Those satisfactory novels or stories seem to be effortlessly and seamlessly organized, which makes people wonder: "How did the author do it?" The answer is simple: he sits at his desk alone, thinking about a series of options, and then makes a wise and cautious choice.

In this book about novel writing, the award-winning writer and widely respected creative writing professor David? Hans Robert Jauss provides a lot of practical information and suggestions to help you make professional and creative decisions when faced with the following problems:

Write an article according to syntax and rhythm and prepare a "background music" for the story.

Choose an appropriate narrative perspective and create an appropriate "distance" between your character and the reader.

In the process of creation, calmly control the forces of contradiction and opposition.

In one thought-provoking article after another, Hans Robert Jauss combed the unique problems in novel writing, including how to design the subtle intersection between truth and fiction, which is why all great novels are far more attractive than those that follow the rule of "write what you know", which is just a way of writing that we frequently adopt.

About the author:

David? Hans Robert Jauss wrote a collection of short stories, Black Map, Passionate Crime, Poems, You Are Away, Improvised Torrents, Essays by Using Novel Skills, Facing All Possible Things Alone, Everything is Split: How Do We Know the Ending Event is Over, and so on, and devoted himself to the ending art of literary works. The editor-in-chief has the following three works: Contemporary American Poetry in Traditional Forms, The Best Works of Crazy Horse Song and Dance Show: Poetry and Prose for 30 Years, and Stars and Streams. His short stories and poems have been published in many magazines, including Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Missouri Review, National Weekly, New England Review, Paris Review, Ploughblade, Poetry Magazine and so on. , and has been well received in Europe and America. Annual collection of Henry Award and Trolley Award, best short stories in America, poetry anthology: 19 12-2002, etc. He has won the Short Story Award and Poetry Award from the Writers and Writing Courses Association, and served as the novel editor of Crazy Horse Song and Dance Show for ten years. He is currently teaching at Arkansas State University and teaching the writing of the Master of Arts training program at Vermont Art College.

Wonderful book review:

One:

I like reading books, especially novels. When reading a novel, I have this idea:

1. Only people with rich life experience can create good novels.

2. The person and syntax used in the novel are completely divorced from the author's writing habits.

3. A collection of novels is a collection of several novels. Which one comes first and which one comes later is just a random arrangement of authors or publishers.

I also like writing articles, but I am particularly bad at writing novels. When writing a novel, the characters can't escape my own shadow. When writing other types, I am too weak to write; Sometimes when writing, people are confused, from "she" to "I" or "you"; When editing typesetting, I will add a comma to long sentences. For longer paragraphs, I will temporarily divide them into two or three paragraphs. I occasionally think, how should the length of sentences and paragraphs be defined? What's the effect of different lengths? But these ideas are only fleeting, and I have never delved into them; I often resent that my novels don't have strong enough conflicts; There is also a lack of innovation in concept.

Over time, I envy those who can write novels more and more, and I believe that creativity and imagination are gifts. I am not born to write novels.

It was not until a week ago that I read the book "On Novel Creation-Rethinking the Traditional Concept of Writing Skills" published by the National People's Congress Press, only to find that my above ideas were all wrong; More specifically, when I finished reading the preface written by Brett Lott for this book, I had regained my confidence in writing. Brett Lott said that the author of this book, David Jauss and Robert Jauss, is not only an excellent writer, but also a teacher specializing in writing at Vermont Art College. The two met in a short-term writing training class. Later, he asked David to help him revise an article. David's "honesty" and "unreservedness" not only won numerous awards for his prose, but also made his "career as a writer suddenly change".

For those who are passionate about writing but have been struggling on the road of writing, who doesn't want to meet a mentor and master like David?

It is with this expectation that I read the whole book. I am not disappointed, but I am very happy. My cognition has been refreshed, and the doubts that hinder my novel creation have also been answered in various chapters.

The first chapter "Self-fear: Writing and Secret Life" solves the problem of my writing limitation. The author writes that although "writing what you know" is almost the most repeated advice in creative writing class, the author thinks that "it is much easier to describe what is fabricated than what you are too familiar with to take for granted", and writing what you know "will make you feel monotonous". Therefore, the subtlety of novel creation is precisely, "start with what you know, but you can write what you don't know." The process of novel creation is actually a process of hiding the true self by showing other people's lives, in other words, it is also a process of self-discovery. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with writing about yourself, but it is more important to find a deeper self, which is often done by shaping other roles.

The second chapter to the fifth chapter solved my specific writing skills.

The second chapter, from long-distance lens to X-ray film: the distance and narrative perspective in the novel clarify my previous understanding of the writer himself. I don't appreciate the concept of "first person perspective" and "omniscient perspective" to divide the novel writing types in the popular sense. On the contrary, the author emphasizes that the ultimate goal of any narrative perspective is to control the distance between characters and readers, thus "guiding readers' reading response". Therefore, in the same novel, the perspective is not single or absolute;

The third chapter "What are we talking about when we talk about fluency" makes me realize that a good novel with fluent writing actually hides the writer's efforts to "rhythm". These efforts are reflected in their choice of words, in the length and structure of sentences, and even in the relationship between each paragraph and the whole length, and in the writers' efforts in layout;

The fourth chapter, Memories of the Present: the Present Tense in Contemporary Novels, reflects and refutes the phenomenon that the present tense is popular in American literary circles. Because I read fewer original English novels, Chinese expressions hardly involve tense issues, so I understand less.

The fifth chapter "Some Epiphanies about Epiphany" gives me the deepest feeling. The author pointed out the common problem of "epiphany" from the beginning. Looking back at my previous articles, most of the "golden sentences" or "main paragraphs" that emphasize, summarize, sublimate and warn at the end belong to this kind of failure. The author says that the real "epiphany" does not necessarily appear at the end, but may appear first, and the following plot is just to confirm this epiphany; Epiphany is not always correct, and the protagonist doesn't even have to really follow it. He/she may keep the original state after the epiphany, or go to the other extreme because of overreacting to the epiphany. The most important point is that "epiphany" is not directly described by the author, but will be "experienced" by readers by means of intention, metaphor and symbol.

The sixth chapter, Neatly Packed Stones: Conceiving a Collection of Short Stories, asks a question: How should the author arrange the order of novels in the collection? As a reader, will there be a difference in reading experience between random reading and sequential reading? After reading this chapter, I was deeply influenced by this sentence: "If you have a book with 24 poems in it, then the book itself should be the 25th". In order to avoid missing anything, I decided to read in order when I was studying in the future; And if I am lucky enough to publish a collection of novels in the future, I will definitely create what the author calls "the 25th poem".

The seventh chapter "Beyond Lever: Creative Contradictions and Physical Phenomena" is the most difficult chapter in the whole book, but it has the most profound significance for me. I believe that anyone who thinks he has no creativity and imagination like me can gain the lever of transcendence through practice. Moreover, this kind of exercise is not only in writing, but also in thinking-to practice changing from "convergent thinking" to "open thinking"; Accustomed to the contradictory thinking of "both" and "again"; Learn to embrace uncertainty. In the book, the author also introduces nearly ten concrete methods to express contradictions and opposites, and there are great literary works as examples behind each method. I know that any change in thinking takes a long time and hard practice, but I am convinced that all the efforts made for this are worthwhile.

I want to thank the author for sharing so many "secrets" about novel creation that he deeply understands in the book-these secrets are not platitudes, but reflections on past traditional concepts. I also want to thank the author for dissecting these secrets so clearly in a way that readers can easily understand-his huge reading volume, excellent editing experience and years of teaching experience enable him to always find the most appropriate channel, or quote famous articles, or students' works, or make analogies.

This is another writing essence that the author brought to me after reading the complete book: a good writer never thinks only of himself, but links readers with every word he writes, so that readers can experience and share with you.

Two:

Profession comes from strength.

Who is the author? David Jess, he is a stranger to me. Today, after reading his novels, I gradually got to know the origin of this writer. After reading this book, I was deeply impressed by two points of the book itself:

Second, how much energy the author should have to publish a professional and educational book. The above is accumulation, but in this book) P223-249, the range of 27 pages is reserved for reference. From here, we can easily find that the author's attitude towards this book is not only rigorous, but also extensive. After reading the whole article, it is not difficult to find that the author has great skill in giving examples. This is inseparable from his years of accumulation. As far as these two points are concerned, it is normal to have a trust and admiration for the author.

It will be difficult to read a professional novel writing guide, especially for foreign writers, without a deep understanding of foreign literature, foreign philosophical thinking or so-called tenses in western languages. Compared with the author's handiness, a large number of professional terms recognized by him appear between the lines from time to time. This greatly reduces the reading speed. If the novel is reading, this book, I believe, needs a new word: goods.

From the author's occupation itself, the author's cultivation of philosophy is also obvious in this book. Especially in the first chapter, there are a lot of logical and dialectical comparisons. For example, you are required to start with what you know, but you should write what you don't know. Or, for example, a person's real life is often the kind that he has never really lived. "If there is no philosophical foundation and no taste in life, then reading this book itself may really feel unintelligible. There are also many paradoxes, such as: you imagine other people's lives, but in fact you show the unknown part of yourself; When you expose yourself, you only expose other people's secrets. Literature begins with individual behavior, but the deeper it goes, the more it will go with everyone. Everyone is me and you. Entering other people's brains shows their own thinking. This is also the keynote of other chapters, and the author uses philosophy to teach readers. In fact, a careful look at the catalogue of this book will probably give you a clue.

The creator of the novel thinks about how to convey his inner feelings to readers in words. How to achieve this goal better and more effectively is the skill pursued by the novel creators. Ideas need to be embodied by means. This method, under the guidance of the author of this book, is mainly reflected in the annotation and interpretation of reading perspective, fluent writing and tense judgment. In the process of reading, we can easily find that after comparing many novelists, the author sorts out the process of understanding creation, which is also extracted from the author's writing and forms his own conclusion. Because this book itself is a collection of essays about writing. Express your understanding of writing by asking questions, examining, comparing, refining and deducing. Whether it is the transformation of perspective, the fluency of writing, the grasp of rhythm or the transformation of tense, there are objective laws at work. There is only one purpose, to better narrow the distance with readers, so that readers can read stories in words and forget the existence of readers and words.

What impressed me most about fluency is the following sentence: when we talk about fluency, we should talk about the diversification of sentence structure and length, "syntactic order" and its influence on readers' emotional response, the simulation of rhythm and the way it exerts those effects, and the rhythmic relationship between the parts of the work and the whole. ..... its purpose is to guide our unconscious understanding of fluency to our conscious understanding in this way, so that those of us who can't intuitively write fluent words can practice related skills and strategies until the ultimate goal of all these trainings is achieved, that is, practice makes perfect, making it an instinctive exercise ability.

The writing style of this book is solemn. The vision is unique, and the views are of course different. In the chapter of epiphany, it is even more obvious. The author is committed to a possible way to satisfy readers and successfully realize the truth. "There is no road in this world. If there are more people walking, there will be a way. " In life and history, this is the true meaning. For literary creation, why not?

When a writer is creating, not all of them should abide by the so-called writing essence. In the process of creation, not all words can leave their own traces. Where there are works, there will be readers, and there will be people who study them. The purpose of studying works is to refine and take care of them and influence future generations to continue their creation. Generations of creators are different, and people who study works are different from generation to generation, so the accumulation of creative knowledge is more and more extensive. We don't need to emphasize that all creators should abide by the so-called creative essence. However, in different historical development stages, the existence of creative essence is independent and objective. When we appreciate the works, if we know some necessary creative essentials in the process of reading the works, we may better enter the works created by the author for us.

I would like to take this article as my experience and understanding in novel creation. Recommended to you who are committed to true love reading and creativity.

Three:

Zhang Sanfeng taught Mowgli Taiji swordsmanship, but he forgot it after teaching.

The dialogue seems to be like this:

"Remember?"

"I remember it all."

"What about now?"

"I forgot a small part."

"Oh, I have forgotten more than half."

"Not bad or bad. Forgot it so soon. What about now? "

"I forgot all about it. I totally forgot."

"All right, you go."

-The movie "Eternal Dragon Slayer"

A glimpse of this conversation reminds me of "writing skills are not skills". It's really cold, amazing and sober. We need a literary Zhang Wuji.

Zhang Wuji in the movie probably didn't forget how Zhang Sanfeng taught him to learn those moves, and then he forgot.

If you can't remember, why should you forget?

If you don't learn technology, how can you be "unskilled"?

Many friends who write short stories hope to form their own collections of works or publish a collection of novels through serialization. Then the question is, how can we organize a collection of short stories?

Recently, I read "On Novel Creation" written by American writer David Hans Robert Jauss, and read the so-called writing skills to share with you.

Aside from narrative perspective, distance and contradiction, I want to focus on how to conceive a collection of short stories.

First, the conception principle of short story collection.

In the author David? In Hans Robert Jauss's view, the collection of short stories is not a simple piece of short stories.

He found himself reading novels and went through two stages. One is to follow one's inclinations, open the letter and let go of the reins, which seems to be no different; Later, I read it from beginning to end in order, and it felt very different.

The characters, stories and plots in the novel collection are interrelated, rigorous in structure and completely different in meaning.

So he came to an important conclusion: when writing novels and conceiving a collection of novels, we should know the sequence and arrange the content position reasonably.

This truth can be roughly expressed in the following figure:

So, how can we combine them into a proper order and put each novel in a proper position?

Secondly, the conception methods and skills of short story collections.

"Just as a person wants to build a house with natural stones, he has to face the same kind of problems: we have a bunch of short stories with different sizes, shapes, textures and colors, and we must try to combine them. This combination must have satisfactory functions and aesthetic enjoyment. "

What is commendable is the author David? Hans Robert Jauss believes that planning some short stories, like other things in the art field, mainly depends on intuition, but it can also rely on skills and principles. This is like a carpenter, chopping wood, starting with an axe, mainly by feeling, but by chalk line, he can saw the wood square.

Is there any way to help us combine novels?

1. Direct combination

A collection of short stories contains a large number of individual novels, which form a whole in many ways.

Just as we want to make furniture out of several pieces of wood, the splicing method can be fixed by traditional tenon-mortise structure or spliced by modern hardware devices.

David? Hans Robert Jauss's "On Novel Creation" gives two ways to combine a collection of single novels-I summarize them as "direct bonding" and "indirect bonding".

Let's talk about "direct bonding" first.

A. Related substances

What are the usual connections?

Some keywords, images, repetitive actions, etc. This is easy to understand. In our years of reading experience, we have actually been exposed to so-called clues and echoes. The connection here is similar.

The article quotes one? The word "dust" appears repeatedly in the Land and Dust designated by Pecock, which is closely related to the theme of "dust in the pulse" that once danced in the Appalachian Mountains.

"Dust" is a link.

Similarly, an image and an action can appear in different novels and form a connection between them. This is similar to the clue of something in the novel, such as the token and secret book in the martial arts novel.

How's it going? Isn't it interesting?

B. decorative patterns

In the author's view, the motif is an extended connection; When conjunctions not only appear in two or a small group of short stories, they will expand into motifs. At this point, the motif also contains the theme of the novel.

For example, China's classic novel Shi Shuo Xin Yu is divided into 36 articles such as morality, speech, politics, literature and founder. Each article can be regarded as a collection of short stories. Its "virtue" and other similar words constantly appear in various novels in different forms and become the motif of overall control.

It can be said that motif is the core "technology" of connecting novels, and it is as important as computer cpu.

C. People, background and theme

Like the recurring words, images and actions, they also belong to some motifs, which help to unify all kinds of short stories.

It's easy for people to appear repeatedly. Ghosts and foxes often appear in Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio and become the key elements of the whole series of novels.

Background bonding means that the story content is different, but the environment is the same. It's like a teahouse. People who come to drink tea and chat every day are different, but the teahouse is still a teahouse. Teahouses connect different people with different things. This is such a cohesive background that the book was brought to George Street in Brooklyn, new york.

The unity of theme, but the difference of specific content, forms the characteristics of diversification of stories in the novel collection. For example, Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio contains many love themes, but each one has different scholars and beautiful women, and the story is different.

2. Indirect combination

A. parallel

It is to make two short stories show some similarity in "plot" or "mode".

The book gives such an example:

In Correspondence and Sincere Cafe, the protagonists in both novels are recalling a beloved person who has passed away. In communication, he is the hero's friend; In Sincere Cafe, he is the son of a hero.

You see, the two novels don't seem to have much connection in content. But because everyone has a similar plot, it seems to be a repetition of dreams, so the mood is strengthened.

Is it similar to "telepathy" in life

This combination does not depend on direct connection, so it is called indirect connection.

B. objection

Compared with "parallelism", opposition does not strengthen emotions, but complicates or even completely reverses them.

During a trip to the desert in northwest Arabia, a Jewish boy lost his parents in the Holocaust. The plot makes us think that the little boy may have made a positive or even life-saving move. But in Orville's Rye, the little boy gives us the feeling that he has a terrible break with real life, and he is only one step away from madness. This makes sympathy extremely complicated.

In addition, the book also mentions mirrors, "picture frames" and so on, and interested readers can read them in depth.

Arrange the order

If you have read seven novels now, as usual, there are certain advantages and disadvantages. How are you going to order?

In one case, before you start writing, you have thought about the whole novel collection and know it clearly. Your feelings and inspiration are in place, and the writing of your works is irreconcilable, so there is no order.

However, if we are still in the primary stage of imitation and skill learning, please see the following picture:

1—3—5—7—6—4—2

The beginning and the end are the two most important novels, and the author thinks that the worst quality is in the middle. The reason for this arrangement is that in the author's view, the reader's reading experience is very important.

Suppose all seven novels are parallel, and seven of them (the worst one) are at the beginning, what will happen? It goes without saying that readers' interest in reading will be reduced or even lost.

This reminds us of the inverted pyramid structure of news, with the most valuable content at the beginning of the article. This is based on science.

No one has the obligation to see through your "messy appearance" to see through your extremely delicate heart. So do readers of novels.

In order to facilitate readers' memory and preservation, a picture is used to summarize the key contents of the full text:

When presenting these so-called methods of conceiving, organizing or structuring short story collections in my way, I suddenly feel that my efforts may be in vain.

Because for the authors who set up short stories in other ways, they are already familiar with the skills. I also want to try to build a novel collection with a circuit board model.

For those who are exposed to these skills for the first time, a better way is to try them, and then internalize them into their own flesh and blood and become the subconscious, just like Zhang Wuji.

Novel is an artistic life. On the stage of the novel, life's joys and sorrows, insipid surprises and trivial vastness are all interpreted artistically. All the techniques are aimed at better and more realistic reproduction of real life.

Perhaps, it is not difficult to understand the vast number of writing methods and techniques by seriously thinking about the existing and possible States of the real world.

In the garden of novels and collections, nothing is unexpected and impossible.

Release your imagination and detonate your novel world!

Writing improves life. May we meet affectionately on the other side of the text.

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