How to write

The title of this little book is How to Practice Writing. The so-called "writing" should have a wide range, and all narrative, lyric, discussion and even daily application documents can be included; However, when people usually mention the word "writing", the scope is not so wide. Usually, this refers to the writing of literary and artistic works.

Of course, we do not advocate that every child will be engaged in literary and artistic work in the future, but we also feel that there is no reason to prohibit them from trying to write something of a literary nature while learning to write. There used to be such a road: after studying for several years, the first step to start learning composition is "right". This thing can be said to be literary. But the purpose of studying Duality is not to prepare for being a writer in the future. Now this method doesn't work. There was another practice before. When children who are studying can write so many words, the topics of Mr. Wang's composition are often On the Combination of Qin Shihuang and Emperor Wudi of Han Dynasty, On Good and Evil Nature, On Loyalty and Righteousness, On Filial Piety and On the Road to Prosperity and Prosperity in Zhang Bing. This kind of big topic, in the hands of primary school students, can even be pieced together with some cliches to complete the paper. Such a "big topic" may be out of fashion now, but similar situations still exist, just with different faces. Now our children will also piece together some slogans to deal with other big topics, such as "I wish Xiangxi great success", "On defeating the Japanese aggressors" and "Thoughts on the 10th anniversary of the New Life Movement". This method is not to practice writing, but to practice "learning the tongue", "puzzles" and "applying formulas and dogmas". This is not a way to teach human babies, but a way to tease parrots. Even if the teacher subjectively doesn't want to get such a result, it is inevitable in the end. Why? Because children have got these big questions, there is really nothing to do except "learning the tongue".

Of course, every child should know what kind of victory we have achieved in Xiangxi, why the Japanese aggressors have perished, and what the New Life Movement is all about. However, it is one thing to have this knowledge, but it is another to ask them to write a composition with this knowledge as a topic. Testing whether they have this knowledge is not necessarily within the scope of composition, and it is not necessary to take composition as a way, because the purpose of composition is to practice writing, not to memorize what they have learned. To practice writing and improve writing skills, it is best to let him write something he has gained from life experience, rather than asking him to remember what he heard from his ears. If the topic of the composition limits them to "learn" what they hear, then the meaning of "practicing calligraphy" will be lost. A gifted child who gets the title of "Thoughts on the 10th Anniversary of the New Life Movement" may think of his father or brother coming home from a commemorative meeting and playing cards all night. This is the real feeling from his life experience, but he must not dare to write such feelings, because he thinks what Mr. Wang said and published in the newspaper is much better and more impressive. If he writes like this, he will only fail.

When you "learn your tongue", your thoughts will not shine, your emotions will not be warm, and you don't even have to make your own words. In other words, from beginning to end, you just wrote silently, not practiced writing. However, if the topic handed down by Mr. Wang is not so big, but "My mother", "My sister", "How did I spend my summer vacation" and "My favorite thing" ... then, even if our child wants to be lazy, he can't do anything. He wants to use his brain to choose materials from life experience, and his feelings are also strong. He wants to use his heart to choose words and make sentences. At this time, he is really practicing calligraphy.

Topics such as "my mother" can be said to be literature and art; Especially when children get this kind of topic, they always write it as a literary thing, which is helpless, because children's observation and analysis are always weaker than adults, and what children love to write is nothing more than what moves him most, stimulates his emotions most and is suitable for his imagination development; In other words, children's interest in writing lies in literary themes, which can give full play to children's writing ability and improve their writing skills.

However, literary topics cannot be generalized. Some literary topics will also induce children to "learn to speak", such as "Beautiful Spring" or "The Great Yangtze River", which will enable most children to come up with ways to deal with topics such as "On the failure of the Japanese aggressors". Spring, of course, is something in their experience, the Yangtze River. Maybe they have thousands of impressions, but where should the beauty of spring and the greatness of the Yangtze River be written? This is very confusing for ordinary children and difficult to start. So the convenient tactic door was born again. They moved in some platitudes they usually read in books, such as what Huang is singing, butterflies are flying, the sun warms your heart, and so on, and played a word jigsaw puzzle. This is also a kind of "imitation", which can't be regarded as imitation, because although imitation is done according to other people's style, at least you did it.

To sum up, the first principle of practicing calligraphy is not to "learn from foreigners", but to speak your own words; We should pick out the things that touch us the most from our own life experiences, which can inspire our feelings warmly and sincerely, and express them in words that we think are most appropriate. Grasp this first principle, and then we can further talk about how to practice.

This chapter is the introduction of this little book. This is for children, but it is also for children's gentlemen, especially for the atmosphere of "big topic" now, and put forward my views.

Several conditions of second beauty

What is a good writing style? Children who are practicing calligraphy will ask this question. Or, boil the problem down to literary works and put forward how to do one thing brilliantly.

This question cannot be answered in a few words, but here we have to try to give a simple answer: all articles (not necessarily literary, but also literary) always have two aspects: content and form, which belong to thoughts and emotions, and are called content; It belongs to the structural arranger of sentence text and is called form. For example, the form is like a person's foreign minister, while the content is like a person's knowledge and character. A person with beautiful appearance and no ink on his chest is called "embroidered pillow", but even if he is beautiful, knowledgeable and despicable, he is not taken seriously. The same is true of articles. Good articles are good in content and form. Non-literary articles, such as those on history, philosophy and politics, need good form besides good content: the articles of great historians, great philosophers and great political critics are also perfect in form, not because they pay special attention to the perfection of form when writing, but because their thoughts are extremely high, their knowledge is extremely profound and their feelings are extremely sincere and enthusiastic. In this way, their words are naturally different.

As for writing literature, we should pay attention to the perfection of form; But that doesn't mean that perfection in form is everything. A person with despicable character and no knowledge, even if he is desperate to pay attention to the dignity of appearance, even if he is good at camouflage, can't fool the eyes of knowledgeable people in the end. An article with perfect form but poor or bad content is equivalent to such a person.

There are also various types of beautiful women: gentle and charming, elegant and beautiful; But majestic, bold and beautiful; Uniformity is beauty, and complexity can also be beauty; Leisure and elegance can be beautiful, and tension and enthusiasm can also be beautiful; Gorgeous and pleasant, gloomy and tragic can also make it beautiful. All these beauties are inseparable from thoughts and emotions. In this way, things that are poor in content or actually bad cannot really have formal beauty. What is usually called "poor in content" but "beautiful in form" cannot be truly beautiful in form. The arm is like an ugly girl, who can only deceive myopia or use light as a cover.

Beauty can't just seek form, it can't be said that those words are 62.

Beautiful, but some other words are not. It is impossible to say what kind of sentence structure or text layout can be beautiful, and some can't. Can only say that a few conditions are necessary. With these conditions, the article will be beautiful, otherwise it will not be beautiful or not beautiful enough.

What are these conditions?

The first is to understand smoothly. Express your meaning to the letter without causing misunderstanding. This is "understanding". Express your meaning in a simple and easy way, especially in a way that the public likes and is used to. Don't deliberately show off your talents, mystify and pose. This is "patency". To understand, you can't find ready-made words from books to match your meaning, but you must come up with words that suit your meaning. To be "unobstructed", we should not blindly be subjective, firmly believe in our own expression, but pay attention to observing and learning the expression of the public.

The second is that feelings should be sincere and warm. What is sincere warmth? The idiom "You can't spit quickly if you are stuck in your throat" is the footnote of this sentence. Never retch, retching is equivalent to "moaning without illness", which is unacceptable.

Third, honesty and purity.

Fourth, don't write for the sake of writing. That is to say, first, you don't score; second, you don't show off; third, you don't entertain yourself; fourth, you don't entertain others; fifth, you don't do any "stepping stones". Why write? Because I think, feel and see, because I think, feel and see not only my personal affairs, but also most people outside me.

If the above four conditions are met, your article will make people read strangely, as if every sentence is said on behalf of him, and you can stimulate the reader's mood and laugh with you.

The third material and its description

The above two chapters are mostly discussed. Why do we make these comments? Isn't this little book about how to practice calligraphy? We have to say a few more words to answer this question.

First of all, let's not forget that the so-called "writing" here refers to literary things, neither historical nor political, nor academic papers, especially not application documents. If we are here, we should pay attention to how to practice making reports, writing eight-part essays for entertainment, drafting official documents, or pushing advertisements and buying land and property contracts. However, what we are talking about here is how to practice writing literature, so we have to discuss it first. Although this argument seems to have little to do with actual practice, writing without it is like a ship sailing in the sea without a compass.

But you can't sail with a compass, so now we have to put forward some suggestions in practice.

Let me talk about the principle first.

Material is the first problem that writers encounter. It is often said that "the material is not found" or "the material is written", but it is just an expression. In fact, this is not a question of existence, but a question of "maturity" or "immaturity". The theme of writing is usually accumulated bit by bit, which is not easy to get done at once and is very suitable. And a person's brain is definitely different from a warehouse. Sometimes the warehouse is so crowded that it can no longer hold anything less than a foot, and sometimes it is empty. It is incredible to say that a person's brain will be full and empty. As long as a person's nerves are normal, his brain has been receiving foreign things, that is, feeding materials, so this is not a question of existence, but a question of "maturity" or "immaturity". When you think it's not enough, it's actually immature. So what are the symptoms of maturity? The symptom is the surge of literary thoughts, and I am too excited to control myself. At the moment of meditation, the whole article suddenly appeared in my mind, as if it had been written and memorized.

If your writing is dull and you think that left is not right, it is immature. At this time, you'd better not write at all. It is not a pity to bid farewell to unfinished work forever. Here, some people may ask: since it is not mature yet, can it be mature in the future? Sure, but don't get me wrong, waiting for the materials to mature is a simple matter of time. This requires more accumulation of life experience, all aspects of life experience, not just your immature things. Or, someone asked: since it is immature, I think something is missing, so I will look for it according to this missing one, OK? I thought it was impossible. Don't get me wrong, the material of a literary work is only material people, things (including nature) and things. When the material feels something is missing, instead of adding one or two more characters, write one or two more natural scenery and add a few more story lines. If it is only a little, it is easy to solve the problem. The materials of literary and artistic works also (and mainly) contain ideological issues: your position on written materials, your views on all issues, your understanding of these materials, etc ... So the maturity process of materials is not (for example) physical, but chemical, not simple quantitative change, but qualitative change.

There are two wrong ideas that often lead people astray. The first is that "description" depends on words. It is believed that the more adjectives are used, the better the description is. Adjectives are often used in large quantities, which makes them appear cumbersome, and most of these adjectives are overused by predecessors. In fact, if you are fresh and can talk about something that no one has done before, an adjective is enough. The second misunderstanding is that "description" is regarded as decoration, and that "story" is the skeleton of a work, while background description and character description are like painted pigments. This separates "description" from the whole skill problem, but in fact description is an organic part of the whole skill.

To sum up, in a simple sentence: the problem description that is usually considered as a simple skill is also included in the question of whether the material is mature or not; When the material of the work reaches a mature level, the problem of description will not happen, and maturity is mainly a problem of learning and cultivating life experience, in other words, a problem of thought.

Fourth, I am not afraid of repeated revisions.

Now try to talk about the steps of writing practice.

If you think your writing style is surging, it will be helpful to write it, then I suggest you write it boldly. Don't hesitate at this moment, I believe that the words that appear in your pen at this moment are the best and most appropriate. Until the end. The word "review" is not needed at this time. The consideration of words is put aside at this time, and what comes to mind is written down. At this time, the only purpose is to move everything surging in your mind to paper in one breath.

But after writing the article, you should change your attitude. Now you must examine what you have just written very severely. At this time, you must not show the slightest tolerance for your hard-working products. Every paragraph, every section, every sentence and every word is not relaxed. Delete those bad things without regret (according to your judgment at this time). I revised it again and again, and I didn't get bored. Every word, every word and every sentence should be "scrutinized" like a money changer's identification of the authenticity of a silver coin.

At this time, if you find too many unacceptable paragraphs, sections, sentences or words in the first draft, don't lose heart; You can find faults in your first draft and prove that your judgment is strong and healthy. When you can't find the fault, you should reflect. Why can't you find something wrong? Is this thing of yours perfect? Of course not. Self-deception and complacency are the biggest obstacles to progress. The reason why you can't find your own fault shows that your judgment is not very good. You must try to improve your judgment.

But if you find a problem and can't fix it, then you have no reason to be discouraged. Writing ability can't jump to several steps at once. Generally speaking, the modification of the first draft is like machining on the blank of a product. The lines are not very straight, so that it can be repaired straight, the roughness of the surface is polished, and small spots and scars are scraped off. At this time, you can't think that this is the improvement of your writing ability. There is not much difference between you who are rough and you who are polished. Therefore, when you find a problem and it is always uncomfortable to fix it, on the one hand, you should think that you have tried your best, but on the other hand, there is no reason to be disappointed in yourself. You needn't tear up the manuscript angrily. You might as well hide the manuscript, wipe the sweat from your forehead and forget about it for a while. You study and play as usual, or, as a saying goes, live as usual. If you have a famous book that you always like, you can move out and read it again. After a period of time (not too long, of course), you find out the manuscript again and try to modify it; At this time, you may be able to modify it more comfortably, or you may not be able to correct what you originally wanted to modify, but you need to modify the new place, but in any case, it is a sign of your ability improvement and your critical ability enhancement; If you still feel that there is no increase or decrease, you should be on your own guard.

Don't envy the "nothing to add" bullshit. If the first draft is really unchangeable, then either his conceit and complacency are at work, or his critical and writing skills are stagnant at the current stage and there is no further progress. For beginners, the only way to practice is to review more and enjoy it over and over again. It was revised today, every few days, and the third time every other day. After reviewing, I read books and study famous books. After reading the book, please revise anything new. If you find mistakes in the manuscript again and again, it shows that your ability is increasing day by day. The secret of practicing calligraphy is not afraid of revision. Of course, don't be shy and refuse to show others your first draft. We should listen to people's criticism with a very objective attitude. No matter what you say, you don't believe it. You should put it in your own rational balance and weigh it carefully. Write it down and think about it later.

Some people may ask, "In this way, there is no end to review. Is it time for an unfinished article? " ? "

This is not the case. From the whole process of a person's writing, there is no end to revision, that is, there is no end to learning and progress; This is really the so-called "live after death" thing. But as far as an article is concerned, it will always come to an end after many revisions. After years of revision, the War and Peace with millions of words has finally come out, let alone a short article! In the end, it is either "published" or put in the corner of the desk drawer. If you don't take either, but chew on this article and revise it endlessly, it's either a joke to yourself or something is wrong with your mind.

So, to what extent should it be regarded as an end? One is that you are quite satisfied with your voice criticism at that time, and the other is based on the opinions given by your respected teachers and friends on this thing.

Fifth, explore freely and explore in many ways.

When practicing writing, we often encounter such a thing: an established article is always changed, but it is not done well. At this time, people are tired and their self-confidence is shaken. But after a while, they changed the topic and style. In fact, the works they wrote were different from yesterday. It is obviously unreasonable to say that this is a great progress in one day and two days, so there are other explanations. The most common is: "This topic is easy to write, but that one is not easy to write." ; The most specious thing that doesn't actually explain anything is: "Your inspiration didn't come at that time, but it came later."

We'd better not put the blame on "inspiration" or attribute the honor to "inspiration", and at the same time we can't agree with the theory that the topic is easy to write but not easy to write. "Inspiration" is too vague and unpredictable; If there is a so-called "inspiration", then, according to the mental state when the "inspiration" comes, it is only a very concentrated attention and a particularly active creativity for a certain period of time. But if you have nothing in your mind, then the so-called "inspiration" can't make you achieve anything. Therefore, the key to the problem is whether your subject matter is mature or not. When you write an article and revise it many times, it is still unsatisfactory, probably because your subject matter is not mature and you are not familiar with some technical joints of this genre.

In this case, writing practice should not be limited to a certain range of materials and a certain genre. You should maximize the scope of practice. Because the material is relatively mature, although it is roughly as described in the third chapter above, it is sometimes deceived by subjective actions. Although it feels rough when holding a pen, it is not the same thing. So don't insist. The arrow of practice should point in all directions.

But all your experiences are the object of writing practice.

Any genre you come into contact with is also the object of writing practice. First, we must explore freely and explore in many ways in order to get the result of being proficient in this way; You must develop freely and in many ways before you can reach the road that suits you.

Therefore, beginners should be energetic and far-sighted, scout freely in the wilderness of literature and art, write out all the life trends they have come into contact with and try all the literary systems. If you try to write a poem today, try to write a short story, reportage and prose tomorrow, and try to write a play the day after tomorrow, it doesn't matter: you just have to be serious when writing, not joking. Don't be afraid of others saying that you have no perseverance; In fact, it has not been decided whether you will engage in literary work for life in the future! Moreover, the practice at this time is not constant. What are the disadvantages? Don't be hypnotized by the concept of "blockbuster". You set a circle for yourself from the beginning, thinking that you would be a garden for life, and you would stick around in the circle, intending to finish your masterpiece at once. This is not a specialization in direction, but self-discipline. Specifying a direction to specialize prematurely is actually synonymous with self-development.

Maybe you keep a diary every day? Then, you can use the diary as your site for free exploration and development. Don't pay attention to the writing of "old records", such as month, day, day of the week, cloudy or sunny, cold or hot, what letters you sent and received, who you met and what you did-these are unnecessary. You are not a big shot yet, and these logs will not be regarded as historical materials, so there is no need to waste time. You might as well try one of the various poses that you think is memorable. You sent your eldest brother to join the army today. You can write a poem in your diary. Yao Ming Maybe your neighbor owed rent and was caught by the landlord, so you might as well write a reportage. If your parents quarrel about something the day after tomorrow, I'll try to write a script for you. Practice writing needs to write more and often, so keeping a diary is also a way; However, a diary like a running account will not be good for you. Using the energy of keeping a diary to practice writing, the method shown here is also practical.

The sixth skill is not mysterious.

Let's assume that the readers of this little book have acquired quite a lot of vocabulary skills. Please don't feel unattainable and afraid when you see the word "skill". Please don't think of the word "skill" as a long list of adjectives, some strange and unusual words, and even some awkward sentences that seem to be vernacular. The so-called "skill" is not mysterious. You don't have to be shy to say, "I'm not skilled." In fact, being able to express yourself clearly is a skill. Don't you often meet people who don't understand what you mean? If you can express yourself euphemistically, resolutely, optimistically or sadly according to your emotions at that time, then the degree of skill will go further. As long as you are not fooled and superstitious about words and syntax written on paper, as long as you boldly write what you say on paper, there is no reason not to believe that you have mastered the skills quite well.

We must get rid of the usual mysterious view of "skills" before we can talk about how to learn skills.

The most basic unit of literary and artistic works composed of words is words. Once upon a time, people paid attention to the method of composition, beginning with "refining words" This is: find the most appropriate, freshest and loudest words for what you want to express, or for what you want to vent, and what you want to tell people. Now we also advocate "refining Chinese characters" and looking for them that way. But once upon a time (and now some people) thought that we should look for it in books, while we advocated looking for it in the words of the living-at least this method should be regarded as the main basic work. At this point, I have no objection to "putting a dragon gate array".

Several words are linked together to form a sentence; Therefore, the method of sentence organization is the second step to be studied. This should also be found and studied in people's conversations. You can prepare a miscellaneous notebook to record all the clever and special words or sentences you hear at any time. However, the organic law of sentences can also be explored from literary works of style. There, the organic laws of sentences are processed by the author, so people are more rigorous and changeable than usual. Tightness and diversity are the key points of sentence-making technology.

So far, "writing" and "speaking" are consistent, and the skill of "writing" is rooted in the skill of "speaking". Furthermore, "writing" requires its unique skills, but it is not mysterious.

Let's try to illustrate this problem with an example.

Someone is telling a story in the teahouse. The speaker is eloquent, so the story is beautiful. You record the story, and when you study it, you will find its wonderful features, such as the vividness and cleverness of the language, which are beyond the reach of words. However, compared with some well-written stories, its structure is loose and the plot is flat. This little research tells us one thing: the storyteller in the teahouse has never studied some skills of story, because he didn't mean to be a storyteller. On the other hand, those stories written as literary works are superior because the author deliberately pays attention to this skill. Structural skills are necessary. The so-called structure not only refers to the arrangement and cooperation between people and things, but also takes into account the rhythm of the whole article-this is the ups and downs of the emotional appeal produced by the development of the story. A work (with a few exceptions) can't be the same tune from beginning to end; If so, it will become a flat plate, which is not beautiful. So there must be a "wave", such as a piece of music, the rhythm is fast and slow, and the sound is high and low. People, events and events in a work must have realistic basis, but that is fictional by the author. Because they are fictional, the occurrence, development and ending of these people, things and things should be reasonable on the one hand, with 100% authenticity, but compact at the same time, and all parts should become an organism, with ups and downs, so as to increase their color, rhythm and charm and strongly touch readers.

These skills, we should learn from the world, but also from our own masterpieces. These skills have been successfully created and studied by countless talents for hundreds or even thousands of years. These skills are still developing and will never end.

However, this skill can not only be found in famous books, but also be learned. We should also extract the motivation to create new skills from social life. Society is changing, and new social life will produce new literary skills. This can be understood only by studying the causes of the emergence of new literary forms in a specific historical period from ancient times to the present. But this floor is hard to say, this little book can't hold it. It can only be mentioned briefly here. To study it in detail, we must read a special book.

What I have said above can be summarized by a sentence I often hear: "Learn from life."

Seventh, write and then read, read and then write.

Some suggestions on how to practice writing have been put forward above, and now I will add one more, that is, "read more". "Write more", not afraid of revision, but also "read more".

"Reading" and "writing" should go hand in hand and be interrelated.

Knowing how to "read" will also know how to "write".

The scope of "reading" should be extensive and multifaceted.

The purpose of "reading" is not to copy words, not to imitate styles, but to learn skills! In-depth study of the writing methods of famous works, mastering this method and making it work for me: this is the best learning method.

Therefore, "reading" must have a method. Excerpting good sentences is not the right way. If reading is just to extract good sentences, you might as well buy a dictionary of literary descriptions. It is not the right way to do tedious research on one chapter at a time. The result is that trees are not seen in the forest. From the standpoint of composition method, it is not how clever this "turn" is, but how special the "foreshadowing" is. This is the correct way to talk about the opening and closing of links. It's like magic. Although others are amazed and fascinated by it, you actually have nothing but that "technology". If the author of a famous book dies, he probably won't admit that he had so many small concerns when he wrote it.

Of course, there are still many problematic pronunciations, and I can't cover them all at once.