Chapter 4 Attitudes
此章為本書最后一篇，作者泛泛而聊些寫作人的態(tài)度，恐懼、猶疑、愉快，對自己作品的捍衛(wèi)，對人生的探求，也親自操刀剖析了自己的文章。至此，本書翻譯就結(jié)束了。
20．The Sound of Your Voice
Don’t alter your voice to fit your subject. Develop one voice that readers will recognize when they hear it on the page.
（無論寫什么主題，爵士樂、棒球,他們都應(yīng)是“你的”文章，都應(yīng)該有你的印記）不要去改變自己的風(fēng)格以適應(yīng)某個主題，要形成自己的風(fēng)格好讓讀者第一眼就能認出你。
Taste is a quality so intangible that it can’t even be defined. But we know it when we meet it.
風(fēng)格難以捉摸也很難定義。但當(dāng)你看到時，你就能感覺到它。
The trick is to study who have it. Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process of anyone learning an art or a craft.
（如何形成自己的品味與風(fēng)格？）技巧就是研究那些你欣賞的作家、作品。不要猶豫是否要模仿，因為無論學(xué)習(xí)藝術(shù)還是手藝，模仿都是創(chuàng)造性過程的一部分。
Don’t worry that by imitating them you’ll lose your own voice and your own identity.? Soon enough you will shed those skins and become who you are supposed to become.
（去找你興趣領(lǐng)域內(nèi)最牛的作家，大聲讀出他們的作品。聽它們讀起來如何、風(fēng)格又怎樣以及他們對語言的態(tài)度。）不要擔(dān)心模仿他們會失去自己的特征，久了之后別人的印記就會慢慢退去，你就會變成你想要成為的人。
21．Enjoyment, Fear and Confidence
If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself. If I think it’s funny I assume a few other people will find it funny.
寫作時若有什么東西觸動了我，我就會把它寫下來。因為我想如果它很有趣觸動了我，那也能同樣取悅別人。
How can you fight off all those fears of disapproval and failure? One way to generate confidence is to write about subjects that interest you and that you care about.
（非虛構(gòu)類作品要對事實、采訪人物、事件地點與時間負責(zé)，不能過度描述）那你如何對抗這些失敗的恐懼呢？獲得自信的一個方法就是寫那些你感興趣，也關(guān)注的主題。
Remember this when you enter new territory and need a shot of confidence. Your best credential is yourself.
當(dāng)你要寫一個新領(lǐng)域卻害怕被別人說什么都不懂時，獲取自信最好的憑據(jù)就是你自己，以及真誠。
“That’s interesting.” If you find yourself saying it, pay attention and follow your nose. Trust your curiosity to connect with the curiosity of your readers.
“那很有趣?！比绻惆l(fā)現(xiàn)自己說了這句話，就要注意了并跟著感覺走。信任你的好奇心，它終將帶著你與讀者的好奇心相遇。
22．The Tyranny of the Final Product
I have no interest in teaching writers how to sell. I want to teach them how to write. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself, and sales are likely to follow.
我對教別人如何銷售作品并沒興趣，我只想教他們怎么寫。如果是好文章，流暢易懂，那么作品自己就會流轉(zhuǎn)、傳播開來，所謂銷售也就自然而然。
The writer would have to write about one small town in Iowa and thereby tell her larger story, and even within that one town she would have to reduce her story still further: to one store, or one family, or one farmer.
（一位女士想講述美國西部，從小到大已經(jīng)如何變遷）她必須通過描寫一個具體的小城來講述更宏觀的故事和主旨，甚至一座小城，她也要把故事主題縮小到一家商店，一個家庭，或者一個農(nóng)民。
The quest is one of the oldest themes in storytelling, an act of faith we never get tired of hearing about… something deeper than the place itself: a meaning , an idea, some silver of the past.
追尋一直是講故事最古老的主題了，我們永遠不會厭倦探尋人生。你要寫一個地方，要挖掘出比這個地方更深層次的東西：一個意義，一個想法，一些歲月光輝。
Moral: any time you can tell a story in the form of a quest or a pilgrimage you’ll be ahead of the game. Readers bearing their own associations will do some of your work for you.
任何時候，只要你能以一種追問或朝圣的形式去講述一個故事，往往你就領(lǐng)先了。讀者也會把自己投射進作品中，完成和故事的結(jié)合。
23．A Writer’s Decisions
All your clear and pleasing sentences will fall apart if you don’t keep remembering that writing is linear and sequential , that logic is the glue that holds it together, that tension must be maintained from one sentence to the next…
你要記住：寫作是線性的、連續(xù)的，要有邏輯、有張力、有敘述方式，不然所有你清晰、令人愉悅的句子就會分崩離析，不成一體。邏輯就像膠水，它把句子前后粘合起來；句子張力也要一直保持，從這個句子傳遞到下一個，從這一段落到下一段落，從這一篇章到下一篇章，而好的、傳統(tǒng)的故事敘述方式，就是在讀者毫不察覺間，拉著他們向前。（讓讀者覺得你寫的每一句都是選擇的必然。）
Each sentence contains one thought--- and only one. Readers can process only one idea at a time, and they do it in linear sequence.
每個句子有且只應(yīng)該包含一個想法。讀者一次只能處理一個想法，他們是以線性思維去理解的。
Never be afraid to break a long sentence into two shorts ones, or even three.
不要害怕將一個長句拆分成兩個短句，或者三個。
Now, what do your readers want to know next? Ask yourself that question after every sentence.
現(xiàn)在，想一想，讀者們接下來想要知道什么？在每個句子后，你都要問自己這個問題。
A crucial decision about a piece of writing is where to end it. Often the story will tell you where it wants to stop.
（有時它未必是你實際旅程的終點，如果你覺得再繼續(xù)下去并沒意思，只是一種苦差事只是為了完成而完成，那就停下來）一篇文章很重要的一個決定就是在哪兒結(jié)束。經(jīng)常是故事本身會告訴你它想停下來了。
When you get such a message from your material--- when your story tells you it’s over, regardless of what subsequently happened--- look for the door.
當(dāng)你從材料中收到一個訊息---你的故事告訴你該結(jié)束了，不管接下來發(fā)生什么，尋找那個結(jié)束的出口。
An exhortation I often use to keep myself going is” Getting on the plane.” As a nonfiction writer you must get on the plane. If a subject interests you, go after it, even if it’s in the next county or the next state or the next country. It’s not going to come looking for you.
一個我經(jīng)常用來保持自己前進的訓(xùn)告就是：涉身其中。作為一個非虛構(gòu)類作家，你必須要投注到一些不期而遇的事件中。如果一個主題使你感興趣，就去追尋它，即使它在另外一個鄉(xiāng)鎮(zhèn)，另外一個州，或另外一個國家。它不會自己來找你。
24．Writing Family History and Memoir
Only when they have children of their own--- and feel the first twinges of their own advancing age--- do they suddenly want to know more about their family heritage and all its accretions of anecdote and lore.
只有當(dāng)人們擁有了自己的兒女，第一次感受到年齡已去的陣痛，他們才突然想知道更多關(guān)于家族傳承的歷史，以及所有的傳說與軼事。
Writing is a powerful search mechanism, and one of its satisfactions is to come to terms with your life narrative. Another is to work through some of life’s hardest knocks--- loss, grief, illness, addiction, disappointment, failure--- and to find understanding and solace.
（回憶錄并不是為了出版）寫作是一個有力的探尋方式，它讓你與自己一生的過往，起伏榮衰達成和解。它另外一個作用就是穿過生命中最艱難的一些沖擊----失去，悲傷，疾病，沉溺，失望，失敗---來尋找理解和安慰。
Don’t try to be a “writer.”… Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere... Your product is you.
不要嘗試用“寫作者”的視角去寫回憶錄，正常地去敘說那些往事就好。做自己，讀者會跟隨你去任何地方。你一生的作品就是你自己。
Don’t worry about that problem in advance. Your first job is to get your story down as you remember it--- now.
（寫回憶錄，關(guān)于是否侵犯親朋好友的隱私）不要過早擔(dān)心隱私問題，你第一要務(wù)是趁你還能記得住時把它寫下來——趁現(xiàn)在。
What can be done? You must make a series of reducing decisions.（Think Small）
（最難部分是自傳從何處下手？寫誰？在哪兒結(jié)束？家族關(guān)系紛亂復(fù)雜，記憶碎片繁多）你必須要做些刪減的決定。（比如一個大家族，最好只寫一個分支，比如在爸媽分支選一邊來寫）
25．Write as Well as You Can
Therefore I’ve always tried to write as well as I could by my own standards: I’ve never changed my style to fit the size or the presumed education of the audience I was writing for.
因此我總是盡力寫好——以我自己的標準：我還從來沒改變我的風(fēng)格以適應(yīng)文章題材或者那些潛在的大眾。
When we say we like the style of certain writers, what we mean is that we like their personality as they express it on paper.
當(dāng)我們說喜歡某些作者的風(fēng)格時，其實是指我們喜歡他們所展現(xiàn)的個性。
We know that verbs? have more vigor than nouns, that active verbs are better than passive verbs, that short words and sentences are easier to read than long ones, that concrete details are easier to process than vague abstractions.
我們知道動詞比名詞更有生命力，主動語態(tài)比被動更好，短句子比長句子更容易閱讀，詳實的細節(jié)也總比模糊的抽象更容易推進。
You must take an obsessive, pride in the smallest details of your craft. And you must be willing to defend what you’ve written against the various middlemen--- editors, agents and publishers--- whose sights may be different from yours, whose standards not as high.
如果你想寫的比其他人好，你就不得不想寫的比其他人好。你必須要對你自己的作品有一種占有式的愛和驕傲。你必須要捍衛(wèi)自己所寫的東西，哪怕是要對抗不同的中間人，編輯，代理機構(gòu)，出版社----他們的眼光也許不同于你，他們的標準也許不如你高。
Remember that the craft of nonfiction writing involves more than writing. It also means being reliable. Editors will properly drop a writer they can’t count on.
（你對自己作品的在意與苛刻，以及準時交稿）意味著出版社認為你更可靠，編輯不想要一個他們不能依賴的作者。
A reporter once asked him how he managed to play so well consistently, and he said:” I always thought that there was at least one person in the stands who had never seen me play, and I didn’t want to let him down.”
(Joe DiMaggio是偉大的棒球外場手,我很驚訝他每天要付出多大的努力訓(xùn)練才能使他在賽場上看起來毫不費力。)一個記者曾問他怎么能一直打得這么好，他說：“我總是在想象著看臺上至少有一個人從來沒看過我打球，而我，不想讓他失望?！?/p>
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? <<完>>
書名：On Writing Well
原著：William Zinsser
翻譯：大汪，原創(chuàng)
出版社：Harper Collins Publisher
翻譯緣由：被稱為英文世界里的寫作圣經(jīng)，節(jié)選部分篇章翻譯
“本譯文僅供個人研習(xí)、欣賞語言之用，謝絕任何轉(zhuǎn)載及用于任何商業(yè)用途。本譯文所涉法律后果均由本人承擔(dān)。本人同意簡書平臺在接獲有關(guān)著作權(quán)人的通知后，刪除文章?！?/b>
