“Talented writing makes things happen in the reader’s mind — vividly, forcefully — that good writing, which stops with clarity and logic, doesn’t.”
有天分的写作发人深思——它们生动且有力——而好的写作仅仅止于条理清晰和逻辑合理。
The secrets of good writing have been debated again and again and again. But “good writing” might, after all, be the wrong ideal to aim for. In About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, and Five Interviews (public library), celebrated author and literary critic Samuel Delany — who, for a fascinating factlet, penned the controversial 1972 “women’s liberation” issue of Wonder Woman — synthesizes his most valuable insights from thirty-five years of teaching creative writing, a fine addition to beloved writers’ advice on writing. One of his key observations is the crucial difference between “good writing” and “talented writing,” the former being largely the product of technique (and we know from H.P. Lovecraft that “no aspiring author should content himself with a mere acquisition of technical rules”), the other a matter of linguistic and aesthetic sensitivity:
写好文章的秘诀已经被一而再再而三地讨论过了。可是“好的写作”可能终究只是个错误的理念。在《关于写作：七篇随笔，四封信和五个访谈》一书中，作家和文学批评家塞缪尔·德拉尼整理了他教授创作这门课三十五年来有价值的见解，这也是对一些受欢迎的作家们关于写作的忠告一文不错的补充。一个有意思的事情是，他曾经就备受争议的1972年《神奇女侠》漫画中的“女性解放”问题写过文章。他重要的观察之一就是“好的写作”和“有天赋的写作”之间的重大差异，前者主要是一种技巧性的创作(从H.P.洛夫克拉夫特那里我们了解到“有抱负的作家不应该仅仅满足于得到一些技巧方面的法则”)，而后者关系到语言和审美的敏感性。
Though they have things in common, good writing and talented writing are not the same.
[…]
If you start with a confused, unclear, and badly written story, and apply the rules of good writing to it, you can probably turn it into a simple, logical, clearly written story. It will still not be a good one. The major fault of eighty-five to ninety-five percent of all fiction is that it is banal and dull.
Now old stories can always be told with new language. You can even add new characters to them; you can use them to dramatize new ideas. But eventually even the new language, characters, and ideas lose their ability to invigorate.
Either in content or in style, in subject matter or in rhetorical approach, fiction that is too much like other fiction is bad by definition. However paradoxical it sounds, good writing as a set of strictures (that is, when the writing is good and nothing more) produces most bad fiction. On one level or another, the realization of this is finally what turns most writers away from writing.
Talented writing is, however, something else. You need talent to write fiction.
Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader’s mind — vividly, forcefully — that good writing, which stops with clarity and logic, doesn’t.
尽管有共同之处，好的写作和富有天分的写作并不是一回事。
如果你从一个混乱模糊文笔糟糕的故事入手，把写好文章的法则应用于此，你可能会把它变成一个简单、富有逻辑且条理清楚的故事。但它仍不算是个好故事。在所有小说中，百分之八十五到九十五的小说主要缺陷在于平庸和乏味。
现在流行新瓶装旧酒，用新的语言讲述老的故事。你还可以往里面加入新的角色，用他们来展现新的想法。但最终这些新的语言、角色和想法都会失去振奋人心的能力。
无论是在内容还是形式上，在主题还是修辞上，和其它作品过于雷同的小说显然是不怎么样的。不管下面这句话听起来有多么自相矛盾，写好文章如同一套枷锁(也就是说，除了文笔好点没有别的了)导致了大部分烂小说的产生。从某种层面或其它层面来讲，对这个问题的认识最终会使大多数作家远离写作。
不过，才华横溢的写作是另外一回事。写小说需要天赋。
好的写作条理清晰，而文采飞扬的写作充满能量。好的写作避免出错，而有天分的写作发人深思——生动，有力——而好的写作仅仅止于条理清晰和逻辑合理。
Virginia Wolf knew subtlety was the key to craftsmanship when she counseled that “we have to allow the sunken meanings to remain sunken, suggested, not stated.” “All bad writers are in love with the epic,” Hemingway admonished. The talented writer, Delany reminds us, is a master of induction, suggesting the general through the deft deployment of the specific, and in the process producing an even greater dramatic effect than the bombast of sweeping statements ever could:
“我们应当让潜藏的意义继续潜藏，可以暗示，但不要说出来。”，“所有差劲的作家都热爱史诗。”海明威告诫说。而德拉尼提醒我们，天才作家善于归纳总结，通过熟练运用特例来举一反三，并在此过程中得到比夸张的概述更富有戏剧性的效果：
The talented writer often uses specifics and avoids generalities — generalities that his or her specifics suggest. Because they are suggested, rather than stated, they may register with the reader far more forcefully than if they were articulated. Using specifics to imply generalities — whether they are general emotions we all know or ideas we have all vaguely sensed — is dramatic writing. A trickier proposition that takes just as much talent requires the writer carefully to arrange generalities for a page or five pages, followed by a specific that makes the generalities open up and take on new resonance. … Indeed, it might be called the opposite of “dramatic” writing, but it can be just as strong — if not, sometimes, stronger.
天才作家经常使用特例并避免一概而论——而那正是他/她的特例所引发的概括性论点。由于是暗指，而不是阐释，他们可能会给读者留下比明确阐释更有力的印象。举一反三是戏剧化的写作，无论那个概述说的是我们都了解的一般情感还是我们都能模糊感受到的想法。一个需要尽可能多天分的更为复杂的要求作家审慎地在一页或五页书里进行概述，接下来以详述揭示概述内容并引起新的共鸣。。。当然，我们可以称之为“戏剧性”写作的对立面，但它是同样有说服力的——有时，甚至会更好。
“Words have their own firmness,” Susan Sontag reflected in her diary. “Use the right word, not its second cousin,” Mark Twain famously advised, but great writing isn’t just a mere matter of concision. As E.B. White reminded us, “Writing is not an exercise in excision, it’s a journey into sound.” Delany bisociates this dual requirement for precision and eloquence, with precision and eloquence:
The talented writer often uses rhetorically interesting, musical, or lyrical phrases that are briefer than the pedestrian way of saying “the same thing.”
The talented writer can explode, as with a verbal microscope, some fleeting sensation or action, tease out insights, and describe subsensations that we all recognize, even if we have rarely considered them before; that is, he or she describes them at greater length and tells more about them than other writers.
In complex sentences with multiple clauses that relate in complex ways, the talented writer will organize those clauses in the chronological order in which the referents occur, despite the logical relation grammar imposes.
词汇有它们自己的韧性。”苏珊·桑塔格在她的日记中指出。“使用合适的词汇，不要用它的二表妹(意思相近但不合适的词汇)。”这是来自马克·吐温的忠告。不过上乘的写作并不只是简洁明了就够了。正如E.B.怀特提醒我们，“写作不是在删除中练习，而是一种去往声音的旅途。”德拉尼以而雄辩的方式将这种对于和雄辩的双重要求双重关联起来：
文采飞扬的作家通常使用修辞上有趣，悦耳或者抒情的表达方式，它们比平淡地说“同一件事”要简洁得多。
就好像有台言语的显微镜一样，天才作家能够迸发出一些转瞬即逝的感受或行为，梳理见解，并描述我们都能识别的从属感觉，即使以前我们很少去考虑这些。也就是说，他/她花更长的篇幅去描述这些，在这方面比其它作家讲得更多。
在以复杂的方式讲述多重从句的复杂句子中，天才作家会把那些句子按时间顺序组织好，其中，尽管语法影响着逻辑关系，但也不妨碍指示对象的存在。
In fact, the true potency of “talented writing,” Delany suggests, lies in its ability to compress subtle yet all-consuming sensation into an enormously efficient information packet. In many ways, the talented writer possesses the same qualities Wordsworth ascribed to the poet when he described him as someone “endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind.” Delany concludes:
Talented writing tends to contain more information, sentence for sentence, clause for clause, than merely good writing. … It also employs rhetorical parallels and differences. . . . It pays attention to the sounds and rhythms of its sentences. . . . Much of the information it proffers is implied. … These are among the things that indicate talent.
About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, and Five Interviews goes on to explore such facets of the craft as character and plot development, the intricacies of “pure storytelling,” and how to manage creative doubt.
德拉尼认为，事实上“有天分的写作”其潜力在于它能够把微妙而又引人注目的感觉压缩成极其有效的信息数据包。在许多方面，天才作家都具有华兹华斯所认为的那些属于诗人的特质，他把诗人描述为一个“被赋予了更敏锐的感性，更热情和温和，对人类本性有着丰富的认识，以及比普通人更有悟性的灵魂。”德拉尼总结说，
有天分的的写作在于比好的写作包含更多信息，句与句相对，从句与从句相对……它也采用修辞的异同……它关注句子的音调和节奏……它所提供的大量信息在文中都有所暗示……这些都属于有写作天分的表现。
《关于写作：七篇随笔，四封信和五个访谈》一书继续探讨了这方面的技能，比如人物和情节发展，“纯粹讲故事”的错综复杂之处，以及如何应对创造性疑惑。
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