The Written Word
If you reached this page without going through the six week opening sequence, I suggest you go directly to page one, and don't come back until you have a few dozen pages of fresh writing in your notebook.
I want to talk about writing now, the actual physical writing you put on the page, the words, the phrases, the sentences, the paragraphs, matters that lead toward grammar, vocabulary, syntax, diction, and all that other boring stuff you refused to learn when you were in school.
In all of these exercises I instructed you to write as well as you could. Now I ask you to look at your work and read it as well as you can.
Here is the test. Take a single sentence, examine it word by word, and ask yourself, exactly what does this say?
Let me give an example:
"Fascination riveted her eyes to his broad shoulders and his narrow waist as he walked away. " Really?
My apologies to the author who probably meant to say, "She could not keep her eyes from his broad shoulders and narrow waist as he walked away."
Of course, my "improvement" itself leaves a bit to be desired. But that's the point I want to make. Some things take a little thought. How would you rewrite that sentence?
That's why I say, examine what you have written, and compare it to what you meant to write.
Words mean. Every word you use means something.
Sentences mean. Every sentence you write means something.
Make certain your words and sentences mean what you meant them to mean. Don't say "The dog wagged his tail like a madman." Not unless you know a madman who has a tail, or a dog that wags madmen. Don't say, "In my mind I thought it would be a good idea." Where else do you think, if not in your mind? In your foot?
A good rule for beginners is to use words that are part of your everyday vocabulary. If you wouldn't say it, maybe you should think twice before writing it. If the woman has green eyes, why would you want to say "emerald eyes?" Don't do it unless you have a really good reason.
Keep your sentences short and simple. Don't stuff them with clauses and dependent clauses, adverbial phrases and parenthetical statements. Leave that for Henry James who knows how to do it.
Don't start every other sentence with an "ing" word, "Walking down the street,"
And especially don't start them that way in order to "vary" your sentence structure. This is something you learned in school, and it sounds like something you learned in school. At its best. At its worst, it leads you into dangling participles.
Keep in mind that written language differs from the language we speak because it must be more precise, and the reason it must be more precise is because it must communicate its message without the physical help of the author. Perhaps you have heard other writers read their work aloud, and perhaps you've heard some of them adding vocal emphasis, even to the point of acting out the lines, in hopes of getting the message across.
The bitter truth matter is that there is no joy for the reader in a piece that cannot deliver its message in silence.
When the adjectives and adverbs begin to pile up, this should be a warning sign. One adjective to a noun until you get the hang of it. No adverbs at all until you understand why it is peculiar to say "He shouted loudly."
Never, never, never say "Her eyes were like . . . " Every single time that word "like" comes up, stop and ask yourself, "Do I really want to do this?"
"He stood on the corner like a tattered clown."
You better have a good reason for writing a sentence like that.
Another word to watch out for is "as." Simple little "as." But "as" means something. It doesn't' mean "while" and it doesn't mean "during" and it doesn't man "since" and if you really wanted to use one of those other words, why in heaven's name didn't you do it? I have seen student manuscripts where the word "as" appears a dozen times on the very first page.
After a page of as's, I have to force myself to read what comes next.
Please learn some simple rules of grammar, beginning with pronouns. A non-English speaker might say, "Me hungry." A baby might say, "Me want candy." I can accept that. But when I hear a college educated adult say, "Between you and I," or "Someone left their coat on the table," I want to scream.
People do talk that way. You bet. But writers, well, writers should have more respect for the language they use.
If a writer does not master his or her language, who should? If a writer does not love the language, who shall?
A pronoun must relate to a noun. That's why we have them, so we don't have to say "see Dick run, Dick can run, Dick will run fast when Dick runs." We'd like to replace some of those "Dicks" with "he's."
(and oh yes, I know perfectly well that "Dick" does not always mean a young man's name. Let the above sentence serve as a warning to you.)
When a pronoun is singular, it relates to a singular noun. You should not say "see to it your child brushes their teeth." You can say "See to it your children brush their teeth." A singular child brushes his teeth, or her teeth, or simply brushes. I am perfectly aware that people are trying to avoid the use of the generic "he" and I sympathize with their motives. But we don't have to kill the language in order to get rid of sexism. "Someone left a coat on the chair" works perfectly fine. "See to it your child brushes after every meal," is not only better English, it is a better message. Only a person who has no respect at all for the language will not even try to get things right.
Find out when you should use "I," when you should use "me," and when you should use "myself." People who use "I" in the objective case give themselves away as total ninnies or snobs or simply lazybones with tin ears. The same can be said of people who use "he" when they should have said "him" and people who use "she" when they should have said "her."
People who use "myself" instead of "I" or "me" have been listening to too many Michael Jordan interviews on television.
In fact, it would be a rare fifteen minutes of television in which all of the above rules would not be gleefully violated at least a half dozen times, and always by people with degrees from journalism school.
When in doubt, look it up. Do not, under any circumstance, rely on any computerized grammar check program. I once wrote a full page in Word Perfect 6.1, and deliberately included an error in every sentence. The program missed them all.
A serious writer gets a handbook he or she feels comfortable using, and keeps it next to the word processor.
The real reason for using correct grammar is not because you or anyone else is a snob. It is because correct grammar communicates more accurately and is read with less effort and it sounds better.
Luckily, this is one aspect of writing almost anyone can learn. What cannot be learned is love for the language. Love begins with respect. In this case, your love will be repaid many times over.
Not everything can be found in a handbook. Many a college graduate with multiple degrees in English still cannot write. Thousands of journalists with millions of published words to their credit still cannot write. And most of these people, believe it or not, freely admit it.
You have to read and not just read magazines, newspapers, and the latest popular fiction. You have to read writers who know and love the language and have something real they want to say. You might start with George Orwell who could not and never did write a bad sentence. You might study Katherine Ann Porter and Flannery O'Connor, writers who embraced the American voice and made it sing on every page. You might turn to Ernest Hemingway who changed the way a whole generation of writers approached the language. You ought to read Ralph Ellison who knew words could be music and wrote pages so beautiful they bring tears to the eye. You should read F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote so easily and skillfully it almost does not seem fair.
I'm leaving out the living writers here, not because there aren't any who should be included, but because the real test comes after you are dead and are unlikely to write any more. If people still publish you and buy you and read you then, you know you must have done something right.
Or at least somebody knows it.
Read Chekhov, de Maupassant, and Isaac Babel. Even translators and editors cannot deflect the power of their voices.
Read. Read. Read.
And read as a writer. Watch how these other writers handle the very same problems that face you day after day. Let them be your teachers, the best you will ever have.
[此贴子已经被作者于2005-5-14 13:15:19编辑过]
