Flaubert devoted himself to creation all his life, and art was as pure as life to him. He doesn't sell his words, his soul, and he never publishes articles in newspapers. Even, he will spend several years writing a novel; Some novels were published after 20 years of revision.
Because Flaubert knows a truth: writing depends not only on inspiration, but also on diligence, friends' advice and suggestions, and keen observation. He uses the reader's consciousness, studies rigorously, and strives to pursue the ideal writing language-it is not allowed to use the same word twice on the same page.
Coincidentally, in the book "Basic Writing Skills", there are also very different views: writing should follow strict and clearer artificial rules; Different writing forms have different rules, and most of these rules are the object of debate in the language war. Therefore, when you sit down and write, no matter how well you train, you should know that what you are doing is artificial, formal and unnatural.
The author of this book, Sam Lees, is a writer, journalist and literary editor of The Spectator. Graduated from Oxford University, he worked as an editor in Hit Weekly and Daily Mail successively, and created nonfiction works such as It's inevitable and writing should be like a loaded pistol.
This book introduces the basic elements, structures and rhetorical devices of articles, paragraphs and sentences in English writing. And through case analysis, tell us how to distinguish and modify wrong sentences; It also lists the "minefields" that are easy to step on in writing, and puts forward the main points that must be paid attention to when dealing with various genres, networks and papers.
The author also reminds us that in order to attract readers, we must consider: before writing, we must establish reader awareness; After writing, you should read and examine your work as a reader.
In writing, we must consider the use of language.
So, are there any rules for writing languages?
The answer in the book: in a sense. Without rules, language won't work. Language system is determined by language users; That is, can users handle "the meaning and spelling of words, the application of punctuation marks, the format of sentences, etc." In the right way. This is very important for writing.
In fact, every sentence we say has a grammatical structure; Because, if not, others will not understand what we are saying. So we will use the morphological changes of gerund, which is as common as chewing food.
The author says that grammar in textbooks is not a manual of language use, but a description of how people use language.
Through the interpretation of the written language in the book, we know that using language is actually a social activity, which will change with time. It can be said that understanding our audience is more important than understanding language rules and taboos.
So the correctness of language is only a part, not the whole, and it is not the most important.
Therefore, a good writer should also care about these problems: how to put the sound on paper, how to write a sentence that readers can easily understand, how to add music to make the sentence more beautiful, how to make the language vivid, how to arrange the sentence on paper and so on.
Mastering the use of language will be beneficial to our writing. For example, we may need to write memos, emails, reports, statements, resumes, blogs, various new media platforms and so on.
In this regard, the author believes that language will continue to evolve in these groups, and groups may also be bound by language. To break through this bondage, the creator needs to pour confidence into the text.
For example, in the best and most fluent words, we can see the creator's confidence in the words; Moreover, this confidence is very reliable.
This also shows that a confident writer can express his true thoughts sincerely and accurately with the readers' thinking, thus improving the quality of his works.
In this regard, Pound said that accuracy is the only way to avoid mediocrity.
How to understand this accuracy? Take painting as an example. If you draw a watermelon and others say it's an apple, it's not accurate. Similarly, writing is to establish a very direct connection between words and things; Then, this word stands for things, making the watermelon you wrote become watermelon.
Therefore, it is very important for the creator to achieve realism through writing language.
When we express it accurately, we will form the habit of hypothetical thinking before writing, that is, to imagine the reader's reading feelings theoretically or imaginatively. And, guided by the reader's thinking, put the information into the bottle.
It is not difficult to see that writing is an acquired behavior. Because of this, we often hear such a sentence: "Write if you can talk."
In this regard, the author tells us: "This sentence is easier said than done. Saying is natural, writing is unnatural. You can't write exactly as you say, and you shouldn't. "
For example, we can try a small experiment and dictate a passage directly by mobile phone: "Spoken English is often lengthy. It often contains many things, um ... things that are not written. It is more free, the structure is more open ... You find that sentences collide with each other, and some small things such as sounds are invading. You will say a lot, add phrases, um ... "
It is definitely not advisable to quote this sentence directly in writing. Phrases like "Well, like sounds …" make people unknown so-what do these empty phrases mean? Even the modification and quotation in spoken language is the result of tampering.
Therefore, written language and spoken language have different linguistic features. Moreover, there are differences in grammar. Therefore, we should not be "deceived" by the false proposition of "writing if you can talk".
However, some literary writers use nonstandard styles to capture the voice of speech.
For example, Marilyn Robinson wrote in her novel Letter to Gilead: "I write with the greatest hope and the firmest belief. Screen my thoughts and consider my words. Trying to tell the truth. Frankly speaking, this feeling is great. "
English Content: "I almost wrote this with faith, hope and belief. Filter my thoughts and choose my words. Trying to tell the truth. Frankly speaking, this is great. "
Use the contents of the book to analyze this example. People who stick to grammar will accept the first sentence and oppose the second and third sentences-because there are no active words in the sentences; So they will take these two sentences as restrictive clauses.
Also, if you pay attention to grammar. Then, you will find fault with the fourth sentence. Because the comma after the sentence begins with "and" or "frankly", you need another comma to form brackets (such as "and, frankly, this feeling is great"), or just change the comma into a colon (such as "and frankly, this feeling is great").
In fact, in this passage, Robinson uses punctuation not to highlight grammar, but to emphasize the rhythm of sentences. Therefore, when we read it out loud, we will find that it is a perfect expression.
Generally speaking, periods and commas are pauses in spoken English. Although the application of punctuation is not a rigorous science.
But in Robinson's sentence, we can find that the place where the period should be used is a period, and the place where the comma should be used is a comma.
Therefore, this is the reason why oral English can't meet the requirements of rigorous writing. So come to a conclusion that writing and speaking are completely different things.
Understand the difference between writing and oral English, then we will come to the conclusion that writing is a presentation of oral English, not an honest record.
However, because oral English is determined by the receiver, oral English should adapt to the audience; Writing and oral English are closely related, but each has its own characteristics. The differences are as follows:
First, speed; We write 500- 1000 words an hour, and readers can finish it in one minute. In other words, reading is dozens of times faster than writing; Therefore, we will experience the text in different ways. On the one hand, we will struggle for hours on the keyboard. On the other side is the reader's pleasure for a few minutes. This means that writers can't feel the rhythm of their works intuitively.
Second, feeling; You need to feel it as a reader. If you keep rereading your works, you will find that the different feelings of writing and reading are shocking. If you leave the revised text for a few days, the wounds in the writing process may heal. In other words, when we read as readers, your text may be better than expected.
Third, I don't know what will happen when I study. Learning a language is the same as learning anything else. Our neurons are very intelligent and adaptable. They will use tools to finish their work. In fact, our brains have no organs for writing language; Because written language only appeared in 4000 BC, it is not far from evolution.
Regarding reading, the cognitive neuroscientist Marina Wall did not point out that the brain can learn to read because "it has the ability to establish new connections between structures and circuits, which were originally for other more basic brain programs; For example, the structure that connects vision and spoken language. "
It should be said that human understanding of the brain is still at the primary level; The details of how the brain works are still unknown.
Writing is the result of comprehensive brain work. Therefore, by focusing on learning, the writing ability will continue to improve. Also, readers will naturally find many low-level mistakes and contradictions in our articles by reading through the eye-brain circuit.
For us, this is a good thing. Therefore, we will proofread and revise our articles again and gain more experience from them. Because we can't always be right, and no one in this world can do it.
So Dostoevsky tells us that it takes a lot of practice to change a good article; He said, "writers are the best? His skill is to be good at deleting. Who is good and who has the ability? If you delete something, he will have great prospects? " . Only with an open mind can we make continuous progress in the process of writing.
Finally, the point of view returns: adhere to the reader's thinking, draw inspiration from life, and integrate sound and images into the narrative after narrative to make the narrative more convincing and finally make a good article.
Hemingway once said: "? The first draft was cut. " As the saying goes, "You can't change an article after reading it a thousand times."
However, the basic skills of writing also tell us that a book, a paper, or a sentence are all composed of basic elements, structures, rhetorical devices and other elements. Only by mastering these basic skills can writing be logical.
Therefore, whether it is English writing or Chinese writing; No matter how the times change, the style and format of writing are evolving; What remains unchanged is Flaubert's creative spirit of rigorous scholarship.
With this encouragement, I hope that on the way to writing, we can: 1) create good works that can stand the scrutiny of readers and time in routine creation; Second, we can polish valuable explosive articles in the creation of new media.