【閱讀＆書寫力】美國暢銷作家史蒂芬．金告訴你／妳的10個創作心智和寫作習慣養成的重要眉角

書本圖片來源：亞馬遜、博客來

 

 

　　此處分享一些重要寫作眉角來幫助你／妳有效、流暢地寫作。

 

　　這些寫作眉角摘錄自史蒂芬．金（Stephen King）《史蒂芬・金談寫作（On Writing: A Memoire of The Craft）》。

 

　　史蒂芬．金（Stephen King），美國暢銷書作家，寫過劇本、專欄評論，曾經擔任電影導演、製片及演員，作品多產，屢獲獎項。

 

　　史蒂芬．金（Stephen King）的智慧結晶是他橫跨20多年的寫作生涯的高峰，寫出不少暢銷小說，獲獎無數。

 

　　這裡摘錄的眉角較少著墨在「技術上，而是著重在「心智」層面，這些將有助於寫作的提昇。

 

❶It starts with this: put your desk in the cornor and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.

 

書寫，是這樣開始的：把你／妳的書桌置放在安靜角落，在那兒專心寫作（創造一個不受干擾的寫作環境，讓人可以在其中專注聚焦寫作，容易產生興奮和充實感等正向情緒的「心流」狀態）。現實生活不是靠藝術來支撐，藝術只是實際生活的點綴。

 

❷You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair, the sense that you can never completely put on the page what is in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it anyway but LIGHTLY. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank blank page.

 

你／妳可以因緊張、興奮、盼望抑或絕望而寫，那些內心快滿溢出來的情緒感受。你／妳緊握拳頭，或者渴盼求婚，甚至想改變世界。但你千萬不能腦袋一片空白、胸無點墨（抒發情緒，表達思想，必須學會認真生活、豐富生活經驗、廣深生命體驗）。

 

❸If possible, there should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or video games for you to fool around with. If there is a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a wall. For any writer, but for the beginning writer in particular, it's wise to eliminate every possible distraction. If you continue to write, you will begin to filter out these distractions naturally, but at the start it's best to try and take care of them before you write.

 

儘量排除那些會造成轉移注意力的干擾來源，諸如手機、電視、冰箱之類等。不過是否播放背景音樂，除了可以讓人更容易進入情緒之外，則因人而異。

 

❹Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affection.... Writing is refined thinking.

 

拋開恐懼，保持真實。寫作，是沉澱的思慮、精煉的思考。

 

❺If you want to be a writer you must do two things about all others: read a lot, write a lot. There is no way around these two things that I am aware of, no shortcut... If you don't have time to read, you don't have time to write. Simple as that.

 

如果想要成為作家，只有「多閱讀」、「勤寫作」，沒有其他捷徑。

 

❻Reading is the creative center of a writer's life. I take a book with me, everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in. The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows. Waiting rooms were made for books – of course!

 

❼The more you read the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.

 

❽Once weaned from the ephemeral craving for TV, most people will find they enjoy the time they spend reading. I'd like to suggest that turning off that endlessly quacking box is apt to improve the quality of your life as well as the quality of your writing.

 

❾Constant reading will pull you into a place (mind-set, if you like the phrase) were you can write eagerly and without self consciousness. It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn't; what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page.

 

❿It seems to me that every book – at least every one worth reading – is about something. Your job during or just after the first draft is to decide what something or sometnings yours is about. Your job in the second draft – one of them, anyway – is to make that sometning even more clear. This may necessitate some big changes and revisions. The benefits to you and your reader will be clearer focus and a more unified story. It hardly ever fails.