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发表于 2008-7-26 13:33:04
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《how to write a damn good novel》
老外的惊险小说写的就是吸引人,所以我找点美国人关于写作技巧的书看看,希望受到点启发.
"Doing your homework" means creating a background for the
major characters: in effect, writing their biographies. For most
writers, and certainly all beginning writers, character biographies
are a necessary preliminary step in the making of a novel.
Suppose you want to write a murder mystery. You don't
have a plot yet, or even an idea for one. The first thing you
need in a murder mystery is a murderer. The murderer will
be the villain and antagonist of the novel. In a mystery, the
story stems from the machinations of the villain. In a sense,
the villain is the "author" of your story. The cast of characters
you will need in your novel will depend upon your villain's
scheme.
Say you have a notion of a woman who murders her husband
because he has disgraced the family by selling dope to finance
his addiction to betting on slow horses. You have no idea who
this woman is or what she is like, but you know she is a clever
woman (otherwise she is not a worthy antagonist). You know she
will plan the crime with great care and cunning. Her cunning,
moreover, will determine the degree of difficulty the detective
will have, so you'll want her to be as clever as you can make
her.
The second thing you need is someone to solve the crime, the
protagonist. You may at the moment not have anyone in mind
to play the part. What do you do then?
There are many different types of detectives in such novels.
He or she can be a hard-boiled pro 美国派的硬汉侦探形象(Philip Marlowe马洛维, Sam Spade从1929年起,Dashiell Hammett就开始在Black Mask杂志上发表了数篇以Sam Spade为主角的小说,1930年,Sam Spade成为单行本小说《马耳他之鹰》的主角,从此也成为"hard boiled"侦探小说中最经典也是最令人难忘的私人侦探之一。),
a cerebral pro (Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot大名鼎鼎的福尔摩斯和克里斯蒂创作的比利时侦探波洛), a gifted am-ateur 天赋的业余侦探,破案过程更令人神往,记得还有个矮小的神父也是大脑超级发达的业余高手(Ellery Queen这可不是什么爱莉女王,而是埃勒里·奎因,是两位美国著名侦探小说家弗雷德里克·丹奈和曼弗雷德·B.李的笔名,两位作者从1932年开始合作,创作出一系列独具风格的侦探小说,其中大部分以埃勒里·奎因的笔名发表。, Miss Marple马普尔小姐,[英]阿加莎·克里斯蒂,侦探女王笔下的角色,是个老处女,面对犯罪迷团,她在火炉边,一边织毛衣,一边就可以漫不经心地说出罪犯的名字,推理名言是"人性是不变的,我那个村子里就曾发生过类似这样的.....".家长里短是其破案的源泉), or a bystander who gets drawn
into the mystery (the second Mrs. de Winter in Daphne du
Maurier's Rebecca.Rebecca就是<吕蓓卡>,也就是《蝴蝶梦》,是英国导演阿尔弗莱德·希区柯克赴美后拍的第一部影片,是他向好莱坞显示自己独特才能的见面礼,也是希区柯克的成名代表作,根据达夫妮·杜穆里埃的同名小说改编。). |
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