《On writing well》在英文世界里被称为写作圣经，整本书的核心只有一个：简洁（Simplicity）。该书并非只针对专业作家，而是面向每个有写作需求的人，也不是只针对文学写作，演讲稿、工作报告、邮件信函也都可参照，普通人遵循着书中的写作指南，反复打磨，都可写出干净、漂亮的小文。
全书共分四章，第一章为“原则(Principle)”，共分7小篇。其他章节后续每周更新。
注：括号中内容为原书的上下文。
1.The transaction交易
Writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.
写作并不容易也并不好玩，它是艰难而又孤独的，它也并非是语言的自然流淌。
Rewriting is the essence of the writing.
修改才是写作的本质。
The professional writer must establish a daily schedule and stick to it.
专业作家会建立每天的写字计划并严格执行。
If your job is to write every day, you learn to do it like any other job.
如果你的工作就是每天写作，那么你得学会像其他工作一样做好它（而无论你是否在状态，开心或沮丧）。
Writing is craft, not an art.
写作是门手艺，而非艺术。
The problem is to find the real man or woman behind the tension. Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about a topic, but who he or she is.
（当你坐下来时，你会不安，你正尝试着把自己真实的一部分通过文字跃然纸上，它并不容易。）问题就是要找到这种不安背后那个真实的人。其实，最终每个人的作品并非关于他谈论的主题，而是关于“他是谁。”
2.Simplicity简洁
The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb ,every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing ,what---these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.
好的写作其秘密就是要剥离整个句子只留下最干净的构成部分。没有功用的词、可以用短句代替的长句、和动词同义的副词、让读者不明主语的句子，各种杂物都在削弱一个句子的表达力量。
The answer is to clear our heads of clutter. Clear thinking becomes clear writing.
（我们如何写作出如卢梭《瓦尔登湖畔》般简练的文字？）答案就是要剔除我们头脑中的杂乱，只有清晰的思考才有清晰的写作。
If the reader is lost, it’s usually because the writer hasn’t been careful enough……Faced with such obstacles……readers blames themselves and they go back over the mystifying sentence, or over the whole paragraph……making guesses and moving on ……Writers is making them work too hard, and they will look for one who is better at this craft.
Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don’t know.
(现在有太多东西在争抢读者的注意力，新闻、老婆孩子、电视、手机、游戏，还有睡眠)
如果读者在阅读中迷失了，通常是因为作者不够小心。
（是不是句子中有太多废话让读者不知道在说什么？是不是时间线错乱？是不是句子前后没有因果关系？这些都会打断句子前后的连接性，让读者迷失其中。）
读者面对这些障碍，常会责怪自己，然后再往回看尝试弄懂作者在说什么。长此以往，读者就会去找那些说得清道理，让阅读更容易的作者。
所以我们要经常自问：我正在尝试要说的是什么？
Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident.Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.
写作是辛苦的。一个清晰简练的句子并非偶然得之，很少有第一次就很好的句子，甚至第三次也不是。所以深处绝望时要记住：如果你发现写作是艰难的，那是因为它本来就不容易。
With each rewrite I try to make what I given written tighter, stronger and more precise, eliminating every sentence that’s not doing useful work. Then I go over it once more, reading it aloud, and am always amazed at how much clutter can still be cut.
该书每次再版校订时(第6版)，我仍会尽量使其更紧凑、更有力、更精准，删除掉没有用处的词。然后我会再回顾一遍，大声朗读出来，还总能惊讶地发现有那么多杂乱的东西可以删掉。
3.Clutter杂乱
I would put the brackets around every component in a piece of writing that wasn’t doing useful work.
(有没有什么方法第一眼就识别出哪些是多余的呢？)我会把看上去没有用处的词或句子用括号括起来，尝试着跳过他们去看文章原意是否受到影响。
Most first drafts can be cut by 50 percent without losing any information or losing the author’s voice.
大多数人的初稿删减掉50%是不会影响文章的大意的。
Reexamine each sentence you put on the paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought ne expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it’s beautiful?
重新检查每个句子，每个词都起到作用了么？有没有更简约的表达方式？是否有些词过于花哨或者赶时髦？是否坚持要使用某些没用处的词只是因为你觉得它很美？
Simplify, simplify.
简洁，简洁。
4.Style 风格
If you give me an eight-page article and I tell you to cut it to four pages, you’ll howl and say it can’t be done. Then you’ll go home and do it, and it will be much better. After that comes the hard part: cutting it to three.
如果你给我八页的文章，我会告诉你拿回去改到四页，你愤怒地说做不到。然后你会回到家里，改到四页，嗯，好多了。接下来，才是最难的部分：你要改到三页。
This is the problem of writers who set out deliberately to garnish their prose .You lose whatever it is that makes you unique. The reader will notice if you are putting on airs. Readers want the person who is talking to them to sound genuine. Therefore a fundamental rule is: be yourself.
（尽量去塑造风格就像戴假发，看上去不错，但人们称赞的并不是你整体看上去多么漂亮而只会称赞做假发的师傅手艺是多么独到。）这就是写作人的问题---当他们打算刻意打扮自己的文章时，就会失去自己的独特性。如果作者在装腔作势，读者是能注意到的。读者想要的是一个能和他们对话的真实的人。因此一个基本原则是：做你自己。
They must relax, and they must have confidence.
写作者必须放松并且保持自信。
I can only offer the consoling thought that you are not alone. Some days will go better than others. Some will go so badly that you’ll despair of ever writing again. We have all had many of those days and will have many more.
(有没有方法可以让人不再紧张并保有自信呢？并没有)
我能提供的只是些安慰：你并不孤独。有时候会感觉良好，有时候会很坏，让你绝望到不会再次拿起笔。我们都曾经历过那些日子，以后也会经历更多。
Paragraph 1 is a disaster ---a tissue of generalities that seem to have come out of a machine. No person could have written them. Paragraph 2 isn’t much better. But paragraph 3 begins to have a somewhat human quality, and by paragraph 4 you begin to sound like yourself. You’ve started to relax.
第一段就是个灾难，大多数就像从生硬的机器中蹦出来一样。第二段并没更好，第三段才开始有了点样子，直到第四段你才开始像自己，你才放松开来。
Writers are obviously at their most natural when they write in the first person. Writing is an intimate transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and it will go well to extent that it retains humanity. Therefore I urge people to write in the first person: to use “I” and “me” and “We” and “us”.
写作者采用第一人称时才是最自在的。写作是两个人之间的亲密对话，只不过是以纸上文字的方式但仍然保留了沟通时的人性。因此我劝人们写作时用第一人称“我”“我们”。
I don’t want to meet “one”---he’s a boring guy. I want a professor with a passion for his subject to tell me why it fascinates him.
（在文章的表述中）我不想见到“一个人”的说法，因为“这个人”无趣。我想要的是一个满怀热情的教师告诉我为什么这个主题使他如此着迷。
Sell yourself, and you subject will exert its own appeal. Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.
去展示自己，你的文章主题会自然发挥其魅力。相信你自己的独特性和观点，写作是自我的展现。利用它的能量去保持自己前行。
5.The Audience受众
You are writing for yourself. Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience---every reader is a different person. Don’t try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don’t know what they want to read until they read it. Besides,they’re always looking for something new.
你是为自己而写作。不要去想普罗大众。每个读者都是不同的，也不要去猜测编辑们想要出版什么以及这个国家正适合读什么。编辑和读者并不知道他们要读什么直到他们读到它。而且，他们总是寻求些新的东西。
One is craft, the other is attitude. The first is a question of mastering a precise skill. The second is a question of how you use that skill to express your personality.
（有人可能会问，之前提到过我们写作时应尽力抓取读者注意力，现在又说要为自己而写，不是自相矛盾么？）但并不是，一个是手艺，一个是态度。抓取读者的注意力比如保持文章流畅易懂，这些是写作的技巧，这是为了读者的阅读体验。而怎么用这种技巧来表现自己的个性、观点就关乎写作的态度：你不是为愉悦别人而写。
But on the larger issue of whether the reader likes you, or likes what you are saying or how you are saying it, or agrees with it , or feels an affinity for your sense of humor or your vision of life, don’t give him a moment’s worry. You are who you are, he is who he is, and either you’ll get along or you won’t.
（如果由于文字呆板乏味，或者技术细节没解释清楚，读者在阅读中打盹儿了，那就是你的失误。）但在更大层面上，读者是不是喜欢你、喜欢你所谈论的东西、你谈论的方式，是否对你的幽默感抱有好感、赞同与否你的生活视角，对此不要有一刻的担心。你是你，他是他，也许你能与他和睦相处，也许不能，都不要在意。
6.Words语言
If you find yourself writing that someone recently enjoyed a spell of illness, or that a business has been enjoying a slump ,ask yourself how much they enjoyed it.
如果你在描写某个最近正罹患疾病的人，或者一个生意受挫的商人，问问你自己：他们多大程度上感受到了。
Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what was written by masters. Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I’d say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it.
养成习惯：读一读今天人们正在写什么，过去那些大师又在写什么。写作是可以通过模仿学习的。如果有人问我怎么学会写作的，我会说是通过读那些我想要模仿的人的文章，并尝试弄懂他们是怎么做到的。
Also bear in mind, when you’re choosing words and stringing them together, how they sound. This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact they hear what they are reading far more than you realize. Therefore such matters as rhythm and alliteration are vital to every sentence.
要记住，当你选词造句时，注意他们听起来怎么样。这个听起来也许挺怪：读者是用眼睛去读的。事实上，人是用耳朵来“听”他们在读的东西，所以像押韵、音节对句子就很关键。
Such considerations of sound and rhythm should go into everything you write. If all your sentences move at the same plodding gait ,which even you recognize as deadly but don’t know how to cure, read them aloud.
对于所有的写作，你都应该考虑其韵律或听起来怎么样。如果你所有的句子读起来都是同样的干瘪乏味，但是不知道怎么解决，那就大声读出来。（反复读就会知道问题所在，比如重新调整词语的顺序、用鲜活的词替换掉老词、删减长句成短句等。）
Remember: somebody out there is listening.
记住：别人正在聆听。
7.Usage词语的用法
One helpful approach is to try to separate usage from jargon.
一个有益的技巧是尽量不要使用行话术语。
Good usage, to me, consists of using good words if they already exist---as they almost always do---to express myself clearly and simply to someone else.
（词语的用法，没有固定的好坏之说）于我而言，只要能尽可能地清楚、简洁地表达自己的意思并传达给对方，而无论这些是新词还是老词，就是好词。
To be continued...
未完待续...