写作方法2017robinwieruch.de编辑精选
从《On Writing Well》学到的写作课
Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
导读
这篇笔记整理了 Robin Wieruch 读完《On Writing Well》后提炼的写作心得，评论区则把讨论引向更深一层：什么样的写作指南才真正教人“写清楚”。对写作者来说，它既给出可操作的删繁就简原则，也提醒你别把名家口味当成唯一标准。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
先把话说清楚：删掉多余的修饰，力求直接、不绕弯、切中要点。
- 02
用常见而具体的短词，能用日常口语就别用生僻的大词，写完最好读出声检验。
- 03
别死守规则：主动语态、被动语态该按语境取舍，重点是理解“为什么这样写更好”，而不是背教条。
- 04
警惕范例的主观性：名家挑出来的“好句子”未必真好，判断标准要自己读一遍验证。
HN 评论精选
《Style》比《On Writing Well》更实用：不背规则，而是用例子讲清“为什么”。
我读过《On Writing Well》，后来发现了 Joseph Williams 的《Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace》，觉得《Style》更好。《On Writing Well》让我看清什么是烂文章，《Style》则告诉我怎样才能写得清楚。它把“写清楚”这个几乎不可能讲清的主题拆成清晰、连贯、有力的写作要素，落成可执行的建议。它不像“用主动语态”“别用 And 开头”那样空泛，而是用例子告诉你为什么，甚至指出被动语态在某些场合更合适。读完它，我读文章和写文章的方式都变了。
liangzan查看英文原文
I've read "On Writing Well". I then discovered "Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace" by Joseph Williams. "Style" is better than "On Writing Well". "On Writing Well" opened my eyes to what bad writing is, while "Style" explained how to write clearly. He took an impossible topic - writing clearly, showing you the elements of clear, consistent and impactful writing, distilling down into actionable lessons. The advice is not vague like "Use the active voice", "Don't start sentences with And"; he shows you why with examples. Even the passive voice is more suitable in certain cases. After reading the book, it changed the way I read and write. Very few books change the way you think. "Style" is one of them.
名家的“好例子”可能只是个人口味，读者要自己判断；同时呼吁更务实的技术写作指南。
我对这本书很失望。Zinsser 讲的一些大道理还算合理，比如尽量不啰嗦、直接、切中要点，但书里所有示范例子似乎只是随他个人口味挑的。比如“赘词”那一章，他把《瓦尔登湖》里这段话当作“简洁英文”的典范：“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life……”——句子密实、极难解析，还把 front 当动词用得很不规范，似乎还是个三重否定。这种句子你念给我听，我第一遍多半听不懂意思。书里全是这类例子。顺便说一句，我很想提高非虚构写作、特别是技术写作的能力，但一直没找到靠谱的“经典”技术写作书，如果有人能推荐一本务实（而非 Strunk-and-White 那种规定主义）的技术写作入门，我很感激。
x1798DE查看英文原文
I was so disappointed with this book. Some of the platitudes Zinsser goes into are reasonable, like try to be uncluttered, direct and to the point, but all the worked examples seem to just be arbitrarily chosen to his taste. For example, in the chapter on "clutter", Zinsser picks out this passage from Walden as his exemplar of "uncluttered English": "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Dense, incredibly difficult to parse, with a non-standard use of "front" as a verb and what seems to be a triple-negative. If I said that sentence to you, out loud, I doubt you would catch the meaning of it on the first pass. The book is filled with stuff like that. That said, I really do want to get better at non-fiction writing, specifically technical writing, but I haven't found any good recommendations for "canonical" books on technical writing. If anyone can suggest a decent, pragmatic (as opposed to Strunk-and-White style prescriptivism) introduction to technical writing specifically, I'd appreciate it.
好英文的用词原则：熟悉、具体、短小、本土词优先，并且要像说话一样写。
Fowler 和 Birchfield 的《King's English》（1906）、《A Dictionary of Modern English》（1926）和《The English Language》（1985）读起来很有趣。比如：用熟悉的词，不用生僻词；偏爱具体的词；优先选单个的短词；优先选盎格鲁-撒克逊词而非拉丁词源的词。英语词源庞杂、语法规则混乱，但写得好的英文读起来会发光。读 Paul Graham 的文章就能看到这些原则在起作用，《经济学人》风格指南也与之呼应，比如“用日常口语的语言”。
bootload查看英文原文
"I am eager to improve my language and writing skills." Fowler and Birchfield. "Kings English" (1906), "A Dictionary of Modern English" (1926) and "The English Language" (1985) make humorous reading. For example: - Familiar words over the far fetched. - Preference for concrete words. - Prefer the single, short word. - Preference to the Saxon over the romance word. English has many roots and riddled with confusing syntax and rules. Well written English, shines when read. If you read pg essays you see these examples in action. [0] The Economist style guide mirrors F&B, pg. For instance, "Use the language of everyday speech". [0] PH Wodehouse ~ http://www.paulgraham.com/heroes.html "Writing briefly" ~ http://paulgraham.com/writing44.html "Write like you speak" ~ http://paulgraham.com/talk.html
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