写作方法2019lithub.com编辑精选
悄悄潜入你文章里的坏习惯
Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?
导读
这篇文章提醒写作者留意一些不易察觉的坏习惯，比如把口语习惯带进书面语、滥用代词、开头迟迟不进入正题、初稿用词冗余。它值得写作者读，因为每条都能落实到具体修改动作，帮助文章更清楚、更紧凑。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
开头第一段就让读者知道文章要讲什么；写作前的“热身”只用于自己找思路，定稿前应删掉。
- 02
初稿常含大量可有可无的词句，做一次以“删尽冗余”为目标的修改。
- 03
书面语不是口语：同一句甚至同一段里避免用同一个代词指代两个人，防止指代混乱。
- 04
短名称或短语不必急着用缩写；数据报告中适度重复关键信息反而有助理解。
HN 评论精选
开头热身和冗余词句应删掉，第一段要直入主题。
我对非虚构作品（尤其是博客）最受不了的，是作者在进入正题前冗长的热身。写作时不知道要说什么、甚至焦虑，先写点东西帮自己找到思路，这本身没问题；问题是把这些废话留在文章里。删掉它！如果我读第一段还不明白接下来要读什么，多半就不读了。另一个不喜欢的是用词太多：初稿的明显标志就是大量不必要的词甚至整句。做一次狠心删掉每个不必要词语的编辑，对任何初稿都很有奇效。
apo查看英文原文
My own pet peeve in non-fiction, particularly the kind that appears on blogs: the excruciating warmup before the author finally gets to the point of the post. I know why this happens. When you sit down to write, you don't know what exactly you're going to say. You may even be anxious about it. Then, an idea sparks your imagination and you start writing stuff. The warmup that comes out initially gets you on track. Nothing wrong with that. The harm is keeping that crap in the post. Delete it! If I don't understand what I'm about to read in the first paragraph, I'm probably done. Something else I don't like: writers who use too many words. The telltale sign of a first draft is the vast quantity of words (and even entire sentences) that don't need to be there. A single edit with the goal of ruthlessly eliminating every unnecessary word works wonders for any first draft. Edit: On the topic of fiction, the author gives a beautiful example from the Wizard of Oz: > When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothin but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else. [continues] I haven't read the book but this passage alone makes me want to.
书面语要避免代词指代混乱，写作不等于口语。
文章说许多写作者过度依赖代词。写作不是说话：口语里一连串“他/她”通常还能听懂，落到纸面就容易混淆。强烈建议同一句里不要用同一个代词指两个人，甚至同一段也避免；写同性恋爱小说的作者常为此头疼。
Animats查看英文原文
From the article: Many writers rely more heavily on pronouns than I’d suggest is useful. For me this sort of thing comes under the heading Remember that Writing Is Not Speaking. When we talk, we can usually make ourselves understood even amid a flood of vague “he”s and “she”s. On the page, too many pronouns are apt to be confounding. I’d strongly suggest to the point of insistence that you avoid referring to two people by the same pronoun over the course of a single sentence; to be frank, I’d suggest that you avoid it over the course of a single paragraph. (I know a few authors of same-sex romance novels who are regularly driven to tears by this sort of thing.) Tightened up: Pronouns can be overused. Writing is not speaking. When we talk, we can understand who's who amid a flood of "he"s and "she"s. On the page, that's confusing. Best to avoid referring to two people by the same pronoun in the same sentence. (Same-sex romance novelists struggle with this.) Who, besides the guy himself, says this guy is the "Internet's copy editor in chief"?
数据写作中慎用缩写、允许重复，核心仍是写作不是说话。
我工作中偶尔要撰写和编辑数据公开报告，只是用英文陈述数据，不猜因果或未来影响。我希望更多人接受“写作不是说话”。除了代词，这条建议还适用于：短名称或短语不要用缩写，“Department of Motor Vehicles”虽长，但看过两次后“DMV”也不见得更省眼；如果文字篇幅看起来吓人，再考虑用缩写。重复没关系，甚至很好：数据尤其需要重复呈现，表格是极致，叙述文字也可行。
vharuck查看英文原文
An infrequent part of my job is writing and editing public reports about data. Not even guessing as to causal factors or future impacts, just stating the data in English. I wish more people would accept that writing is not speaking. Beyond pronouns, when this is good advice: - Don't use acronyms for short names or phrases. "Department of Motor Vehicles" is a mouthful, but not much more of an eyeful than "DMV" after seeing it twice. (Consider using the acronym if the amount of space filled with text looks daunting). - It's okay to be repetitive. In fact, it's good to repetitively present data. The pinnacles of this is the table, but narrative text also works.
警惕“that said/that being said”这类陈词滥调。
Hacker News 评论和技术博客也该有类似版本。每次看到“that said”或“that being said”我都会不自觉皱眉。
coat查看英文原文
There should be a version of this for hacker news comments and tech blog posts. Every time I see the phrase 'that said' or 'that being said' I involuntarily cringe. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=%22that%20being%20said%22
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