小说与文学2022theguardian.com编辑精选
作为职业的小说家
Novelist as a Vocation
导读
这篇《卫报》书评讨论村上春树《身为职业小说家》一书，评论者围绕村上的写作方法和小说写作的现实处境展开讨论。对写作者来说，这里有值得一读的反差：一边是村上靠英语写作的限制练出独特文体的技法，另一边是评论者指出的、写作作为职业的残酷经济现实。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
用限制来塑造风格：村上第一稿写失败后改用英语写作，词汇和句法的贫乏反而迫使句子变得短促、有节奏。
- 02
大胆用非母语写作，或主动给写作能力“设限”，可以打破母语里惯用句式和套话，逼出属于自己的文体。
- 03
动笔之前先了解写作这个行当的经济现实：短篇稿酬往往不够最低工资，大多数小说销量不到一千本，全职写作几乎不现实。
- 04
把写作当作志业而不是职业——先问自己“如果这一生不写会怎样”，答案是否定的话再考虑把它当职业。
- 05
去读小出版社的书和那些零评论、无人问津的作品，好作品常常只缺一个读者。这就是值得写作者读的原因。
HN 评论精选
用非母语写作的限制反而锤炼出独特的文体节奏。
书评提到，村上把自己最终形成的文体称为“不加修饰的自然文体”，但它是用极不寻常的方式得到的：他第一次写《且听风吟》时彻底失败，于是从头再来，这次不用母语日语，而用英语写。他说：“我的词汇量严重不足，英语句法也掌握得不好。”可当他把这些英文译回日语时，那些被自我设限逼出来的短句、简单句，却带有“一种独特的节奏”。评论者好奇：他后来写新书时是否还偶尔用这招？英文译本读起来都很好，不知道这是不是让译者省了不少力气，或至少让作品倾向于避开那些没有明显英文对应说法的句式和习语。真想把他最初的英文稿和出版英译本并排对照看看有多相似。
elihu查看英文原文
> He describes it at one point as an “unadorned natural style”, but one that was arrived at in characteristically unorthodox fashion: having failed dismally on his first attempt to write what would become Hear the Wind Sing, he began again from scratch, writing not in his native Japanese, but English. “My vocabulary was severely limited, as was my command of English syntax,” he writes, and yet when he translated his words back into Japanese, the short, simple sentences created by those self-imposed limitations possessed “a distinctive rhythm”. That's interesting. I wonder if he still does that at least some of the time for his more recent books? The English translations I've read seem to be really good; I wonder if this technique/style has made the work the translators have to do a lot easier when they translate back into English or if it doesn't actually make much difference? It seems like it would at least lead to a tendency to avoid linguistic constructions and idioms that don't have fairly obvious English translations. It would be fun to be able to read Murukami's initial English draft side by side with the English version of the published book to see how similar they are.
写作的经济现实极其残酷，最好把它当志业或爱好，而非谋生职业。
很多文章和书会让人觉得，尝试当小说家是件挺合理的事。但真相是：多数短篇小说刊物每词只付三到十美分，一篇稿子的收入通常不到三五百美元。大多数小说销量不足一千本，往往还远低于这个数；即便这样，作者也只能拿到定价的百分之十左右，除非自费出版（可那样销量据说又只有十分之一）。要是你能挣到最低工资的一半，就该庆祝了。即使是畅销书作者，除非连续出过几本大卖的作品，通常也有一份日常工作。这也解释了为什么会有那么多续集：对作者来说风险更小，他们把这个机会看作终于能全职写作的跳板。现在有太多网站提供免费小说，即使免费发布，很多人也很难找到读者。我认识的许多作者花在自我推广上的时间比写作还多，否则根本没人会读他们的作品。出版商现在更青睐已经有大批粉丝的作者，这又进一步强化了这种循环。对少数人来说写作是志业，但对另外百分之九十九点九九的人来说，它只是一个梦想、一个爱好，或者一种结识同好、享受社区归属感的方式。总之：去买几本小出版社的书吧，很多都非常精彩！有大量好书只有零到三条评论，从来没得到过机会，去找找它们。
barbariangrunge查看英文原文
Many articles and books make it seem as though it might be reasonable to try and be a novelist The truth is that most short story publishers pay about 3-10 cents per word, so the pay for your work is usually less than $300-500. Most novels sell less than 1000 copies, and often far less; even then, the author might only get 10% of the price tag unless they self publish (but then sales are apparently 1/10 as high) If you earned half minimum wage, you would have cause to celebrate! Even authors of bestsellers often have day jobs unless they have a string of huge successes. That’s why we see so many sequels — less risk to the author who sees their chance to finally be a full time writer There are so many sites out there right now hosting free fiction that it’s hard for many to find readers, even if the work is released for free. Many authors I know spend more time on self promotion than in writing due to this: otherwise, nobody will ever read their work in the first place Publishers are now preferring authors who already have large followings, which reinforces this dynamic For some people, writing is a vocation, but for 99.999% of the others, it’s a dream or a hobby, or a way to meet like minded people and enjoy being part of a community Anyway: go out and read some small publisher books. Many are fantastic! There are a stunning number of great books around with 0-3 reviews that never had a shot — look for them sometime!
只有“非做不可”才值得投身写作，否则可以放下。
很多年前我考虑过当小说家，直到读到耶鲁一位表演教授的话（我这里是转述）：只有当表演是你唯一能做的事时，你才应该去表演。剧透一下：我没成为小说家。
robinjhuang查看英文原文
Many years ago I considered being a novelist. Until I read this quote by an acting professor at Yale that I’m now paraphrasing: you should only act, if acting is the only thing you can do. Spoiler: I didn’t become a novelist.
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