小说与文学2021granta.com编辑精选
如何开始写一部小说
How to Start a Novel
导读
这是 Granta「手艺笔记」专栏里一篇谈如何动笔写小说的文章，正文未附，但 Hacker News 的讨论集中在「第一句」这件事上：好开头有多大魔力，又有多容易变成拖延的借口。对写作者来说，这串评论既提供了可玩的练习方法，也给出了绕过开头焦虑的实操策略。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把「写第一句」当成游戏而非门槛：先看书的封底简介，自己写一句开头，再和真正的第一句对比投票，能快速训练语感与胆量。
- 02
别为了憋一句惊艳的开头而卡住，从你脑中已有画面的场景写起，让角色和动作自己往前走。
- 03
遇到「知道前一场和下一场、却不知道怎么过渡」的地方，直接跳过继续写，等摸清小说的声音和人物性格后再回头补桥。
- 04
回填时你会发现许多当初只为连接 A 到 B 而写的场景，对读者其实是多余的，可以大方删掉。
- 05
开头不一定要靠一句抓人的钩子，也可以像康拉德那样层层转述、慢慢铺气氛，让叙述者讲述另一个人的故事。
HN 评论精选
用「猜真正的第一句」的游戏练开头，成本低、乐趣高，还能逼自己写得大胆。
作者家的老宅里堆满五六十年代的类型小说，朋友聚会时他们玩一种类似「编词典」的游戏：每人挑一本书，念标题、封底和中间或结尾的几段，然后所有人各写一句开头，混入真正的第一句，由持书人戏剧化地朗读，大家投票猜哪句是真的。类型小说允许你写得极度夸张，常常有人写出比原句更好的句子。他记得的一句是黑色侦探小说：「要是 Sunday 在周一就知道自己周二会死，她会做出好几个不同的选择。」
SamBam查看英文原文
My extended family owns an old country house with loads of fiction books, a fair bit of it genre fiction from the 50s and 60s. We have a great game that we play when we go up there with friends, a bit like the Dictionary game/Balderdash. Everyone peruses the shelves a picks out a promising book. Then, one round at a time, someone gives the title of their book, reads the back, and maybe reads a few choice paragraphs from the middle or end, giving everyone a sense of the book. Then everyone writes down an opening line on a slip of paper. The book-holder writes down the real first line. The slips are shuffled and the book-holder reads each of them, preferably dramatically. Everyone votes on the real one. Writing first sentences is such a delightful exercise. And of course with genre fiction everyone has the license to go completely over the top. With the right group of people it's utterly hilarious, and it's amazing how frequently someone writes a sentence that seems better than the original. (A random one I recall: a pot-boiled detective noir novel, involving a murder victim named Sunday: "If Sunday had known on Monday that on Tuesday she'd be dead, she would have made several different choices.")
一个把过去、现在、未来叠在一起的开头，本身就能成为读者读下去的理由。
多年以后，面对行刑队，奥雷里亚诺·布恩迪亚上校将会回想起父亲带他去见识冰块的那个遥远的下午——马尔克斯《百年孤独》的这一句就足以让他拿起这本书，他认为这是他读过最好的开头之一。
FlyingSnake查看英文原文
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice Gabriel Garcia Marquez's opening line from One Hundred years of Solitude was enough for me to pick up the book. Personally, I feel that this is one of the best openings of any book I've read.
别被开头卡住：从有画面的地方写起，跳过不会写的段落，回头再补甚至删掉。
一心想着写出抓人或机巧的开头，反而会让人迟迟不肯落笔写第一段。更简单的方式是从稍后一点写起——那里你已大致有个场景——让角色和动作自己展开。这也是跨过难点的好办法：你知道当前场景、也知道再下一场，却不知道如何过渡，那就别在空白页前硬耗，跳过未知的那场继续写，之后多半会有好方案来补桥。等你摸清了小说的「声音」、熟悉了人物的怪癖，回填会容易得多；你也可能发现，很多当初为了世界构建和情节推进而写的连接场景，对读者其实是多余的。
jeffwass查看英文原文
Trying to think of a catchy or clever novel opener can be a major discouragement from just getting the pen to the paper and formulating that first paragraph. It can be much easier to start your writing a bit further in, where you have a rough idea of a scene, and letting the characters and the action work themselves. In fact, this is a good way to create bridges through tricky parts, where you know the current scene, the scene after the next one but no idea how it got there. Instead of struggling with the blank page for too long, skip the unknown scene and keep writing. And later on you'll likely have a good plan for filling in the bridge. It's much easier to go back and fill in the gaps when you've figured out the 'voice' of your novel, and have a good understanding of the characters and their quirks. You may also realise you can cut so many of the gratuitous scenes that were useful in your mind for connecting A to B in terms of worldbuilding and plot progression, but are extraneous to the reader.
开头也可以靠氛围与层层转述建立，而不必依赖一句博眼球的金句。
在他看来，约瑟夫·康拉德永远是最会写开头的作家。有时描写略多，但慢读下去，那种氛围营造是值得的。他还常用「层层套叠」的手法：由一个叙述者转述某个人或某件事，真正的故事包在其中，《黑暗的心》就是名例。比起一句抓眼球的话，他更愿意选择这种做法。他举了《Karain: A Memory》的开头为例：那段文字从「我们拥有生命与财产的那些不设防的日子」写起，转入报纸上关于东方群岛原住民起义的短讯，再让阳光在海面与记忆间闪动，一个陌生的名字唤起往昔。
keiferski查看英文原文
To me, Joseph Conrad will always be the best writer of openings. At times, they can be a bit too descriptive, but if you take your time, the atmosphere-building is worth it. He also frequently uses a layering technique, where the narrator reports someone or something else that contains the actual story. Heart of Darkness famously does this. I'll take this approach over an attention-grabbing line any day. Here's one of my favorites, from Karain: A Memory: We knew him in those unprotected days when we were content to hold in our hands our lives and our property. None of us, I believe, has any property now, and I hear that many, negligently, have lost their lives; but I am sure that the few who survive are not yet so dim-eyed as to miss in the befogged respectability of their newspapers the intelligence of various native risings in the Eastern Archipelago. Sunshine gleams between the lines of those short paragraphs—sunshine and the glitter of the sea. A strange name wakes up memories; the printed words scent the smoky atmosphere of to-day faintly, with the subtle and penetrating perfume as of land breezes breathing through the starlight of bygone nights; a signal fire gleams like a jewel on the high brow of a sombre cliff; great trees, the advanced sentries of immense forests, stand watchful and still over sleeping stretches of open water; a line of white surf thunders on an empty beach, the shallow water foams on the reefs; and green islets scattered through the calm of noonday lie upon the level of a polished sea, like a handful of emeralds on a buckler of steel. Edit: if you listen to the audiobook, you can really hear the beauty of his language. Especially the intro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp9GT76NPaE
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