《On writing well》读书笔记

Posted 2023-04-06

参考技术A 《On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction》是一部关于非虚构写作的专业工具书，作者 William Zinsser 在书中通过自己在阅读和写作中不断积累的经验，写作中应该遵循的原则、方法、形式和心态，剖析了一个优秀的写作者通过运用语言创造出最大限度的清晰度和力度来吸引读者一段接一段地读下去的奥妙。

作者强调文字的简洁，写出我心的个人风格，信奉A love and respect for the language is evident on every page，方法最简单却最实用。书中还提供了各种非虚构文学的写作方法，包括访谈、游记、回忆录，甚至科学与技术，商务写作，体育、评议、幽默等，对写作小白来说都提供了很有价值的启发。

本文是关于《On writing well》中写作原则和写作技巧的读书笔记。

1.动手写。

写作不是一种天赋，而是任何一个人在经过科学训练后都能获得的一种能力。写作中最重要的是动手开始写，而不是寻找灵感。

绝大部分情况下，我们并不是因为有了灵感才开始写作，而是开始写作后才有了灵感。这是因为写作本身就是深度思考的过程，脑海中原本不清晰的逻辑和概念在写作中会慢慢理清，思路也会慢慢打开。静下心来，开始动笔，这是写出好文章的第一步。

2.好文章是改出来的。

好文章并不是灵感突现的产物，而是在粗糙原稿上无数次修改后的结果。就像William Zinsser在书中所说，要动手写，写完后大声把你的文字读出来，修改，再继续改，一直改到自己满意为止。好文章是改出来的。

3.写出我心。
热爱语言，尊重自己写的每一个字，带着情感去创作，这样才能写出优秀的作品。

1. Simplicity & Clutter 简洁

简洁性是On Writing Well整本书的灵魂。一句话也不多，一句话也不少就是这本书描述的写作最高境界。

2. Style 风格

最基本的原则就是做你自己。只有把自己融入到作品中，写出我心，才会有自己的风格。

The point isthat you have to strip your writing down before you can build it back up. Youmust know what the essential tools are and what job they were designed to do.Extending the metaphor of carpentry, it's first necessary to be able to sawwood neatly and to drive nails. Later you can bevel the edges or add elegantfinials, if that's your taste. But you can never forget that you are practicinga craft that's based on certain principles. If the nails are weak, your housewill collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, yoursentences will fall apart.

为什么必须要有自己的风格呢？

First, learn tohammer the nails, and if what you build is sturdy and serviceable, takesatisfaction in its plain strength.

Style is organicto the person doing the writing, as much a part of him as his hair, or, if heis bald, his lack of it. Trying to add style is like adding a toupee.The problem is not that he doesn'tlook well groomed; he does, and we can only admire the wigmaker's skill. Thepoint is that he doesn't look like himself.

Therefore a fundamental rule is: be yourself.

3. The audience 为谁而写

Who am I writing for?

It is a fundamental question, and it has afundamental answer: You are writing for yourself. Don't try to visualize thegreat mass audience. There is no such audience—every reader is a differentperson.Editors and readers don'tknow what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they're always lookingfor something new.

You are writingprimarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with enjoyment you willalso entertain the readers who are worth writing for. If you lose the dullardsback in the dust, you don't want them anyway.

Whatever yourage, be yourself when you write. Never say anything in writing that youwouldn't comfortably say in conversation.

4. Words 措辞

其中深为认同的一点是要写好文章，首先学会模仿。朗读喜欢作家的作品，尽情地模仿他，坚持练习下去，不知不觉中脱胎换骨成了另一个自己。写作需要灵感，但更需要坚持和练习。

Make a habit of reading what is being writtentoday and what has been written by earlier masters. Writing is learned byimitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I'd say I learned byreading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do andtrying to figure out how they did it. But cultivate the best models.

Also get in the habit of using dictionaries.看到这里我很有马上下单买一本同义词词典的冲动！

Suchconsiderations of sound and rhythm should be woven through everything youwrite. If all your sentences move at the same plodding gait, which even yourecognize as deadly but don't know how to cure, read them aloud.

Remember thatwords are the only tools you've got. Learn to use them with originality andcare. And also remember: somebody out there is listening.

5. Unity 整体性

这一部分作者主要强调我们要从小处着眼，细节着手，用心去观察，才能写出与众不同的好文章。

Every writing project must be reduced before you start to write.

Therefore  think small.Decide what corner of your subject you're going to bite off, and be content to cover it well and stop. Often you'll find that along the way you've managed to say almost everything you wanted to say about the entire subject.

Enthusiasm is the force that keeps you going and keeps the reader in your grip.When your zest begins to ebb, the reader is the first person to know it.

As for what point you want to make, every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn't have before. Not two thoughts, or five—just one. So decide what single point you want to leave in the reader s mind. It will not only give you a better idea of what route you should follow and what destination you hope to reach; it will affect your decision about tone and attitude. Some points are best made by earnestness,some by dry understatement, some by humor.

文章的结构也很重要，一个好的开头，内容丰富的主体和牛光闪闪的结尾是一篇好的文章的核心三要素。

The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn't induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn't induce him to continue to the third sentence, it's equally dead.

The positivereason for ending well is that a good last sentence—or last paragraph—is a joyin itself. It gives the reader a lift, and it lingers when the article is over.The perfect ending should take your readers slightly by surprise and yet seemexactly right.

这本书的中文译名叫《写作宝典》，你get到了吗？

On Writing Well CH1-2

参考技术A arduous指费力的，需要花费很多时间、精力等。比如说写论文，办手续。书中指的是在医院的一天工作很多很累人，Dr. Brock一回家就直接拿起了黄色便签本开始写字，把白天工作的焦虑感一写而空。

drudge一般作名词，指做着无聊、困难工作的人。作者就说专业作家的工作是无聊的，困难的，是单打独斗的。他们不会去和别的作家见面聊天，就像Dr. Brock那样。

revelation ：something that is surprisingly good, enjoyable, or useful: 出乎意料的；令人大开眼界

 revelation to

Alice Walker's novel was a real revelation to me.

 revelation about 揭示.揭露

These are revelations about his private life.

revelatory . adj

His playing has many moments of revelatory insights.

Baggage :luggage or beliefs  行李；既有的信念

strangle ：to kill someone by pressing their throat 扼杀; 或：to limit or prevent the growth or development of something:妨碍，阻碍，束缚

同义：hamper, halter, cramp

Mills argues that high taxation strangles the economy.

assail ：v.

①  worry or upset you:为...困扰

be assailed by/ with

Carla was suddenly assailed by doubts.

② to attack someone or something violently 

a novel assailed by critics

③ to criticize someone or something severely:

 assail somebody for something  质问，攻击

He was assailed for gross misconduct.

He was totally assailed by implication of strike.

catch： [可数且通常单数] 非正式 a hidden problem or difficulty:

 the catch is (that)

The catch is that you can't enter the competition unless you've spent$100 in the store.

仿：The catch is that those children don't realize the implications of smoking.

But  there is a catch : once the compensatory changes have occurred—new muscle fibers have grown and become more efficient, new capillaries have grown, and so on.—— PEAK

 to make someone become involved in something, especially when they do not want to be involved 

to take someone or something with you when you go somewhere

to relax and do what you like

（to change into a different form that can beused for a different purpose or in a different way）

 piecing it out like an ancient rune, making guesses and  moving on .

to start talking about a new subject in a discussion, book etc

N-VARYour  avocation  is a job or activity that you do because you are interested in it, rather than to earn your living. 业余爱好; 嗜好

a group of specialists who give their advice or opinions about sth; a group of people who discuss topics of interest on television or radio专家咨询组；（广播，电视上的）讨论小组

Vaguely  means to some degree but not to a very large degree. 有点儿

此处指：（在聚会上）周旋，往来应酬。circulate原意有应酬的意思，此处指余人交往、往来。

You circulate at a party, you move among the guests and talk to different people.

a piece of writing circulates or is circulated = copies of it are passed round among a group of people.  （文章等）传递、传阅、散发

- 我尽量避免

Doing something  with gusto = with energetic and enthusiastic enjoyment. （做某事的）热情、兴致、精力

weave  symbols through his work:

将（素材等）编入（故事或设计中） weave details into a story or design = include

使困惑；使糊涂；使不知所措。 something bewilders someone

= puzzle, perplex, mystify, confound [= cause bafflement（阻碍、迷惑） or confusion]

25. a spell of （持续的）一段时间

持续某一个事件或情况：

I lived in London for a spell. 我再伦敦住过一阵子。

She had a brief spell as captain of the team. 她曾经当过一段时间的球队队长。

持续某一天气：

a spell of dry weather 一段天气干燥的日子

The weather broadcast is for dry, sunny spells.天气预报说是持续干燥的晴天。

其实，写作的形式、过程和方法并没有固定标准。不同的作家不同的习惯。 文中作为职业作家的William Zinsser 和外科医生兼职写作的Dr.Brock就给出了我们不同的看法：

Eric老师推荐给大家的几本中文书： 张大春的 《文章自在》 ，舒明月的 《大师的写作课》 ，村上春树的 《我的职业是小说家》 。

1. His was seemingly effortless style -- achieved, I knew, with great effort -- that I wanted to emulate, and whenever I began a new project I would first read some White to get his cadences into my ear .

cadence是“抑扬顿挫”的意思，也就是咱们说的语调和节奏。Steven Pinker在The Sense of Style中说: The best words not only pinpoint an idea better than any alternative but echo it in their sound and articulation, a phenomenon called phonesthetics, the feeling of sound.

phonaesthetics这个词是"voice-sound"和"aesthetics"的合体，我们在赏析语言的时候要注意用词的声音美。例如海明威在《老人与海》中写道：I can remember the tail slapping and banging and the thwart breaking and the noise of the clubbing.

tail, thwart, noise, slap, bang, break, club全都是单音节的词，读起来那个激烈的画面感就浮现了。尾巴四处拍打挣扎，船吱吱地裂开，棒子砰砰作响。这几个词准确、悦耳，一气呵成，非常漂亮。

2. Good writers welcomed the gift of being able to fuss endlessly with their sentences -- pruning and revising and reshaping -- without the drudgery of retyping.

drudgery和drudge在全书共出现了5词，一定要掌握它。drudge表示“做乏味工作的人“，drudgery表示“乏味的工作”。我们可以用这个词来替换hard boring work，例如I hated the drudgery of my work.

3. If readers connect with my book it's because they don't think they're hearing from an English professor. They're hearing from a working writer. (connect with表示“使某人感同身受”）

4. I've also incorporated lessions I learned by continuing to  wrestle with  the craft myself...

wrestle是“摔跤“的意思，wrestle with意思和deal with差不多，不过多了一层“这件事很困难”的意思。

5. But as always, there's a  catch . （catch在这里表示“陷阱”，口语中非常常见的一个表达。例如What's the catch？有什么猫腻？）

6. Dr. Brock exclaimed, and he described  with gusto  the joys of weaving them through his work.

gusto这个词就是和with一起用，with gusto表示“有热情“ ”很投入“”有干劲“，例如I run this reading club with great gusto. 我愿意做这件事，我开心，乐此不疲。

7. Maybe I should take up surgery on the side . （on the side表示“兼职”）

赏析&写作

1. The Elements of Style, his updating of the book that had most influenced him, written in 1919 by his English professor at Cornell, William Strunk Jr., was the dominant how-to manual for writers. Tough competition.

Tough competition. 独立成句的这种写法大家可能不习惯，也不敢这样写。前面很长的一个句子，突然停下来用短句下结论，读起来特别痛快。这样写的前提是要确保在这个语境中不会产生歧义。我暂时想不到更多的例子，在今后的阅读中我遇到这样的写法会分先给大家。

2.As America has steadily changed in 30 years, so has the book.

so+动词+主语，这个写法可以省去好几个字呢！

3. E-mail is an impromptu medium, not conducive to slowing down or looking back.

we sat down to face a crowd of students and teachers and parents, all eager to learn the secrets of our glamorous work.

这里我们可以学习的是：在medium和parents后并没有“which is" "who are"，因为没有它们这个句子的语义不会受任何影响，而且更简练。当我们写出who/whic is的时候，要看看是不是删掉也可以。

4. Out if it come two of the most important qualities that this book will go in search of: humanity and warmth.

这段话运用了倒装的手法。一般运用倒装手法有两个目的，一个是“强调”，另一个是“改变语序，便于修饰”，使得句式流畅、简洁。

Quotes

1. I don't know what still newer marvels will make writing twice as easy in the next 30 years. But I do know they won't make writing twice as good.2. Rewriting is the essence of writing.3. Clear thingking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.

Thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force on themselves, as if they were working on any other project that requires logic: making a shopping list or doing an algebra problem.

4. Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say?5. Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is had, it's because it IS hard.