事业 · 创业者自述

爱德华·博克:爱德华·博克自传·补录 484

爱德华·博克《爱德华·博克自传》· The Americanization of Edward Bok · 领导

Nor must the young author believe that the best work in modern magazine literature "is dashed off at white heat." What is dashed off reads dashed off, and one does not come across it in the well-edited magazine, because it is never accepted. Good writing is laborious writing, the result of revision upon revision. The work of masters such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling represents never less than eight or ten revisions, and often a far greater number. It was Stevenson who once said to Edward Bok, after a laborious correction of certain proofs: "My boy, I could be a healthy man, I think, if I did something else than writing. But to write, as I try to write, takes every ounce of my vitality." Just as the best "impromptu" speeches are those most carefully prepared, so do the simplest articles and stories represent the hardest kind of work; the simpler the method seems and the easier the article reads, the harder, it is safe to say, was the work put into it.

出处: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3538
定位:Additional excerpt 484 · 核对日期:2026-10-19 · 核验:短摘录

白话

核心是:好文章不是一气呵成的,而是反复修改出来的。那些“一挥而就”的作品往往读起来也像草稿,好杂志不会采用。斯蒂文森和吉卜林等大师都要修改八到十遍甚至更多。斯蒂文森对博克说,写作耗尽他的精力。就像最好的即兴演讲其实经过精心准备,最简单的文章往往最费功夫。可执行的做法是:接受修改是写作的一部分,不要追求初稿完美,多改几遍。

上下文

博克在自传中引用与斯蒂文森的交往,说明经典作品背后是艰苦的修改。

今日一问

你最近一次写作修改了几遍?是否愿意为提升质量多花时间打磨?

公版传记;原文逐字取自 Project Gutenberg,仅摘录段落并附全书链接。

本文本为公版;底本与原文链接见上。 版权

← 返回原文库