浅谈英语创意写作4: 如何搭漂亮句子？
按：这是最近两年我在美国爱荷华大学教本科生创意写作课的讲稿。创意写作课因为其独特的实践性质，大部分的课堂时间都用于细读作品和讨论学生的习作。但是因为我的课针对的是母语非英语的国际学生，我为每堂课做了5-10分钟的微讲座，主要涉及英语写作的最基本层面。如今，爱荷华岁月已经结束，就整理这些笔记给对英语写作感兴趣的朋友。如果希望了解更深入的创意写作层面，欢迎搜索我的在线课程。
这一讲涉及的是如何写出好句子，以下是一些易上手的建议：
1. 从简单句开始
第一讲中提到，清晰，准确和简洁是英语最重要的审美原则，因此，简单句其实具有非常强大的力量，尤其放在开头，我们看几个例子：
• All this happened, more or less. (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five)
• They shoot the white girl first. (Toni Morrison, Paradise.)
• In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together. (Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter)
但是，简单句如果要漂亮必须蕴含“潜台词”（subtext），这方面很多写作项目都会把哈金的句子当作典范：
• Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. (Ha Jin, Waiting)
你能从这个开头句里读出几个意思？你会想：为什么每年夏天都要离婚？你甚至马上就对这对夫妇有了这样的判断：他们的关系岌岌可危，但是有些事情导致他们无法一刀两断；于是，你想知道为什么。看看，一句简单的话，哈金已经为整部长篇小说制造好了悬念。
再看更多的例子：
• When Dick Gibson was a little boy he was not Dick Gibson. (Stanley Elkin, The Dick Gibson Show)
• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (George Orwell, 1984)
• It was the day my grandmother exploded. (Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road)
• It was a pleasure to burn. (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451)
• All children, except one, grow up. (J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan)
因为句式简单，所以需要强调的信息反而更加清晰。
运用对称句式（parallel sentences）营造节奏，例如：
• He came to the river. The river was there. (Ernest Hemingway, “Big Two-Hearted River”)
这个句子有点像鲁迅的“我家院子里有两棵树，一棵是枣树，另一棵也是枣树。”这样的句子一般文章当中只能用一次，强调这种“异常感”。
看一个更通常的例子：
• I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. (Jeffry Eugenides, Middlesex)
说明：虽然运用对称句式可以给句子增加节奏，让文章的流动性增强，但是还是要有subtext（比如以上这句的“I was born twice.”），不然读起来反而更加乏味。
3. 如果你运用对称句式，用“变化”来凸显你要强调的内容，比如：
• Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. (John Stainbeck, The Grapes of Wrath)
• The children ran out first hell bent and yelling those names by which they were known; then the fathers sank out leisurely in crossed suspenders, their collars removed and their necks looking tall and shy. The mothers stayed back in the kitchen washing and drying, putting things away, recrossing their traceless footsteps like the lifetime journeys of bees, measuring out the dry cocoa for breakfast. (James Agee, A Death in the Family)
以Agee的段落为例，这是黄昏家家户户吃完饭以后的情景，孩子，父亲，母亲的行为和感情色彩是不同的，所以，文章虽然使用类似的句式，但是细节，尤其是动词词组的差异把三组人各自的姿态勾勒了出来（孩子的欢快，父亲的疲惫，母亲的忙碌）。
其实，被视为英语典范的《圣经》有很多对称句式的运用。完全可以从英语学习者的角度来读《圣经》，以此熟悉英语的韵律（cadence）：
• In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Genesis1:1-4)
可以看到，从“The earth was without form”到“And the spirit of God was hovering…”都是相同的主谓结构，且谓语都包含was，句子长度相当，形成相似的节奏，你也习惯了这种节奏。但是最后那句，因为停顿的增加和动词的改变，这句话显得与众不同。
“Let there be light”; and there was light. 这句我们今天已经都耳熟能详，但其实这句话是重复句（“重复”本身有违简洁的审美原则）。我们之前看到海明威的那句“He came to the river. The river was there. ” 其实也是类似的运用。但是《圣经》里的这个重复显出一种即时且轻而易举的神的手势。加上前面有这么多对称句式的铺垫，神的全能也被放得更大了。（有兴趣的读者可以读读海明威的小说原文，看看这句话被放置在哪种语境下。）
4. 用简单句和复杂句的交替来寻找恰当的节奏
英语中的句子会出现太松或者太紧的问题，太松了就要合并，太紧了就要拆散（这都必须基于清晰，简洁，准确的审美原则之上）。什么叫太松？什么叫太紧？我们来看这三句话，你觉得哪句读起来最舒服？
（1) Paul is my neighbor. He is a boxer. He loves his boxing gloves. He wears them even to bed.
（2) Paul, my neighbor and a boxer, loves his boxing gloves, wearing them even to bed.
（3) My neighbor Paul is a boxer. He loves his boxing gloves, wearing them even to bed.
第三句读起来最舒服。第一句太松，同样的句式一直重复，而且主语都是He，读者要一直停顿，仿佛一直在俯下身捡球，很累。第二句太紧了，也不舒服。所以，我们会有第三句这种简单句与稍微复杂一点的句子的结合，节奏恰恰好。
因此，你可以考虑用简单句和复杂句的交替来寻找节奏。这种交替不是1+1，可以是2+1；3+1；或者反过来的2+1；3+1。简单来说，给句子增加不同的停顿来实现变化，也通过变化来呈现重要的内容，比如：
• William Wallace Jamieson’s wife Hazel was going to have a baby. But this was October, and it was six months away, and she acted exactly as though it would be tomorrow. (Eudora Welty, “The Wide Net”)
可以看到：第一句话是基本信息呈现，平平无奇，但是第二句稍微复杂一点的句子一下子让前面那个平淡的信息增加了很多亮点，这里的幽默口吻跟句式的变化是有关系的，试比较：
• William Wallace Jamieson’s wife Hazel was going to have a baby. But she acted as if it would be tomorrow even though it was six months away.
可以发现，当Welty换了不同的主语，增加了停顿，后面一句变得更活泼了，这才使得这句话读起来跟前面那个简单句的反差如此剧烈。
再看更多大师笔下的句子：
• My father is gone. I’m slouched in a cast-aluminum chair across from two men, one the manager of the hotel we’re staying and the other a policeman. They’re both waiting for me to explain what’s become of him, my father. (Edwidge Danticat, The Dew Breaker)
• Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn. (Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises)
5. 少用或尽量不用there be句式
这也是“The Elements of Style”里提过的一条规矩，因为there be很多时候拉远了作者和读者的距离，而且“there be”本身也可以省略不说。比如：“There are two students in the room.”不仅平淡，而且冗余，你完全可以写：“Only two students are in the room.”强调的信息立即明确了。
但是，规矩只适用于一般情况，如果你想拉远作者和读者的距离，there be具有良好的效果。海明威的短篇常常被认为是不动声色的摄像镜头，这归功于他对there be的熟练运用，例如他的名篇《白象似的群山》：
• The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid. (Hemingway, “Hills like White Elephants”)
作者有意给予读者非常有限的信息（我们连主人公的名字都不知道），这是为了让读者自己透过这些信息去挖掘背后的深意。
比较下面这个改动，你会发现叙事距离有所拉近，同时感情色彩有了加强：
The hills across the valley of the Ebro stretched long and white. This side was bald—no trees or shade—and the station, sandwiched between two rail tracks, was grilled by the sun. At least, the building cast a warm shadow against the station. The curtain, made of lovely strings of bamboo heads, cordoned off the bar to keep the flies out.
一般小说的审美原则是希望更生动，更具有冲击力，所以才会有尽量不用there be（与海明威的实验风格相反）的要求。
6. 增加生动的细节
小说是细节的艺术，有的细节本身就富有意味，有的细节则是为了增加“生活的肌理”，让读者能够“看见”，“听见”，“闻到”，“尝到”甚至“触摸到”作者描写的对象。弗兰纳里·奥康纳曾引用师友的话说：你至少要让读者从三种不同的感官感受到你笔下的人物，他们才算存在。我们把这条原则说回到搭句子的基础层面，通常有这样两种做法：
（1） 使用分词结构凸显某个细节
一些例子：
• Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor. (J.K. Rowling, Harry Porter)
• Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. (James Joyce, “Araby”)
• Ma and I didn’t know how to swim, so she grabbed onto Paps’s back and I grabbed onto hers, and he took us on a little tour, spreading his arms before him and kicking his legs underneath us, our own legs trailing through the water, relaxed and still, our toes curled backward. (Justin Torres, We the Animals)
切记：不要滥用，画龙点睛，不要画蛇添足。
（2） 在某个重要的细节后面增加一句描绘，通常可以用从句完成。
• Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. (J. K. Rowling, Harry Porter)
说明：这样的补充描绘不能是废话，比方说：“He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by his hair and beard, both long and silver.” 这就没意思了，因为这个细节没有任何出人意料的地方（原理同第二讲里形容词部分不要写red blood，blue sea之类的规矩）。反观罗琳的这句描绘，很夸张，但是你一下子就可以看到这个人的样子（你知道他束皮带，而且头发和胡子这么长，一定有不同寻常的来历）。
还需要补充的是，美国人不太喜欢从句，因为很多时候从句可以用更简洁的表达取代，所以在美式英语里，你也可以这么写：
• Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard—both long enough to tuck into his belt.
再看另一个漂亮的例子，还是乔伊斯：
• The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses when we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. (James Joyce, “Araby”)
这里用对称句式一连用三个从句，形成了韵律，从句不再显得啰嗦，反而富于美感。而且，你不仅可以看到这个景象，还可以闻到，可以听到声音。乔伊斯有意重复“dark”一词，因为这也是这个短篇试图营造的主基调。（这里有个小技巧，如果你要用“重复”来强调某个信息，重复三次，这样读者就知道你是有意为之，而不是不小心的啰嗦。）
再看乔伊斯《阿拉比》里的另一例：
• Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communnicant and The Memoirs of Vidocq. I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow. (James Joyce, “Araby”)
回到前面说的，书页“卷起”或“潮湿”都不算惊人的细节，但是乔伊斯通过孩子的视角让这个细节具有意味，孩子不在乎（或者看不懂）书的内容，只是被陈旧的书页吸引。也因为如此，这个看似平凡的细节变得无比重要。
至此，四讲基本包含了我每学期5-10分钟mini-lecture的主要内容，希望算是个有用的起步，带着这些思考去阅读，去写作，慢慢地，不同的审美也会成为自己眼光的一部分。
点击“阅读原文”，可以看到上一讲。