出版与作家生涯2021theparisreview.org编辑精选
作家和编辑到底在做什么
What Writers and Editors Do
导读
这篇《巴黎评论》的文章探讨了作家与编辑各自的职责与协作关系。对写作者而言，它揭示了编辑不只是纠错者，更是帮助作品在结构、视角和节奏上达到成熟的伙伴。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
编辑的核心工作不是挑错别字，而是检查视角一致性、人物行为逻辑、时间线跳跃和伏笔是否泄露等结构性问题。
- 02
重写是写作的本质——多轮修改，尤其是隔天以新鲜眼光重读，是作品成败的关键。
- 03
一位经验丰富、判断力强的编辑能带来难以估量的价值，值得写作者主动寻求并珍惜编辑反馈的往复过程。
- 04
批评的热情和力度往往超过写作本身，选择写作小组或编辑时要警惕苛刻而非建设性的风格。
HN 评论精选
小说编辑的真正价值在于检查视角、人物逻辑、时间线和伏笔等结构性问题，而非文字层面。
我多年做技术编辑，最近帮朋友看他的第一部小说。他文笔好、拼写无误，技术层面问题很少，但我发现自己真正在找的是：视角人物知道了情节中他们本不该知道的事；人物毫无理由地做出不符合性格的举动；同一章内时间线或场景突兀跳跃；被过度使用的短语；以及本该给读者带来惊喜的内容是否已被提前暗示。我很想知道有没有一份针对小说写作的通用问题清单——不是标准情节/人物套路，而是这类容易犯的错误。（可惜文章里没找到。）
KineticLensman查看英文原文
I spent a lot of time doing technical editing professionally – checking that docs met their stated objectives, that they were logically structured, that they satisfied house styles, etc, etc. Recently a friend of mine has written their first novel and I offered to have a look as an editor. They can actually write well, spell correctly, etc, so the ‘technical’ aspects were very easy – there were very few typos, ungrammatical sentences, etc. Instead, I found myself looking for things like * situations where the PoV character knew things that were actually hidden from them in the plot (e.g. something happening simultaneously in a different location) * situations where characters acted unexpectedly out-of-character for no obvious reason * places where the timeline or scene jumped unexpectedly (e.g. in successive paragraphs in the same chapter) * phrases that were overused * whether something that was supposed to be a surprise for the reader had actually been signposted. I’d love to know if there is a checklist of issues for fiction writing in general: not standard plots / characters / etc, but mistakes like those above to look out for. (I certainly didn’t find it in the article).
亲身经历证明多轮编辑修改能极大提升文章质量，重写是写作的核心。
一个关于编辑之不可回报的价值的小故事：我最近志愿为 LWN.net 写了头几篇文章，经历了几轮编辑修改——这还是在我自己“隔天清晨再看一遍”的私下修改之后。过程很有教益：编辑们帮我加固导语段落、小幅改写大幅提升可读性、看似细微的修改却改善了整体结构与连贯性。经验丰富且判断得当的编辑的价值难以言表。我很享受这种来回修改、善意的争论和“吹毛求疵”。正如 William Zinsser 所说：“重写是胜负所在；重写是写作的本质。”
kashyapc查看英文原文
An anecdote from a more modest realm on the unrepayable value of editors: I recently volunteered to write my first couple of articles for the always-excellent LWN.net. As expected, I went through several rounds of editing with them. This was after several of my own "look again on a fresh morning" rounds of private editing. The process was quite instructive. I benefited from a range of "bug fixes" from the fine editors—suggestions to make the lede paragraph more robust; small rephrasings that greatly improve readability; and seemingly minor edits that contribute to the overall structure and coherency. The value of an experienced and judicious editor is hard to describe well. (Thanks Jake, et al!) I relished the back-and-forth review rounds, good-natured arguments, and "nitpicks" that greatly benefited the end product. As William Zinsser puts it, "Rewriting is where the game is won or lost; rewriting is the essence of writing." - - - For those who're curious, I did this as part of KVM Forum[1] conference round-up for LWN. Here's[2] one of the two articles; it should be accessible without login. If you're the patient kind, I certainly recommend contributing to LWN. [1] https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kvm-forum/ [2] Challenges in protecting virtual machines from untrusted entities — https://lwn.net/Articles/838488/
批评的热情常超过写作本身，要警惕把刻薄当深刻、以苛刻为荣的编辑文化。
我曾参加一个写作小组，其中一位成员深入研究过编辑 Gordon Lish，甚至一度师从他，几乎把他奉为宗师。这很有意思——一位有志作家崇拜的偶像竟是个编辑，可见 Lish 对美国文学界影响之大。据我所闻，Lish 为人相当刻薄；那位崇拜他的组员也确实刻薄。我们小组本想以积极但诚实的方式互相批评作品，因为写作批评往往过于严酷，人们投入批评的热情和精力常常超过投入写作的——而这位组员不肯认同小组的理念。现在每当我读到 Lish 经手的东西，总觉得透着一股刻薄气，他成了我心目中冷酷无情、毫不悔改的编辑/批评家的化身，尽管这对他未必公平。
voidhorse查看英文原文
I was in a writing group at one point and one of the members of the group happened to have studied Gordon Lish extensively; I think studied under him directly for a bit and more or less worshiped the guy as a guru. It was kind of an interesting dynamic--here was an aspiring writer whose hero was an editor, but it shows Lish's impact on American letters. From what I've understood from others, Lish was (again, this is just hearsay) kind of a dick. The guy in the writing group that loved him was definitely a dick (no hearsay). It was a small group formed with the intention of taking a more positive, but still honest, tack to critiquing each other's works, since it can often be such a harsh experience and the passion, scrutiny, and energy of people's critiques often outweigh the passion, scrutiny, and energy they put into their writing--this guy did not want to buy into the rest of the group's philosophy. Now, whenever I read anything Lish has touched I can't help but feel it comes off sort of dickish and he is the embodiment of the cruel, unrepentant editor/critic to me, though undeservedly so.
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