Name: 斯蒂芬-金《關於寫作》中的糟糕寫作建議：手藝回憶錄 (Bad Writing Advice from Stephen King's ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT)
Uploaded: 2024-09-19T17:10:51.000Z
Duration: 28 min 54 s

過去簡單式

Back in the year 2000, Stephen King published his book, On Writing, a memoir of the craft.

2000 年，斯蒂芬-金出版了《論寫作》一書，這是一本關於寫作技巧的回憶錄。

Since then, it's become the go-to book for new writers.

從那時起，這本書就成了新作家的必讀書。

形容詞最高級

It's hard to find a list of books for writers that doesn't include this one, and if you look at the best books for writers on Goodreads, this one is number one.

很難找到一份不包括這本書的作家書單，如果你查看 Goodreads 上最適合作家閱讀的書籍，這本書名列第一。

The only problem is, it's packed full of bad, unhelpful advice for new and amateur writers.

唯一的問題是，書中充斥著對新人和業餘作家毫無幫助的糟糕建議。

In this video, I'm going to walk you through the bad advice in the book, why it's wrong, and what you can actually do to level up your craft as a writer.

在本視頻中，我將帶您瞭解書中的錯誤建議、為什麼這些建議是錯誤的，以及作為一名作家，您究竟可以做些什麼來提高自己的寫作水平。

I'm the CEO of StoryGrid, where we help you build the skills, write a book, and leave your legacy.

我是 StoryGrid 的首席執行官，在這裡，我們幫助你培養技能、寫書並留下你的財富。

My partner Sean Coyne is the creator and founder of StoryGrid, and he is a writer and editor with over 30 years of experience.

我的合作伙伴肖恩-科因（Sean Coyne）是 StoryGrid 的創建者和創始人，他是一位擁有 30 多年經驗的作家和編輯。

Let me tell you something about Steve King.

讓我告訴你一些關於史蒂夫-金的事。

Steve King wishes he could write like me.

史蒂夫-金希望他能像我一樣寫作。

So first off, I'm a big fan of Stephen King.

首先，我是斯蒂芬-金的忠實粉絲。

I love his writing in Green Mile, Gwendy's Button Box, Joyland, Needful Things, and many other books.

我喜歡他在《綠裡》、《格溫迪的鈕釦盒》、《歡樂國度》、《需要的東西》以及其他許多書中的文字。

And what I love about Stephen King is he loves writing.

我喜歡斯蒂芬-金的地方在於他熱愛寫作。

He loves the storytelling, the act of writing, everything that goes into it.

他喜歡講故事，喜歡寫作，喜歡其中的一切。

The only problem is, it's not very helpful to new writers.

唯一的問題是，它對新作家的幫助不大。

The thing is that Stephen King submitted his first story for publication to a magazine called Spaceman way back in 1960.

事實上，早在 1960 年，斯蒂芬-金就向一本名為《太空人》的雜誌投稿，發表了他的第一篇小說。

Fast forward 14 years, it's 1974, and he publishes his first book, Carrie, which went on to be a huge bestseller, and he was 26 years old.

快進到 14 年後的 1974 年，他出版了自己的第一本書《嘉莉》（Carrie），這本書後來成為暢銷書，那一年他 26 歲。

By the year 2000, when On Writing came out, he was 53 years old and had been writing for over 40 years.

到 2000 年《論寫作》問世時，他已經 53 歲，從事寫作 40 多年。

And all of this extensive knowledge and experience as a writer leads to three problems with this book.

作為一名作家，所有這些豐富的知識和經驗導致本書存在三個問題。

The first problem is he's forgotten what it's like to be a beginner.

第一個問題是，他忘記了初學者的滋味。

The last time he was a newbie writer, he was a tween.

上一次他還是新手作家的時候，他還是個孩子。

First of all, just try to think back to when you were a tween and anything you were doing at that point.

首先，試著回想一下你還是個孩子的時候，你當時在做什麼。

And then think about something that you've been doing for over 40 years.

再想想你已經做了 40 多年的事情。

It's almost impossible to put yourself back in the shoes of a beginner.

要讓自己回到初學者的狀態幾乎是不可能的。

Which leads us to the problem number two.

The advice given in this book is from someone that knows how to consistently write well.

這本書中的建議來自於一個知道如何持續寫好文章的人。

So much advice in the book is tied to this idea that he can write consistently well, and so his first drafts are pretty good.

書中的很多建議都是基於這樣一個觀點，即他能持續寫出好作品，是以他的初稿也相當不錯。

He doesn't require a ton of editing because he's an expert that's been doing this, and that is not the position new and amateur writers find themselves in.

他不需要大量的編輯工作，因為他是一直在做這件事的專家，而這並不是業餘新作家的處境。

Problem number three is that almost everything he does in writing is intuitive.

問題三是他的寫作幾乎都是直觀的。

What you find when you work with professional writers is that most of them do it very intuitively, and they don't really understand how they do it.

當你與專業作家合作時，你會發現他們中的大多數人都是憑直覺寫作，他們並不真正瞭解自己是如何做到這一點的。

However, if you ask them how they write, they will talk for a long time.

但是，如果你問他們是如何寫作的，他們會說很久。

They just won't say stuff that will actually help you become a better writer.

他們只是不會說那些能真正幫助你成為更好的作家的東西。

There is a huge gap between being really good at something and being able to teach something.

在真正擅長某件事和能夠教授某件事之間存在著巨大的差距。

This is why Tiger Woods, even at the height of his golf career, still had a golf coach.

這就是為什麼泰格-伍茲即使在其高爾夫生涯的巔峰時期，仍然有一位高爾夫教練的原因。

Because being able to do something is different than being able to teach it.

因為能做一件事和能教一件事是不同的。

So now let's just break down the bad advice, and I'm just going to start with the just straight up condescending bits of this book.

所以，現在讓我們來分析一下這些糟糕的建議，我打算從這本書中直接居高臨下的部分開始。

About halfway through the book, he pauses to give his thesis, and part of that thesis is this.

書寫到一半時，他停頓了一下，提出了自己的論點，其中部分論點是這樣的。

While it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one.

雖然不可能從一個優秀的作家變成一個稱職的作家，但通過大量的努力、奉獻和及時的幫助，卻有可能從一個僅僅稱職的作家變成一個優秀的作家。

比如，我在生活中就知道這一點。

I became a competent writer, and now I'm a pretty good writer.

我成了一名稱職的作家，現在我是一名相當出色的作家。

We're going to lay great writer off to the side, because it's even hard to wrap our heads around what that is.

我們要把偉大的作家放在一邊，因為我們甚至很難理解那是什麼。

But this idea that you can't be a bad writer and then become a competent and then good writer is just nuts.

但是，這種認為你不可能成為一個糟糕的作家，然後成為一個稱職的、優秀的作家的想法簡直是瘋了。

Like, again, if I went back to when he was 10 years old and trying to write, I'm sure his first writing was bad writing, and yet he's forgotten what that's like.

就像，同樣，如果我回到他 10 歲時嘗試寫作，我敢肯定他的第一篇作文寫得很糟糕，但他卻忘記了那是什麼滋味。

And we see this all the time in the story grid, is we can take somebody that's just a legitimately bad writer, and if they learn the basic skills, they can become a competent and good writer.

在故事網格中，我們經常可以看到這樣的情況：我們可以讓一個寫得非常糟糕的人，通過學習基本技能，成為一個稱職的好作家。

This is where he addresses this idea of talent.

在這裡，他談到了 "天賦 "這一概念。

He says that talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless.

他說，天賦讓排練變得毫無意義。

In the context of this passage, what he's saying is writing shouldn't feel like work.

在這段話中，他的意思是寫作不應該像工作一樣。

You should be excited to sit down and write.

And if it feels like work, then you don't have the talent.

如果感覺像工作，那就是你沒有天賦。

And again, I just don't think this is true.

再說一遍，我不認為這是真的。

Most of us that are coming to writing when we're later in life, the problem is we've wanted to do it a long time, and now we're actually trying to sit down and do it.

我們中的大多數人都是在晚年才開始寫作的，問題是我們早就想這麼做了，現在我們才真正想坐下來寫作。

And just because it takes some work to get us in that chair and typing the words, doesn't mean we don't have this magical thing called talent.

讓我們坐在椅子上敲打文字需要付出一些努力，但這並不意味著我們沒有一種叫做天賦的神奇力量。

What we do have is responsibilities and jobs and decades of voices in our head from family members saying we're wasting our time.

我們有的只是責任和工作，還有幾十年來家人在我們腦子裡說我們在浪費時間的聲音。

We have all of those things that we're trying to work past.

So when I read this, I feel like it can just be really demoralizing if you're a new writer just trying to get in the seat and start writing.

是以，當我讀到這篇文章時，我覺得如果你是一個剛開始嘗試寫作的新作家，這真的會讓你士氣低落。

And you read this, and you think, well, maybe I just don't have the talent.

讀到這裡，你會想，也許我只是沒有天賦。

Next up, let's look at this advice around read a lot and write a lot.

接下來，讓我們圍繞 "多讀 "和 "多寫 "來看看這些建議。

他有很多關於這個問題的段落。

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others.

如果你想成為一名作家，你必須首先做到兩件事。

There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of.

據我所知，這兩件事是繞不過去的。

在這個問題上，我能直言不諱嗎？

If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

如果沒有時間閱讀，就沒有時間或工具寫作。

I like to get 10 pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words.

我喜歡每天寫 10 頁，相當於 2000 字。

That's 180,000 words over a three-month span, a good-ish length for a book, something in which the reader can happily get lost.

在三個月的時間裡，這本書的篇幅達到了 180,000 字，對於一本書來說，這個篇幅還算不錯，讀者可以樂在其中。

And because I'm feeling magnanimous, I'll also suggest that you take one day a week off, at least to begin with.

因為我覺得自己寬宏大量，所以我也建議你每週休息一天，至少從一開始。

You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot.

And the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.

而最有價值的課程就是你自己給自己上的課。

Now, I have a whole video dedicated to this advice of read a lot and write a lot, and why it isn't true, and it doesn't work, and it is full of this idea of survivorship bias.

現在，我有一整段視頻專門講述 "多讀多寫 "這個建議，以及為什麼它是不正確的、行不通的，它充滿了 "倖存者偏差 "這個概念。

But I'm just going to stop here and say, this idea that the only way that you can learn writing is to just churn out 1,000 words a day and then read a lot of books is, again, kind of nuts.

但我想說的是，這種認為學習寫作的唯一方法就是每天寫出1000字，然後讀大量書籍的想法，同樣有點瘋狂。

First of all, there's lots of people that read a lot, and they can't write.

首先，有很多人讀了很多書，卻不會寫作。

There's lots of people that write a lot, and they also are writing bad.

有很多人寫了很多東西，但他們也寫得很糟糕。

This is what we teach all the time at Story Grid, that there are basic skills that you can learn as a writer, and actually focusing on those and working on those is a shortcut.

這也是我們在《故事網格》（Story Grid）一直教授的內容，作為一名作家，你可以學習一些基本技能，而真正專注於這些技能並在此基礎上進行創作是一條捷徑。

It's still hard work, but it's not random.

這仍然是艱苦的工作，但並不是隨意的。

This idea that you just read a lot and then churn out 1,000 words a day and write these really long manuscripts where none of it works, and you just kind of hope one day it'll work, that's not how writing and learning how to write should work.

這種想法是，你只需要大量閱讀，然後每天寫出 1000 個單詞，寫出這些很長的手稿，但其中沒有一個是有用的，你只是有點希望有一天它會起作用，這不是寫作和學習如何寫作應該有的方式。

It should be a systematic process of learning skills.

這應該是一個系統的技能學習過程。

So if you want to hear more about this, go down the description.

所以，如果你想了解更多，請往下看說明。

I have a link to my video talking about this myth of read a lot and write a lot.

我有一個關於 "多讀多寫 "這一神話的視頻鏈接。

About a third of the way through the book, Stephen King introduces this idea of a toolbox.

在本書大約三分之一的篇幅中，斯蒂芬-金提出了 "工具箱 "這一概念。

I want to suggest that to write to your best abilities, it behooves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so you can carry it with you.

我想說的是，要想最大限度地發揮自己的寫作能力，你應該構建自己的工具箱，然後積累足夠的經驗，以便能夠隨身攜帶。

Then, instead of looking at a hard job and getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the correct tool and get immediately to work.

這樣，你也許就不會看著一項艱鉅的工作而氣餒，而是會抓住正確的工具，立即投入工作。

The idea that you have a toolbox and then you're going to put tools in there and build up the skills to use those tools is exactly what we teach at Story Grid.

你有一個工具箱，然後把工具放進去，並培養使用這些工具的技能，這正是我們在 Story Grid 所教授的。

But when we talk about what these skills are, this is where I split ways from Stephen King and what he writes and on writing.

但是，當我們談論這些技能是什麼時，這就是我與斯蒂芬-金以及他的寫作和寫作技巧分道揚鑣的地方。

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斯蒂芬-金《關於寫作》中的糟糕寫作建議：手藝回憶錄 (Bad Writing Advice from Stephen King's ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT)

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