means that my subconscious realizes something is wrong. If you continue writing you will often figure out what the issue is
>
> 当我们谈论写作障碍时，通常意味着我的潜意识意识到出了问题。如果你继续写作，你通常会发现问题所在。
>
> If you're a new writer, most likely your job in writing is to turn yourself into the person who can write great novels, because you aren't yet. Or if you are, it's going to take many many drafts and revisions. Harry Potter was 13 drafts.
>
> 如果你是一个新作家，很可能你的写作任务是把自己变成一个能写出伟大小说的人，因为你现在还不是。或者如果你是，那也需要很多很多的草稿和修改。《哈利·波特》写了13稿。
>
> "Writing the chapter the wrong way will put it into my subconscious, and the next day my subconscious will tell me why it's wrong. 9 times out of 10 I set that chapter aside, write a new one, and that chapter goes in the book and it's good"
>
> “用错误的方式写这一章会把它存入我的潜意识，第二天我的潜意识会告诉我为什么错了。十有八九我会把那一章放在一边，写一个新的，而新的那一章会进入书中，而且写得很好。”

### Sentence length
### 句子长度

###### [Eugene Wei's "The rhythm of writing"](https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2017/7/20/the-rhythm-of-writing)
###### [Eugene Wei 的《写作的节奏》](https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2017/7/20/the-rhythm-of-writing)

> One of the simplest ways to improve one's prose and to keep a reader's attention is simply to vary sentence length. The longer the text, the more sentence length variation is desirable, so regardless of methodology, the goal would be the same, to make monotonous stretches of similar sentence lengths more visible to the writer.
> ...
> [A benefit of reading your text out loud is that] the cadence of breathing and speaking tends to mimic the frequency of the brain's ability to process words and sentences.
>
> 提升文笔、吸引读者注意力的最简单方法之一就是改变句子长度。文本越长，句子长度的变化就越可取，所以无论采用何种方法，目标都是相同的，即让作者更容易看到单调的、句子长度相似的段落。
> ...
> [大声朗读文本的一个好处是] 呼吸和说话的节奏往往模仿大脑处理单词和句子的频率。

###### [Gary Provost](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/373814-this-sentence-has-five-words-here-are-five-more-words)
###### [加里·普罗沃斯特](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/373814-this-sentence-has-five-words-here-are-five-more-words)

> This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.
>
> 这个句子有五个词。这里还有五个词。五个词的句子很好。但几个连在一起就变得单调了。听听正在发生什么。写作变得无聊了。它的声音嗡嗡作响。就像一张卡住的唱片。耳朵需要一些变化。现在听。我改变句子长度，我创造音乐。音乐。写作在歌唱。它有悦耳的节奏、轻快的音调、和谐的韵律。我用短句。我也用中等长度的句子。有时，当我确定读者已经休息好了，我会用一个相当长的句子来吸引他，一个充满能量、以渐强音的冲力、鼓点的滚动、铙钹的撞击声构建的句子——这些声音在说，听这个，这很重要。

Some examples:
 
一些例子：

1. "The sun was setting as Sarah walked along the beach. She enjoyed the feeling of the sand between her toes. The waves crashed against the shore. The seagulls cried overhead."
 
 “太阳正在落下，莎拉沿着海滩散步。她喜欢沙子从脚趾间流过的感觉。海浪拍打着海岸。海鸥在头顶鸣叫。”
 1. "As the sun set, Sarah strolled along the beach, savoring the sensation of sand between her toes. Waves crashed against the shore while seagulls cried overhead."
 
 “夕阳西下，莎拉漫步在沙滩上，享受着沙子从脚趾间流过的感觉。海浪拍打着海岸，海鸥在头顶鸣叫。”
2. "He picked up the book and started reading. He couldn't put it down. He was completely engrossed. Hours went by unnoticed."
 
 “他拿起书开始阅读。他无法放下它。他完全沉浸其中。几个小时不知不觉地过去了。”
 1. "Picking up the book, he began reading and found himself unable to put it down. Completely engrossed, hours slipped by unnoticed."
 
 “拿起书，他开始阅读，发现自己无法放下。完全沉浸其中，几个小时不知不觉地溜走了。”

#### Word choice
#### 词语选择

###### [Scott Alexander's "Nonfiction writing advice"](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/)
###### [斯科特·亚历山大的《非虚构写作建议》](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/)

> If two sentences in a row start with the same word, it sounds unwieldy. If three or four do, it sounds bizarre. If it’s a whole paragraph’s worth, people start questioning their own sanity and trying to claw their eyes out.
> ...
> This is hard and really deserves a book-length treatment. Without the book, all I can say is to realize that any repetition of words and structures will stand out to your reader, and make sure that their standing-out emphasizes your point instead of just being confusing.
>
> 如果连续两个句子以同一个词开头，听起来会很笨拙。如果三四个句子都这样，听起来就很奇怪。如果一整个段落都这样，人们就会开始怀疑自己的理智，并试图挖出自己的眼睛。
> ...
> 这很难，而且真的值得写一本书来详述。没有那本书，我只能说，要意识到任何单词和结构的重复都会在读者面前脱颖而出，并确保它们的脱颖而出是强调你的观点，而不是仅仅令人困惑。

Some examples:
 
一些例子：

1. "She opened the door. She saw him standing there. She felt her heart race. She couldn't believe he was here."
 
 “她打开门。她看到他站在那里。她感到心跳加速。她不敢相信他在这里。”
 1. "Opening the door, she saw him standing there. Her heart raced, and she couldn't believe he was actually here."
 
 “打开门，她看见他站在那里。她的心跳加速，不敢相信他真的在这里。”

## Fiction
## 小说

#### Word choice
#### 词语选择

> Even when both the actor and the target of an action are visible in the scene, the choice of the active or passive voice allows the writer to keep the reader focused on one of those characters before pointing out an interesting fact involving that character. **That’s because the reader’s attention usually starts out on the entity named by the subject of the sentence. Actives and passives differ in which character gets to be the subject, and hence which starts out in the reader’s mental spotlight**. An active construction trains the reader’s gaze on someone who is doing something: **See that lady with the shopping bag? She’s pelting a mime with zucchini**. The passive trains the reader’s gaze on someone who’s having something done to him: **See that mime? He’s being pelted with zucchini by the lady with the shopping bag**. The problem with the passives that bog down bureaucratic and academic prose is that they are not selected with these purposes in mind. They are symptoms of absent-mindedness in a writer who has forgotten that he should be staging an event for the reader. He knows how the story turned out, so he just describes the outcome (something was done). But the reader, with no agent in sight, has no way to visualize the event being moved forward by its instigator. She is forced to imagine an effect without a cause, which is as hard to visualize as Lewis Carroll’s grin without a cat.
>
> 即使当一个动作的施动者和受动者都在场景中可见时，主动语态或被动语态的选择也允许作者在指出一个涉及该角色的有趣事实之前，让读者专注于其中一个角色。**这是因为读者的注意力通常从句子的主语所命名的实体开始。主动语态和被动语态的区别在于哪个角色成为主语，从而决定了哪个角色一开始就处于读者的心理聚光灯下**。主动结构将读者的目光引向正在做某事的人：**看到那个提着购物袋的女士了吗？她正在用西葫芦砸一个哑剧演员**。被动结构将读者的目光引向正在被做某事的人：**看到那个哑剧演员了吗？他正在被那个提着购物袋的女士用西葫芦砸**。拖累官僚和学术文章的被动语态的问题在于，它们的选择并非出于这些目的。它们是一个心不在焉的作家的症状，他忘记了自己应该为读者上演一个事件。他知道故事的结局，所以他只描述结果（某事被做了）。但读者在看不到任何施动者的情况下，无法想象事件被其发起者推动向前发展。她被迫想象一个没有原因的结果，这就像想象刘易斯·卡罗尔没有猫的咧嘴笑一样困难。

Some examples
 
一些例子

1. "A firefighter rescued the cat from the tree."
 
 “一位消防员从树上救下了猫。”
 1. "The cat was rescued from the tree by a firefighter."
 
 “猫被一位消防员从树上救了下来。”
2. "The teacher gave the students a challenging assignment."
 
 “老师给了学生们一项具有挑战性的作业。”
 1. "A challenging assignment was given to the students by the teacher."
 
 “一项具有挑战性的作业被老师给了学生们。”

In both examples, the active voice focuses on the person performing the action (the firefighter and the teacher), while the passive voice shifts the focus to the entity receiving the action (the cat and the students).

在这两个例子中，主动语态都侧重于执行动作的人（消防员和老师），而被动语态则将焦点转移到接受动作的实体（猫和学生）上。

###### [Brandon Sanderson on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6HOdHEeosc)
###### [布兰登·桑德森谈科幻与奇幻写作](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6HOdHEeosc)

> You want to communicate the most information in the fewest number of words possible. If you can communicate more information with the same amount of words, or the same information with fewer words, that's always preferable. Aside from that, that's your style.
>
> 你想用尽可能少的词传达最多的信息。如果你能用同样多的词传达更多的信息，或者用更少的词传达同样的信息，那总是更可取的。除此之外，那就是你的风格了。
>
> "I saw a dog walk by me".
>
> “我看见一只狗从我身边走过。”
>
> Unless you're specifically trying to draw attention to the fact that you saw the dog, the first two words are unhelpful – it's assumed you saw the dog! So just write "a dog walked by me" to save two words.
>
> 除非你特意想引起人们对你看到狗这一事实的注意，否则前两个词是无益的——人们会假设你看到了狗！所以只要写“一只狗从我身边走过”就能省下两个词。
>
> If you haven't said what kind of dog it is, you can communicate more information with the same number of words by saying the breed. "A poodle walked past me"
>
> 如果你没有说那是什么狗，你可以用同样数量的词说出它的品种来传达更多的信息。“一只贵宾犬从我身边走过”
>
> You can probably already tell that "A poodle walked past me" is much better writing!
>
> 你可能已经能看出“一只贵宾犬从我身边走过”是更好的写法了！

> To ground your reader in a world that feels very real, try to move them as far down on the pyramid of abstraction in as few words as possible. More words are bad, they take time for your reader’s brain to process and take them out of the book. Being more specific is good, it grounds the reader in the story. For example “he stumbled a little bit” is strictly worse than “he stumbled” because it is more words but no less abstract (no new information).
>
> 为了让你的读者沉浸在一个感觉非常真实的世界里，试着用尽可能少的词将他们带到抽象金字塔的尽可能低的位置。更多的词是不好的，它们需要读者的大脑花时间去处理，并让他们脱离书本。更具体是好的，它让读者沉浸在故事中。例如，“他绊了一下”严格来说比“他绊倒了”更差，因为它词更多，但抽象程度并未降低（没有新信息）。

> A simple way of converting a tell into a show is to add a sensory detail. For example, replace "she stood in the battleship's engine room" with "the hum of the battleship's engine rumbled through her feet".
>
> 将“讲述”转化为“展示”的一个简单方法是添加一个感官细节。例如，用“战舰引擎的嗡嗡声从她的脚下传来”代替“她站在战舰的机舱里”。

An example
 
一个例子

1. "He was nervous before his presentation."
 
 “他在演讲前很紧张。”
 1. "His hands trembled and sweat beaded on his forehead as he prepared for his presentation."
 
 “他准备演讲时，双手颤抖，额头上冒出了汗珠。”

###### [Stuart Armstrong's Comment](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/21/the-art-of-writing-randian-monologues/#comment-108369)
###### [斯图尔特·阿姆斯特朗的评论](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/21/the-art-of-writing-randian-monologues/#comment-108369)

> To have characters go outside without something very abrupt and boring like “And then he went outside”, focus on something relevant to the story, and weave the transition into it.
>
> 要让角色出去，而不是用像“然后他出去了”这样非常突兀和无聊的话，应该专注于与故事相关的事情，并将过渡融入其中。
>
> "His doubts didn’t leave him as he stepped outside. Nor did they weaken during the long bus ride home, instead growing with each passing street-light. By the time he was standing at his own front door, he was almost determined to ditch the whole thing. But his dirt-smudged hallway, his half-repaired windows, and his drenched mattresses, familiar yet depressing sights, all urged him to reconsider.”
>
> “他走出去时，疑虑并未离开他。在漫长的回家公交车上，疑虑也没有减弱，反而随着每一个路灯的掠过而增长。当他站在自家门口时，他几乎下定决心要放弃这一切。但他那沾满污垢的走廊、半修好的窗户，以及湿透的床垫，这些熟悉而又令人沮丧的景象，都敦促他重新考虑。”

#### Keeping reader attention
#### 保持读者注意力

###### [Keith Johnstone's "Impro"](https://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178)
###### [基思·约翰斯通的《即兴表演》](https://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178)

> The audience will always be held when a status is being modified.
> ...
> I repeat all status exercises in gibberish, just to make it quite clear that the things *said* are not as important as the status *played.* If I ask two actors to meet, with one playing high, and one playing low, and to reverse the status while talking an imaginary language, the audience laugh amazingly. We don't know what's being said, and neither do the actors, but the status reversal is enough to enthral us. If you've seen great comedians working in a language you don't understand you'll know what I mean.
>
> 当地位被改变时，观众总是会被吸引住。
> ...
> 我用胡言乱语重复所有的地位练习，只是为了清楚地表明*说*的话不如*演*的地位重要。如果我让两个演员见面，一个扮演高地位，一个扮演低地位，并在说一种想象的语言时反转地位，观众会笑得不可思议。我们不知道他们在说什么，演员们也不知道，但地位的反转足以让我们着迷。如果你看过伟大的喜剧演员用你不懂的语言表演，你就会明白我的意思。

###### [John Truby's "The Anatomy of Story"](https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Story-Becoming-Master-Storyteller/dp/0865479933/)
###### [约翰·特鲁比的《故事剖析》](https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Story-Becoming-Master-Storyteller/dp/0865479933/)

> Once you set up a hero and an opponent competing for the same goal, you must build the conflict steadily until the final battle. Your purpose is to put constant pressure on your hero, because this is what will force him to change. The way you build conflict and put pressure on your hero depends primarily on how you distribute the attacks on the hero. In average or simple stories, the hero comes into conflict with only one opponent. This standard opposition has the virtue of clarity, but it doesn't let you develop a deep or powerful sequence of conflicts, and it doesn't allow the audience to see a hero acting within a larger society. KEY POINT: **A simplistic opposition between two characters kills any chance at depth, complexity, or the reality of human life in your story. For that, you need a web of oppositions.**
>
> 一旦你设定了一个英雄和一个对手为同一个目标竞争，你必须稳步地建立冲突，直到最后的战斗。你的目的是不断给你的英雄施加压力，因为这会迫使他改变。你如何建立冲突和给你的英雄施加压力，主要取决于你如何分配对英雄的攻击。在普通或简单的故事中，英雄只与一个对手发生冲突。这种标准的对立具有清晰的优点，但它不能让你发展出深刻或强大的冲突序列，也不能让观众看到一个英雄在更广阔的社会中行动。关键点：**两个角色之间简单的对立会扼杀你故事中任何深度、复杂性或现实人生的可能性。为此，你需要一个对立的网络。**

[Paraphrased for brevity]
 
[为简洁起见，意译]

> A really powerful sensation in readers is, wanting to know or see something and feeling themselves getting progressively closer to it. For instance, in the book Inferno, readers are teased that something exciting is at the center circle in hell, and in every chapter of the book they moved one circle closer to the center.
>
> 读者中一种非常强大的感觉是，想要知道或看到某样东西，并感觉自己正逐步接近它。例如，在《地狱》这本书中，读者被暗示地狱的中心圆圈里有一些激动人心的事情，而在书的每一章，他们都向中心靠近一圈。
>
> Books inherently cause this because the reader can see the pages going up and up and the amount of book remaining going down. Perhaps a way to exaggerate this would be to have the pages count down
>
> 书籍天生就会产生这种效果，因为读者可以看到页码不断增加，而剩余的书页不断减少。也许夸大这种效果的一种方法是让页码倒数。

> One of the best ways to do a "twist ending" is to actually give a better payoff than the one you promised. For instance, in Mistborn, the payoff is going to be "we steal the lord ruler's Atium reserve and leave" which turns into "we overthrow the empire".
>
> 做出“反转结局”的最好方法之一，是实际给予比你承诺的更好的回报。例如，在《迷雾之子》中，回报本应是“我们偷走统治主的Atium储备然后离开”，结果变成了“我们推翻帝国”。
>
> Very rarely in fantasy do you run into problems when you give the reader more than they expected. On the other hand, not fulfilling your promises is **not** a virtue.
>
> 在奇幻小说中，当你给读者超出他们预期的东西时，你很少会遇到问题。另一方面，不履行你的承诺**不是**一种美德。

###### My Buddy Prism on Discord
###### 我在 Discord 上的朋友 Prism

> I think a sense of whimsy and memorable characters are the most important aspects for fun stories.
>
> 我认为，奇思妙想和令人难忘的角色是趣味故事最重要的方面。

#### Characters
#### 角色

> The most common place to use dialogue to express moral argument is when an ally criticizes the hero for taking an immoral action while trying to win the goal. The ally contends that the hero's actions are wrong. The hero, who hasn't yet had a self-revelation, defends his actions.
>
> 使用对话来表达道德论点最常见的地方是，当一个盟友批评英雄为了赢得目标而采取不道德的行为时。盟友认为英雄的行为是错误的。英雄，还没有自我醒悟，为自己的行为辩护。

> Great storytelling **isn't just conflict between characters. It's conflict between characters and their values**. When your hero experiences character change, he challenges and changes basic beliefs, leading to new moral action. A good opponent has a set of beliefs that come under assault as well. The beliefs of the hero have no meaning, and do not get expressed in the story, unless they come into conflict with the beliefs of at least one other character, preferably the opponent.
>
> 伟大的故事叙述**不仅仅是角色之间的冲突。它是角色与他们价值观之间的冲突**。当你的英雄经历角色转变时，他会挑战并改变基本的信念，从而导致新的道德行为。一个好的对手也有一套受到攻击的信念。英雄的信念没有任何意义，也不会在故事中得到表达，除非它们与至少一个其他角色的信念发生冲突，最好是对手。

###### [John Truby's Youtube Video](https://youtu.be/luS17BjFOiI)
###### [约翰·特鲁比的油管视频](https://youtu.be/luS17BjFOiI)

> It is extremely important, that no matter what story you tell, that you begin with the great character weakness of your hero.
>
> 极其重要的是，无论你讲什么故事，都要从你英雄的巨大性格弱点开始。

It's not obvious here, but he means that literally. He says the first scene should establish your hero's character flaw.

这里不太明显，但他的意思是字面上的。他说第一个场景应该确立你英雄的性格缺陷。

###### [Donald Maass's "The Emotional Craft of Fiction"](https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Craft-Fiction-Beneath-Surface/dp/1440348375)
###### [唐纳德·马斯的《小说情感技巧》](https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Craft-Fiction-Beneath-Surface/dp/1440348375)

> Select a moment in your story when your protagonist is moved, unsettled, or disturbed. This might occur when he's facing a difficult choice, needing something badly, suffering a setback or surprise, having a self-realization, learning something shocking, or feeling in any way overwhelmed. Write down all the emotions inherent in this moment, both obvious and hidden.
>
> 在你的故事中选择一个你的主人公被感动、不安或困扰的时刻。这可能发生在他面临艰难选择、急需某物、遭受挫折或意外、自我醒悟、得知令人震惊的事情或以任何方式感到不知所措时。写下这一刻固有的所有情感，包括明显的和隐藏的。
>
> Next, considering what he is feeling, write down how your protagonist can act out. What is the biggest thing your protagonist can do? What would be explosive, out of bounds, or offensive? What would be symbolic? What can your protagonist say that would cut right to the heart of the matter or unite others in understanding? Go sideways, underneath, or ahead. How can your protagonist show us a feeling we don’t expect to see?
>
> 接下来，考虑到他的感受，写下你的主人公可以如何表现。你的主人公能做的最重要的事情是什么？什么是爆炸性的、越界的或冒犯性的？什么是象征性的？你的主人公能说什么能直击问题核心或让其他人团结一致地理解？可以从侧面、底层或前方入手。你的主人公如何向我们展示一种我们意想不到的感觉？
>
> Add a detail of the setting that only your protagonist would notice, or that everyone notices but your protagonist sees in a unique way.
>
> 添加一个只有你的主人公会注意到的场景细节，或者每个人都注意到但你的主人公以一种独特的方式看到的细节。
>
> Finally, go back and delete all the emotions you wrote down at the beginning of this exercise. Let actions and spoken words do the work. Do they feel too big, dangerous, or over-the-top? Use them anyway. Others will tell you if you've gone too far, but more likely, you haven't gone far enough.
>
> 最后，回去删除你在本次练习开始时写下的所有情绪。让行动和言语来完成工作。它们感觉太大、太危险或太夸张了吗？无论如何都要使用它们。其他人会告诉你你是否做得太过火，但更有可能的是，你做得还不够。

> Writing out what characters feel ought to be a shortcut to getting readers to feel that stuff too, shouldn’t it? You’d think so. After all, it’s through characters that we experience a story. Their experience is ours. Actually, the truth is the opposite. Put on the page what a character feels and there’s a pretty good chance that, paradoxically, what the reader will feel is nothing.
>
> 写出角色的感受应该也是让读者感受到同样感受的捷径，不是吗？你会这么认为。毕竟，我们是通过角色来体验一个故事的。他们的经历就是我们的。实际上，事实恰恰相反。把角色的感受写在纸上，很可能，自相矛盾的是，读者什么也感觉不到。
>
> The feelings that writers first choose to write are often obvious, easy, and safe. These are the feelings writers believe they ought to use if their stories are going to sell. They work only with primary emotions because that is what everyone feels, which is true, but this is also a limited view.
>
> 作家最初选择写的情感往往是显而易见的、简单的和安全的。这些是作家认为如果他们的故事要卖得好就应该使用的情感。他们只处理基本情感，因为那是每个人都会感受到的，这没错，但这是一种有限的观点。
>
> So how does one create emotional surprise? Is it possible to be both artful and accessible? Can emotions feel right and connect with us even when we don’t see them coming? Certainly
> Select any moment in your story when your protagonist feels something strongly. Identify the feeling. Next, ask your protagonist, “What else are you feeling at this moment?” Write that down, too. Then ask, “Okay, what else are you feeling now?” Write that down.
>
> 那么如何创造情感上的惊喜呢？是否可能既有艺术性又通俗易懂？即使我们没有预料到，情感也能感觉对并与我们产生共鸣吗？当然可以。
> 在你的故事中选择任何一个你的主人公有强烈感受的时刻。识别这种感受。接下来，问你的主人公：“此刻你还有什么其他感受？”也把它写下来。然后问：“好的，你现在还有什么其他感受？”写下来。
>
> Now begin to work with that third, lower-layer emotion. Examine it in four ways.
>
> 现在开始处理第三个，更深层次的情感。从四个方面来审视它。
>
> 1. Objectify it by creating an analogy: What does it feel like to have this feeling?
> 
> 通过创造一个类比来客观化它：拥有这种感觉是什么感觉？
> 2. Make a moral judgment about it: Is it good or bad to feel this? Why?
> 
> 对其进行道德判断：有这种感觉是好是坏？为什么？
> 3. Create an alternative: What would a better person feel instead?
> 
> 创造一个替代方案：一个更好的人会怎么想？
> 4. Justify this feeling: It’s the only possible thing to feel at this moment and here is why.
> 
> 为这种感觉辩护：这是此刻唯一可能的感觉，原因如下。
>
> Look around the scene, too. What is your protagonist seeing that others don’t? Add one detail that only your protagonist would see, and see it in his own unique way.
>
> 也要环顾四周。你的主人公看到了什么别人没有看到的东西？添加一个只有你的主人公才会看到的细节，并以他自己独特的方式看待它。
>
> Write a new passage for this moment in the story, one in which your character feels deeply (and in detail) this third-level emotion.
>
> 为故事中的这一刻写一段新的文字，其中你的角色深刻地（并详细地）感受到这第三层次的情感。
>
> An important part of this method is the lengthy discourse that I mentioned. Why delve so deeply? One reason is to create a longer passage for the reader. That in turn creates a period of time, perhaps fifteen seconds, for the reader’s brain to process. That interval is necessary. It gives readers the opportunity to arrive at their own emotional response, a response that we cannot know
>
> 我提到的冗长论述是这种方法的一个重要部分。为什么要如此深入地探讨？一个原因是为了给读者创造一个更长的段落。这反过来又为读者的大脑处理信息创造了一段时间，也许是十五秒。这个间隔是必要的。它让读者有机会产生自己的情感反应，而这种反应我们无法预知。
>
> Be obvious and tell readers what to feel, and they won’t feel it. Light an unexpected match, though, and readers will ignite their own feelings, which may well prove to be the ones that are primary and obvious. Third-level emotions. That’s the effective way of telling.
>
> 显而易见地告诉读者该有什么感觉，他们就不会有这种感觉。然而，点燃一根意想不到的火柴，读者就会点燃自己的情感，而这很可能就是那些最基本、最明显的情感。第三层次的情感。这才是有效的讲述方式。

###### [Film Crit Hulk's Tweet](https://twitter.com/FilmCritHULK/status/1112263195274600449)
###### [影评浩克的推文](https://twitter.com/FilmCritHULK/status/1112263195274600449)

> [Talking about ATLA]: God they're so good at fleshing out psychology on this show. It's never just "plot" - it's all understanding and enriching motivations and changes and inner conflicts (PS prospective writers, that's the main subject to study if you want to be good at writing)
>
> [谈论《降世神通：最后的气宗》]：天哪，他们在这部剧里刻画心理真是太棒了。这从来不仅仅是“情节”——这一切都是理解和丰富动机、变化和内心冲突（PS 准作家们，如果你们想写好，这就是主要的研究课题）。

[Paraphrased for brevity]
 
[为简洁起见，意译]

> Ways to make the audience root for a character:
>
> 让观众支持一个角色的方法：
>
> 1. Make them likable or nice.
> 
> 让他们讨人喜欢或友善。
> 2. Show them having the same feelings the readers has (liking their family?)
> 
> 向他们展示读者也有的同样感受（喜欢他们的家人？）
> 1. That's one reason spider-man is a lot of people's favorite superhero. The story always starts with him being down-on-his-luck romantically and too shy to talk to the girl next door, reading comic books and playing videogames and being unpopular/bullied in school and having a shit job and living in a shit apartment, which when you consider the target audience of the comic book genre is probably pretty relatable.
> 
> 这就是蜘蛛侠成为许多人最喜欢的超级英雄的原因之一。故事总是从他情场失意、太害羞不敢和邻家女孩说话、看漫画书、玩电子游戏、在学校不受欢迎/被欺负、有一份糟糕的工作、住在一个糟糕的公寓开始，当你考虑到漫画书类型的目标受众时，这可能非常 relatable。
> 3. Show people liking them
> 
> 展示人们喜欢他们
> 1. This is a really handy and surprisingly useful technique
> 
> 这是一个非常方便且出人意料地有用的技巧。
> 4. Establish rooting interest
> 
> 建立支持兴趣
> 1. Make the character have a motivation that's interesting to us.
> 
> 让角色有一个我们感兴趣的动机。
> 2. It's best if they want something out of life that they can't really have (or there are obstacles in their way to getting it). Connects to their flaws, handicaps, or limitations
> 
> 最好是他们想要生活中无法真正拥有的东西（或者在得到它的路上有障碍）。这与他们的缺点、障碍或局限性有关。
> 3. Establishes a personal connection to the plot (luke doesn't really want to become a jedi or to take down the empire until they kill his parent figures)
> 
> 建立与情节的个人联系（卢克直到他们杀死他的父母形象后才真正想成为绝地武士或推翻帝国）。
> 5. Promise future progress
> 
> 承诺未来的进步
> 1. Establish a flaw that they have that they're going to fix or a journey that they're going to go on. Often driven by a sense of mystery (Will they be able to become the thing that we know they can become? Will spiderman become a superhero?)
> 
> 确立他们将要修复的缺点或将要踏上的旅程。通常由一种神秘感驱动（他们能成为我们知道他们能成为的那个人吗？蜘蛛侠会成为超级英雄吗？）。
> 2. The important thing is that you signpost that the character needs to change in some way so the reader knows.
> 
> 重要的是，你要明确指出角色需要以某种方式改变，以便读者知道。
> 6. You can imagine that each character has three "sliders" of likability, competence, and proactivity. Often your main character should be deficient in one of these three at the start of the story and the story is about them "increasing that slider"
> 
> 你可以想象每个角色都有三个“滑块”：讨人喜欢度、能力和主动性。通常，你的主角在故事开始时应该在这三者中的一个方面有所欠缺，而故事就是关于他们“提升那个滑块”的。
> 1. If the character moves on any of the scales, it creates a sense of progress throughout the story
> 
> 如果角色在任何一个维度上有所移动，都会在整个故事中营造出一种进步感。
> 2. Spiderman's journey is him just becoming super competent through the course of the story. That's actually one thing that's sort of not super common in superhero movies. Tony Stark is always a badass, and once he makes the suit he's just instantly even more of a badass. Miles Morales spends the first four fifths of the movie being really bad at basic spiderman stuff including web slinging. He starts as Frodo and ends as Aragorn.
> 
> 蜘蛛侠的旅程就是他在故事过程中变得超级能干。这实际上是超级英雄电影中不太常见的一件事。托尼·斯塔克一直很厉害，一旦他造出战甲，他就立刻变得更厉害了。而迈尔斯·莫拉莱斯在电影的前五分之四的时间里，连基本的蜘蛛侠技能，包括吐丝，都做得很差。他开始时是佛罗多，结束时是阿拉贡。
> 7. A common way of showing growth is to show that what the character wants is not what they need. For example, Spiderman thinks he wants to be cool and famous, but what he needs is to learn that with great power comes great responsibility.
> 
> 展示成长的一个常见方法是，展示角色想要的东西并非他们所需要的。例如，蜘蛛侠认为他想变得酷和出名，但他需要学习的是，能力越大，责任越大。
> 8. Or you can just have a ton of competent characters doing cool things. In Ocean's 11 there's no change in competence, the fun is just to watch awesome people doing awesome thing
> 
> 或者你也可以让一大堆能干的角色做些很酷的事情。在《十一罗汉》中，能力没有变化，乐趣就在于看一群厉害的人做厉害的事。
> 9. Motivation is really the most important part though. Establishing character motivations early is a really important thing. Often, when I get feedback from alpha readers that confuses me, it's because I haven't properly established character motivations.
> 
> 不过，动机才是最重要的部分。尽早建立角色的动机是一件非常重要的事情。通常，当我从早期读者那里得到让我困惑的反馈时，都是因为我没有恰当地建立角色的动机。
> 1. This can cause stilted dialogue, which often happens when a character's motivation is contrary to their dialogue/actions.
> 
> 这可能会导致对话生硬，当角色的动机与他们的对话/行动相悖时，这种情况经常发生。
> 10. An easy way of making characters seem three dimensional is to give them multiple, conflicting motivations. Think of Kaladin being conflicted about whether he should become a surgeon or a soldier
> 
> 让角色看起来立体的一个简单方法是给他们多个、相互冲突的动机。想想卡拉丁在成为外科医生还是士兵之间的矛盾。
> 11. Easy example: have a character who dreams of travelling, but they can't because they're broke or disabled. Instead show them going through significant lengths to get a stamp to put in an atlas or something and show the audience all the other stamps they have to show all the other places they would have gone if they didn't have this quirk. This establishes a *huge* amount of empathy and motivation. If they get invited on an adventure and has to go despite their handicaps or limitation the reader will be rooting for them.
> 
> 简单的例子：塑造一个梦想旅行但因贫穷或残疾而无法实现的角色。相反，可以展示他们费尽周折地去弄一个邮票盖在地图册上，并向观众展示他们拥有的所有其他邮票，以表明如果他们没有这个怪癖，他们会去的所有其他地方。这会建立起*巨大*的同理心和动力。如果他们被邀请去冒险，并且尽管有残疾或限制，他们还是必须去，那么读者会为他们加油。
> 12. Another example is "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die". The idea of some kid wanting to avenge his dad and already having prepared in his mind what he'll say when he meets the man who killed him, but having slightly given up hope of his dream, is actually sort of relatable and extremely empathetic. It's actually so empathetic that he seems like the main character more than Wesley does.
> 
> 另一个例子是“我叫伊尼戈·蒙托亚，你杀了我父亲，准备受死吧”。一个孩子想要为父亲报仇，并且已经在脑海中准备好了见到杀父仇人时要说的话，但又对实现梦想有些许放弃希望，这种想法实际上有些 relatable 且极具同理心。它实际上是如此富有同理心，以至于他看起来比韦斯利更像主角。
> 13. If your character has a quirk, it should connect to their motivation because that makes it much more interesting.
> 
> 如果你的角色有一个怪癖，它应该与他们的动机联系起来，因为这会使它更有趣。
> 14. People tend to be really empathetic to characters who try hard but fail but reasons outside their control.
> 
> 人们往往对那些努力尝试但因超出其控制范围的原因而失败的角色非常有同理心。

###### [Eliezer Yudkowsky's "Intelligent Characters"](https://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing)
###### [埃利泽·尤德科夫斯基的《聪明的角色》](https://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing)

> **All characters in your story should be "level-1 intelligent", since it is the minimum required for them to be believable characters**. This means they should have an "inner spark of optimization"
>
> **你故事中的所有角色都应该是“一级智能”的，因为这是他们成为可信角色的最低要求**。这意味着他们应该有“优化的内在火花”。
>
> Writing characters with an inner spark of life and optimization: not characters that do super-amazing clever things, but characters that are trying in routine ways to optimize their own life in a reasonably self-aware fashion.
>
> 写作时要赋予角色生命和优化的内在火花：不是那些做出超凡脱俗、聪明绝顶之事的角色，而是那些以一种相当自觉的方式，在日常生活中努力优化自己生活的角色。
>
> **If you create a character you truly respect, you will hesitate to model them as stupid**.  Professor Quirrell’s cynicism (though not, so far as I know, his intent to kill) is based on a mixture of two cynical friends of mine, Robin Hanson and Michael Vassar. I respect Hanson and Vassar enough that even when they are wrong I generally consider them as being persuasively wrong. When I mentally hold Professor Quirrell to the standard of my model of Hanson and Vassar, my brain makes Professor Quirrell generate persuasive cynicism, and insert as many grains of truth as possible even though I disagree with his conclusions.
>
> **如果你创造一个你真正尊重的角色，你会犹豫是否将他们塑造得愚蠢**。奇洛教授的愤世嫉俗（虽然据我所知，他没有杀人的意图）是基于我的两个愤世嫉俗的朋友，罗宾·汉森和迈克尔·瓦萨的混合体。我非常尊重汉森和瓦萨，以至于即使他们错了，我通常也认为他们错得很有说服力。当我在脑海中将奇洛教授与我心目中汉森和瓦萨的模型进行比较时，我的大脑会使奇洛教授产生有说服力的愤世嫉俗，并在其中尽可能地插入一些真理，尽管我不同意他的结论。
>
> You can simply write a character as if they are BBC’s Sherlock, or Miles Vorkosigan, or any other person for whose thinking **you** feel a visceral respect. Your own literary voice will take over and shine through, and the vast majority of your readers will not notice the similarity unless you tell them… **if** you sympathized enough with Sherlock or Vorkosigan to have felt their inner lives, and you are generating them in their new role by continuing to lead that life from the inside. If you just use pattern completion to fill in the catchphrases that you saw on television, then yes, people will notice.
>
> 你可以简单地把一个角色写成像是BBC的夏洛克，或者迈尔斯·沃尔科西根，或者任何其他**你**从内心深处敬佩其思维方式的人。你自己的文学声音会接管并闪耀出来，绝大多数读者不会注意到相似之处，除非你告诉他们……**如果**你对夏洛克或沃尔科西根有足够的同情，能够感受到他们的内心世界，并且你通过从内部继续过着那种生活，在他们的新角色中生成他们。如果你只是用模式补全来填写你在电视上看到的口头禅，那么是的，人们会注意到。
>
> Or, to go back to the even simpler cheat, **you can check for intelligence by imagining yourself in the character’s shoes. What would you do if you became a vampire? What would you do if a vampire and a werewolf were both in love with you? If the answer is something you’ve never seen in a story before, you may have a plot on your hands**.
>
> 或者，回到更简单的作弊方法，**你可以通过设身处地地想象自己是角色来检验智力。如果你变成了吸血鬼，你会做什么？如果一个吸血鬼和一个狼人都爱上了你，你会做什么？如果答案是你以前从未在故事中见过的，你手上可能就有一个情节了**。
>
> Every Level 1 Intelligent character wants to toss your precious plot out the window, and will seize any available chance to do so. **You must craft their situations so that their optimizing responses drive the plot in the direction it needs to go**. If they must make mistakes, have them be intelligent mistakes; ideally, have the reader not see it either on a first reading.
>
> 每个一级智能角色都想把你的珍贵情节扔出窗外，并会抓住任何可用的机会这样做。**你必须精心设计他们的处境，以便他们的优化反应能推动情节朝着需要的方向发展**。如果他们必须犯错，让他们犯聪明的错误；理想情况下，让读者在第一次阅读时也看不出来。

###### I can't find the source for these ones
###### 我找不到这些的出处

> Most well-written characters have something they want—or something they **think** they want. The more fascinating characters also have something they don’t want you to know. The best ones also have something they’re not pulling off nearly as well as they think.
>
> 大多数写得好的角色都有他们想要的东西——或者他们**认为**他们想要的东西。更迷人的角色还有一些他们不希望你知道的事情。最好的角色还有一些他们做得远不如他们自己想象的那么好的事情。

#### Style
#### 风格

###### [Frederick Reiken's essay in "A Kite in the Wind"](https://www.amazon.com/Kite-Wind-Fiction-Writers-Their/dp/1595340726)
###### [弗雷德里克·雷肯在《风筝》中的文章](https://www.amazon.com/Kite-Wind-Fiction-Writers-Their/dp/1595340726)

> Many authors write characters that feel "flat", like the reader isn't really **seeing** them. This is often caused by a failure to invent the main character, visually and in relation to some objective external context. He has not "conceived of the fictional construct as an other", and is in effect stuck inside the character, usually right behind the character's two eyes. What has happened is an author-narrator-character merge.
>
> 许多作者写的角色感觉“扁平”，就像读者没有真正**看到**他们一样。这通常是由于未能从视觉上和与某些客观外部背景的关系中创造出主角。他没有“将虚构的结构构想为另一个”，实际上被困在角色内部，通常就在角色的两只眼睛后面。发生的是作者-叙述者-角色的融合。
>
> When this happens, the main character is nothing more than a narrating device, and hence not much of a character at all.
>
> 当这种情况发生时，主角只不过是一个叙述工具，因此根本算不上一个角色。
>
> The three parts must be separated. They are:
>
> 这三个部分必须分开。它们是：
>
> 1. The author is a human being who exists outside of the book's textual universe.
> 
> 作者是一个存在于书本文本宇宙之外的人。
> 2. The narrator is a construct of language, invented for the purpose of presenting and translating the novel's action such that a reader can stay oriented with the narrative's sentence-by-sentence flow.
> 
> 叙述者是语言的产物，是为了呈现和翻译小说的情节而发明的，以便读者能够跟上叙事的逐句流动。
> 3. The character is the actual character, you know this part
> 
> 角色就是实际的角色，这部分你懂的。
>
> You might think that when the narrator is the book's protagonist, for example in all first person novels, there is no distinction to be made between narrator and character. Wrong! The key to a successfully executed first-person novel lies in the relationship between that first person as narrator and as character.
>
> 你可能会认为，当叙述者是书的主角时，例如在所有第一人称小说中，叙述者和角色之间没有区别。错了！成功执行的第一人称小说的关键在于第一人称作为叙述者和作为角色之间的关系。
>
> Here are 5 examples of psychic distance, in order from most to least distant, from John Gardner's The Art Of Fiction
>
> 以下是约翰·加德纳《小说艺术》中5个心理距离的例子，按从远到近的顺序排列：
>
> 1. It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of the doorway.
> 
> 那是1853年的冬天。一个高大的男人从门口走了出来。
> 2. Henry J. Warbutton had never much cared for snowstorms
> 
> 亨利·J·沃伯顿从来就不怎么喜欢暴风雪。
> 3. Henry hated snowstorms
> 
> 亨利讨厌暴风雪。
> 4. God how he hated these damn snowstorms
> 
> 天哪，他多讨厌这些该死的暴风雪。
> 5. Snow. under your collar, deep inside your shoes, freezing and plugging up your miserable soul.
> 
> 雪。钻进你的衣领，深入你的鞋底，冻结并堵塞你可怜的灵魂。
>
> Most third-person narratives proceed with constant modulation of the psychic distance, moving like a camera eye between longrange establishing shots and very limited, close-range character point of view, and then back out to longer-range shots again. But in a case in which the author has not fully imagined the point-of-view character - often because the author has not fully imagined the character as a bona fide other- the ANC relationship gets structured to there is little or no psychic distance between narrator and character, no way for us to see the character moving through a setting or situation, and hence, though unintentionally, what I am called a merged effect. With regard to Gardner's examples, we might say that in the case of a problematic merge, the psychic distance never becomes greater and usually stays continuously at what we see in example 3. That is, the most we get is a sense of being inside the character's head, but we never actually see him.
>
> 大多数第三人称叙事都通过不断调整心理距离来进行，像摄像机镜头一样在远景定场镜头和非常有限的近景角色视角之间移动，然后再回到更远的镜头。但在作者没有充分想象出视角角色的情况下——通常是因为作者没有将角色完全想象成一个真正的他人——作者-叙述者-角色（ANC）关系被构造成叙述者和角色之间几乎没有心理距离，我们无法看到角色在场景或情境中移动，因此，虽然是无意的，但我称之为融合效应。就加德纳的例子而言，我们可以说，在一个有问题的融合案例中，心理距离从未变大，通常持续停留在我们在例子3中看到的状态。也就是说，我们最多只能感觉到自己身处角色的脑海中，但我们从未真正看到他。

[Paraphrased for brevity]
 
[为简洁起见，意译]

> When writing dialogue, a good goal is to be able to write dialogue without dialogue tags and still have it be clear to the reader who’s saying what, especially in conversations with multiple people. You can do this by giving characters consistent word choice, sentence length, propensity to use metaphors and what type of metaphors they use. For example, if someone grew up on a dock they might say “gutted like a fish“. You can also vary the types of arguments they make and what they’re arguing for. That makes dialogue really really good.
>
> 写对话时，一个好的目标是能够在没有对话标签的情况下写对话，并且仍然让读者清楚是谁在说话，尤其是在多人对话中。你可以通过赋予角色一致的词语选择、句子长度、使用隐喻的倾向以及他们使用的隐喻类型来做到这一点。例如，如果有人在码头长大，他可能会说“像鱼一样被剖开”。你还可以改变他们提出的论点类型以及他们所争论的内容。这会让对话变得非常非常好。
>
> Additionally you should try to communicate character details through their internal experience rather than just saying them directly. For example “of *course* she doesn’t want to get her shoes dirty“ rather than “she hated her because she was a prep”. This is a lifelong journey for most writers especially in first drafts.
>
> 此外，你应该尝试通过角色的内心体验来传达角色细节，而不是直接说出来。例如，用“她*当然*不想弄脏她的鞋子”代替“她讨厌她，因为她是个预科生”。这对大多数作家来说是一生的旅程，尤其是在初稿中。
>
> If you can do this, you are going to sell books *fast*. You want opening chapter to be full of almost no infodumps, dialogue that snaps off the page and tells you who they are from the way that they talk, and gets across setting and character though these kinds of contextual clues, then you’re doing better than 99% of people who are trying to get published or who are self publishing. If you can practice one skill, do this one.
>
> 如果你能做到这一点，你的书会卖得*很快*。你希望开篇章节几乎没有信息倾泻，对话跃然纸上，从他们说话的方式就能告诉你他们是谁，并通过这些上下文线索传达背景和角色，那么你比99%试图出版或正在自行出版的人做得更好。如果你能练习一项技能，就练习这一项。

#### Worldbuilding
#### 世界构建

###### Me
###### 我

> After adding a magical mechanic, you should see what measures you can take to have the population of your world “exploit” it. Your society will not feel real if your changes have had no second order effects
>
> 在添加了一个魔法机制后，你应该看看可以采取什么措施来让你的世界中的人们“利用”它。如果你的改变没有产生二阶效应，你的社会就不会感觉真实。

[Paraphrased for brevity]
 
[为简洁起见，意译]

> it’s almost always better to expand on what you already have than to build something new. For example, if you have three main religions in your fantasy that are fleshed out and all based on a common stem, that’s better and more interesting than having 10 unrelated religions.
>
> 几乎总是，扩展已有的东西比构建新的东西更好。例如，如果你的奇幻世界中有三个主要宗教，它们都经过了充实，并且都基于一个共同的根源，那比拥有10个不相关的宗教更好、更有趣。

> You should tend to introduce as little worldbuilding as you can to get the scene across
>
> 你应该倾向于在传达场景时，尽可能少地引入世界观设定。

#### Theme
#### 主题

###### [Eliezer Yudkowsky's "True Moral Conflicts"](https://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing/moral-conflicts)
###### [埃利泽·尤德科夫斯基的《真正的道德冲突》](https://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing/moral-conflicts)

> A true and untainted ideal is not necessarily an ideal whose advocates are all pure, or an ideal whose policies have no downsides. A true ideal is a goal that is worth optimizing for despite it all, that is still a warm bright feeling even in a complicated world. If you cannot let yourself feel that warm bright feeling and talk about it in public, you will not be able to put it into your story, and you will not be able to have your readers sympathize with your ideals. Look within yourself for the morals, ethics, aesthetics, virtues, the features of reality that you still treasure. You have created a true moral conflict when you bring two such high ideals into opposition, balanced so that you’re not sure of the right side yourself; or when you find a moral question within the high ideal whose answer you are not sure of, and around which you can construct a story
>
> 一个真实而纯粹的理想，不一定是一个其倡导者都纯洁无瑕，或者其政策没有任何缺点的理想。一个真实的理想是一个值得为之优化，即使在复杂的世界中仍然是一种温暖明亮感觉的目标。如果你不能让自己感受到那种温暖明亮的感觉，并公开谈论它，你就无法将它融入你的故事，也无法让你的读者同情你的理想。在自己内心寻找你仍然珍视的道德、伦理、美学、美德以及现实的特征。当你将两个如此崇高的理想对立起来，平衡到你自己都不确定哪一方是正确的时，你就创造了一个真正的道德冲突；或者当你在崇高的理想中发现一个你也不确定答案的道德问题，并围绕它构建一个故事时。

#### Plot
#### 情节

###### [David Deutsch's "The Beginning of Infinity"](https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Transform-World/dp/0143121359)
###### [大卫·多伊奇的《无限的开端》](https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Transform-World/dp/0143121359)

> In some stories the plot is not important: the story is really about something else. But a good plot always rests, implicitly or explicitly, on good explanations of how and why events happen, given its fictional premises. In that case, even if those premises are about wizards, the story is not really about the supernatural: it is about imaginary laws of physics and imaginary societies, as well as real problems and true ideas.
>
> 在一些故事中，情节并不重要：故事真正讲述的是其他东西。但一个好的情节总是，或明或暗地，建立在对事件如何以及为何发生的良好解释之上，给定其虚构的前提。在这种情况下，即使那些前提是关于巫师的，故事也并非真正关于超自然：它是关于想象的物理定律和想象的社会，以及真实的问题和真实的思想。

This section is a little lacking without context on what Deutsch means by "good explanations". I think is the most important component is the property of being "hard to vary while still doing the job":

在没有多伊奇所说的“好的解释”的背景下，这部分内容有点欠缺。我认为最重要的组成部分是“在仍然完成工作的同时难以改变”的特性：

> Good explanations are often strikingly simple or elegant.
>
> 好的解释往往惊人地简单或优雅。

> [Good explanations] are distinguished by being hard to vary while still fulfilling their functions
>
> [好的解释]的特点是，在仍然履行其功能的同时，难以改变。

> ‘Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall.’ That is how Mozart’s music is described in Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play Amadeus. This is reminiscent of the remark by John Archibald Wheeler with which this book begins, speaking of a hoped-for unified theory of fundamental physics: ‘an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it…how could it have been otherwise?’
>
> “挪动一个音符，就会有所减损。挪动一个乐句，结构就会崩溃。”这是彼得·谢弗1979年的戏剧《阿玛迪斯》中对莫扎特音乐的描述。这让人想起约翰·阿奇博尔德·惠勒在本书开篇时说的一句话，他谈到了一种希望中的基本物理学统一理论：“一个如此简单、如此美丽的想法，以至于当我们理解它时……它怎么可能不是这样呢？”
>
> Shaffer and Wheeler were describing the same attribute: being hard to vary while still doing the job. In the first case it is an attribute of aesthetically good music, and in the second of good scientific explanations. And Wheeler speaks of the scientific theory as being beautiful in the same breath as describing it as hard to vary.
>
> 谢弗和惠勒都在描述同一个属性：在仍然完成工作的同时难以改变。在第一种情况下，它是美学上好的音乐的属性，在第二种情况下，它是好的科学解释的属性。惠勒在描述科学理论难以改变的同时，也称其为美丽的。

## Nonfiction
## 非虚构

#### Keeping reader attention
#### 保持读者注意力

> Finishing a paragraph or section gives people a micro-burst of accomplishment and reward. It helps them chunk the basic insight together and remember it for later. You want people to be going – “okay, insight, good, another insight, good, another insight, good” and then eventually you can tie all of the insights together into a high-level insight. Then you can start over, until eventually at the end you tie all of the high-level insights together. It’s nice and structured and easy to work with. If they’re just following a winding stream of thought wherever it’s going, it’ll take a lot more mental work and they’ll get bored and wander off.
>
> 完成一个段落或一个部分会给人一种微小的成就感和回报感。这有助于他们将基本的见解整合在一起，并为以后记住它。你希望人们会说——“好的，一个见解，很好，又一个见解，很好，再一个见解，很好”，然后最终你可以将所有的见解联系在一起，形成一个更高层次的见解。然后你可以重新开始，直到最后你将所有更高层次的见解联系在一起。这样既美观又结构化，易于操作。如果他们只是随波逐流地跟着一个蜿蜒的思绪，那会需要更多的脑力，他们会感到无聊并走神。

> Your brain gets bored if it has to focus on the same thing for too long. But you can get around that by making an activity look like many different things. Sometimes this is as simple and as dumb as putting Roman numeral one, Roman numeral two, etc at natural breaks in the article, and then your brain thinks “Oh, I guess there are two different things here”. But other times you actually have to vary the reading experience.
>
> 如果你的大脑长时间专注于同一件事，它会感到厌倦。但你可以通过让一项活动看起来像许多不同的事情来解决这个问题。有时，这就像在文章的自然断点处加上罗马数字一、罗马数字二等一样简单而愚蠢，然后你的大脑会认为“哦，我猜这里有两件不同的事情”。但其他时候，你实际上需要改变阅读体验。

> Now try microhumor. It’s things that aren’t a *joke* in the laugh-out-loud told-by-a-comedian sense, but still put the tiniest ghost of a smile on your reader’s face while they’re skimming through them.
> ...
> I think this microhumor stuff is really important, maybe the number one thing that separates really enjoyable writers from people who are technically proficient but still a chore to read. Think about it with a really simplistic behaviorist model where you keep doing things that give you little bursts of reward, and stop doing things that don’t. There are only a couple of sources of reward in reading. One of them is getting important insights. Another is hearing things that support your ingroups or bash your outgroups. And a third – maybe the biggest – is humor. Who ever had trouble slogging through a really hilarious book of jokes?
>
> 现在试试微幽默。它不是那种能让你哈哈大笑的喜剧演员讲的*笑话*，但当你的读者浏览时，它仍能让他们脸上浮现一丝微笑。
> ...
> 我认为这种微幽默的东西非常重要，也许是区分真正有趣的作家和那些技术娴熟但读起来仍然很费劲的人的第一件事。用一个非常简单的行为主义模型来思考它，你不断地做那些能给你带来小奖励的事情，而停止做那些不能的事情。阅读中只有几个奖励来源。其中之一是获得重要的见解。另一个是听到支持你的内群体或抨击你的外群体的事情。第三个——也许是最大的——是幽默。谁会觉得读一本非常搞笑的笑话书很费劲呢？

#### [Steve Sailer's comment](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/#comment-329310)
#### [史蒂夫·塞勒的评论](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/#comment-329310)

> A useful Dave Barry technique is to make the last word in the sentence the funniest.
>
> 一个有用的戴夫·巴里技巧是，让句子中的最后一个词最有趣。

> "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones." Good writing starts strong. Not with a cliché (“Since the dawn of time”), not with a banality (“Recently, scholars have been increasingly concerned with the question of …”), but with a contentful observation that provokes curiosity.
>
> “我们终将一死，这使我们成为幸运儿。”好的写作开篇有力。不是以陈词滥调（“自古以来”），也不是以平庸之词（“最近，学者们越来越关注……的问题”），而是以一个引人好奇、内容丰富的观察开始。

###### [Julian Sharpiro's "Writing Better"](https://www.julian.com/guide/write/intro)
###### [朱利安·夏皮罗的《写得更好》](https://www.julian.com/guide/write/intro)

> Hooks are half-told stories. Tease something fascinating, but don’t fully reveal the details.
>
> 钩子是讲了一半的故事。挑逗一些引人入胜的东西，但不要完全透露细节。
>
> How to generate hooks:
>
> 如何产生钩子：
>
> 1. Ask yourself, “If someone else wrote my intro, what are the most captivating questions they could pose to make me excited to read this?”
> 
> 问问自己：“如果别人写我的引言，他们能提出哪些最引人入胜的问题来让我兴奋地阅读这篇文章？”
> 2. Write those questions down. Even if you lack the answers.
> 
> 把那些问题写下来。即使你没有答案。
> 3. Rank your questions by how much they interest you.
> 
> 根据它们对你的吸引程度对你的问题进行排序。
> 4. The top questions become your hooks: Pose them in your intro and don't reveal their answers.
> 
> 最重要的问题就成了你的钩子：在你的引言中提出它们，但不要透露答案。

> Ask feedback-givers to highlight every sentence that gives them a dopamine hit — the little moments of "that was interesting." For each hit, increase a counter at the end of the corresponding sentence. Like this (3). If there are sections without dopamine hits, make those sections shorter or inject more insight and surprise into them.
>
> 请反馈者标出每一个让他们产生多巴胺冲击的句子——那些“那很有趣”的小时刻。对于每一次冲击，在相应句子的末尾增加一个计数器。像这样（3）。如果没有多巴胺冲击的部分，就把这些部分缩短，或者注入更多的见解和惊喜。

> Use paragraphs of five sentences or fewer. This cushions paragraphs with white space, reducing the perceived reading workload. Short paragraphs also provide readers more opportunities to pause and reflect on your ideas.
>
> 使用五个或更少句子的段落。这可以用空白来缓冲段落，减少感知的阅读工作量。短段落也为读者提供了更多停下来思考你的观点的机会。

#### The flow of ideas
#### 思想的流动

> If you’re writing three paragraphs that are three different pieces of evidence for the same conclusion that you’re going to present afterwards, make damn sure your readers know this.
> ...
> Use strong concept handles. The idea of concept-handles is itself a concept-handle; it means a catchy phrase that sums up a complex topic.
>
> 如果你正在写三个段落，它们是你要在之后提出的同一个结论的三个不同证据，那么务必确保你的读者知道这一点。
> ...
> 使用强有力的概念抓手。概念抓手的想法本身就是一个概念抓手；它指的是一个朗朗上口的短语，概括了一个复杂的主题。

###### [FullMeta_Rationalist's comment](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/#comment-329411)
###### [FullMeta_Rationalist 的评论](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/#comment-329411)

> English teachers say that every essay should have a thesis. I have a personal rule that goes further: each paragraph should have a “mini-thesis”. It doesn’t always have to actually exist on paper, but it should at least be implied.
>
> 英语老师说每篇文章都应该有一个论点。我有一个更进一步的个人规则：每个段落都应该有一个“小论点”。它不一定非要写在纸上，但至少应该是隐含的。
>
> As a test during editing: In the side margins, annotate each paragraph with its mini-thesis. If I can’t construct a concise mini-thesis for each paragraph, it signals that I’ve written a “run-on paragraph”. I.e. a single paragraph which deserves to be split into two or more paragraphs.
>
> 在编辑过程中的一个测试：在旁边的空白处，为每个段落标注其小论点。如果我不能为每个段落构建一个简洁的小论点，这表明我写了一个“冗长段落”，即一个应该被分成两个或更多段落的段落。
>
> As a second test: concatenate together all the mini-theses (and the thesis itself) into a single paragraph. Does it serve as a logically-organized summary of the larger essay? If not, this signals that the audience won’t find my argument very cogent.
>
> 作为第二个测试：将所有的小论点（以及论点本身）连接成一个段落。它能作为一个逻辑清晰的大文章摘要吗？如果不能，这表明观众不会觉得我的论点很有说服力。

> A bare syntactic tree, minus the words at the tips of its branches, lingers in memory for a few seconds after the words are gone, and during that time it is available as a template for the reader to use in parsing the next phrase. If the new phrase has the same structure as the preceding one, its words can be slotted into the waiting tree, and the reader will absorb it effortlessly. The pattern is called structural parallelism, and it is one of the oldest tricks in the book for elegant (and often stirring) prose:
>
> 一个裸露的句法树，减去其枝头的词语，在词语消失后会在记忆中停留几秒钟，在此期间，它可作为读者解析下一个短语的模板。如果新的短语与前一个短语具有相同的结构，其词语可以被插入到等待的树中，读者将毫不费力地吸收它。这种模式被称为结构平行，它是优雅（且常常激动人心）的散文中最古老的技巧之一：
>
> Note, too, how parallel syntax can allow a reader to make sense of even the most unintelligible of the garden path sentences: **Though the horse guided past the barn walked with ease, the horse raced past the barn fell.**
>
> 还要注意，平行句法如何能让读者理解即使是最晦涩难懂的“花园路径”句子：**虽然被引导经过谷仓的马走得很轻松，但跑过谷仓的马却摔倒了。**

> People learn by integrating new information into their existing web of knowledge. They don’t like it when a fact is hurled at them from out of the blue and they have to keep it levitating in short-term memory until they find a relevant background to embed it in a few moments later. Topic-then-comment and given-then-new orderings are major contributors to coherence, the feeling that one sentence flows into the next rather than jerking the reader around.
>
> 人们通过将新信息整合到他们现有的知识网络中来学习。他们不喜欢一个事实突然被抛给他们，而他们必须在短时记忆中让它悬浮，直到几分钟后找到相关的背景来嵌入它。主题-然后-评论和已知-然后-新的顺序是连贯性的主要贡献者，这种感觉是一个句子流入下一个句子，而不是让读者感到困惑。

> One way to fashion an outline is to jot your ideas on a page or on index cards more or less at random and then look for ones that seem to belong together. If you reorder the items with the clusters of related ideas placed near one another, then arrange the clusters that seem to belong together in larger clusters, group those into still larger clusters, and so on, you’ll end up with a treelike outline.
>
> 制定大纲的一种方法是，或多或少地随机地将你的想法写在一页纸或索引卡上，然后寻找那些似乎属于一起的想法。如果你重新排列项目，将相关想法的集群放在彼此附近，然后将似乎属于一起的集群排列成更大的集群，将这些集群组合成更大的集群，依此类推，你最终会得到一个树状的大纲。

#### [onyomi's comment](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/#comment-329345)
#### [onyomi 的评论](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/#comment-329345)

> “the uneven U”: basically, if you can categorize sentences from 1-5, with 1 being a bland statement of detail/fact and 5 being an abstract, synthesis-oriented statement, then most paragraphs and subsections and chapters and books ought to follow a roughly “4-2-1-3-4-5” ish (“uneven U”) pattern. The idea is that each new paragraph or subsection or chapter should introduce and/or connect to some big ideas in the section preceding, move into the weeds to corroborate, and then move to some higher level of synthesis by the end.
>
> “不均匀的U”：基本上，如果你能将句子分为1-5级，1级是平淡的细节/事实陈述，5级是抽象的、综合性的陈述，那么大多数段落、小节、章节和书籍都应该遵循一个大致的“4-2-1-3-4-5”式（“不均匀的U”）模式。这个想法是，每个新的段落、小节或章节都应该引入和/或连接到前面部分的一些大思想，然后深入细节进行证实，最后达到一个更高层次的综合。

### Communication
### 沟通

> If you’re going to be making a complicated point, start with a concrete example. If you’re going to be making a *very* complicated point, start with a *lot* of concrete examples.
> ...
> You sound a lot more credible, and your opponents a lot less persuasive, if you’re the one who brings the possible counterarguments up yourself. This is true *regardless* of how effective your countercounterarguments are.
>
> 如果你要阐述一个复杂的观点，就从一个具体的例子开始。如果你要阐述一个*非常*复杂的观点，就从*大量*具体的例子开始。
> ...
> 如果你自己提出可能的反驳论点，你会听起来更有说服力，而你的对手则会显得不那么有说服力。这一点*无论*你的反反驳论点多么有效都是成立的。

> A considerate writer will also cultivate the habit of adding a few words of explanation to common technical terms, as in “Arabidopsis, a flowering mustard plant,” rather than the bare “Arabidopsis” (which I’ve seen in many science articles). It’s not just an act of magnanimity: a writer who explains technical terms can multiply her readership a thousandfold at the cost of a handful of characters, the literary equivalent of picking up hundred-dollar bills on the sidewalk. Readers will also thank a writer for the copious use of for example, as in, and such as, because an explanation without an example is little better than no explanation at all. For example: Here’s an explanation of the rhetorical term syllepsis: “the use of a word that relates to, qualifies, or governs two or more other words but has a different meaning in relation to each.” Got that? Now let’s say I continue with “… such as when Benjamin Franklin said, ‘We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.’” Clearer, no? No? Sometimes two examples are better than one, because they allow the reader to triangulate on which aspect of the example is relevant to the definition. What if I add “… or when Groucho Marx said, ‘You can leave in a taxi, and if you can’t get a taxi, you can leave in a huff’”?
>
> 一个体贴的作家也会养成对常用技术术语添加几句解释的习惯，例如“拟南芥，一种开花的芥菜植物”，而不是光秃秃的“拟南芥”（我在许多科学文章中都看到过）。这不仅仅是一种宽宏大量的行为：一个解释技术术语的作家可以用几个字符的代价将她的读者群扩大一千倍，这相当于在人行道上捡百元大钞。读者也会感谢作家大量使用例如、诸如和比如，因为没有例子的解释比没有解释好不了多少。例如：这里是对修辞术语“兼用法”的解释：“一个词与两个或多个其他词相关、限定或支配，但对每个词都有不同的含义。”明白了吗？现在假设我继续说“……例如本杰明·富兰克林说：‘我们必须团结一致，否则我们肯定会分别被绞死。’”更清楚了吗？没有？有时两个例子比一个好，因为它们能让读者通过三角定位来确定例子的哪个方面与定义相关。如果我加上“……或者格劳乔·马克斯说：‘你可以坐出租车离开，如果叫不到出租车，你可以气冲冲地离开’”呢？

> Chunking is not just a trick for improving memory; it’s the lifeblood of higher intelligence. As children we see one person hand a cookie to another, and we remember it as an act of giving. One person gives another one a cookie in exchange for a banana; we chunk the two acts of giving together and think of the sequence as trading. Person 1 trades a banana to Person 2 for a piece of shiny metal, because he knows he can trade it to Person 3 for a cookie; we think of it as selling. Lots of people buying and selling make up a market. Activity aggregated over many markets gets chunked into the economy. The economy now can be thought of as an entity which responds to actions by central banks; we call that monetary policy. One kind of monetary policy, which involves the central bank buying private assets, is chunked as quantitative easing. And so on.
>
> 组块不仅仅是提高记忆力的技巧；它是更高智能的命脉。当我们还是孩子的时候，我们看到一个人把饼干递给另一个人，我们把它记作给予的行为。一个人用饼干换另一个人的香蕉；我们将这两个给予的行为组合在一起，并把这个序列看作是交易。1号人用香蕉换2号人的一块闪亮的金属，因为他知道他可以用它换3号人的饼干；我们认为这是出售。许多人买卖构成了市场。许多市场上的活动汇总起来就形成了经济。经济现在可以被看作是一个对中央银行行为做出反应的实体；我们称之为货币政策。一种货币政策，涉及中央银行购买私人资产，被组合为量化宽松。等等。
>
> As we read and learn, we master a vast number of these abstractions, and each becomes a mental unit which we can bring to mind in an instant and share with others by uttering its name. **An adult mind that is brimming with chunks is a powerful engine of reason, but it comes with a cost: a failure to communicate with other minds that have not mastered the same chunks**. Many educated adults would be left out of a discussion that criticized the president for not engaging in more “quantitative easing,” though they would understand the process if it were spelled out. A high school student might be left out if you spoke about “monetary policy,” and a schoolchild might not even follow a conversation about “the economy.”
>
> 随着我们阅读和学习，我们掌握了大量的这些抽象概念，每一个都成为一个心理单元，我们可以在瞬间想到它，并通过说出它的名字与他人分享。**一个充满组块的成年人大脑是一个强大的推理引擎，但它也带来了代价：无法与没有掌握相同组块的其他大脑进行交流**。许多受过教育的成年人会被排除在批评总统没有进行更多“量化宽松”的讨论之外，尽管如果把过程说清楚他们也能理解。如果你谈论“货币政策”，一个高中生可能会被排除在外，而一个学童甚至可能跟不上关于“经济”的对话。

## My Advice
## 我的建议

I think a lot about ambiguity at a sentence and sub-sentence level. I really try hard to avoid garden-path sentences. For example, I never use the word "since" to mean "because" since it's easy to garden-path sentences that use "since" that way ("since <thing>" can usually be read either way at first.)

我经常思考句子和句子成分层面的歧义。我真的很努力地避免“花园路径”句子。例如，我从不使用“since”来表示“因为”，因为用这种方式使用“since”很容易造成“花园路径”句子（“since <事物>”一开始通常可以有两种解读）