书名：First You Write a Sentence当你开始写一个句子

作者：Joe Moran

出版社名称：Penguin Books Ltd

出版时间：2019

语种：英语 

ISBN：9780241978511

商品尺寸：12.9 x 1.5 x 19.8 cm

包装：平装 页数：240（以实物为准） 'What a lovely thing this is: a book that delights in the sheer textural joy of good sentences ... Any writer should read it' Bee Wilson 'Thoughtful, engaging, and lively ... when you've read it, you realise you've changed your attitude to writing (and reading)' John Simpson, formerly Chief Editor of the OED and author of The Word Detective The sentence is the common ground where every writer walks. A poet writes in sentences, but so does the unsung author who came up with Items trapped in doors cause delays. A good sentence can be written (and read) by anyone if we simply give it the gift of our time, and it is as close as most of us will get to making something truly beautiful. Enter acclaimed author Professor Joe Moran. Using minimal technical terms, First You Write a Sentence is his unpedantic but authoritative explanation of how the most ordinary words can be turned into verbal constellations of extraordinary grace. Using sources ranging from the Bible and Shakespeare to George Orwell and Maggie Nelson, and scientific studies of what can best fire the reader's mind, he shows how we can all write in a way that is clear, compelling and alive. Whether dealing with finding the ideal word, building a sentence or constructing a paragraph, First You Write a Sentence informs by light example: much richer than a style guide, it can be read not just for instruction but for pleasure and delight. And along the way it shows how good writing can help us notice the world, make ourselves known to others and live more meaningful lives. It's an elegant gem in praise of the English sentence. 'Moran is a past master at producing fine, accessible non-fiction' Helen Davies, Sunday Times 'Joe Moran has a genius for turning the prosaic poetic' Peter Hennessy

Joe Moran is a professor of English and Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University.

A Pedant's Apology

Or why I wrote this book

First I write a sentence. I get a tickle of an idea for how the words might come together, like an angler feeling a tug on the rod's line. Then I sound out the sentence in my head. Then I tap it on my keyboard, trying to recall its shape. Then I look at it and say it aloud, to see if it sings. Then I tweak, rejig, shave off a syllable, swap a word for a phrase or a phrase for a word. Then I sit it next to other sentences to see how it behaves in company. And then I delete it all and start again.

If there were a pie chart that divided up my time on earth, the colored slice that covers writing sentences would be the biggest, apart from the one that covers the thing everyone does: sleeping. I don't count how much writing I have done each day, but if I did I wouldn't count words, I'd count sentences. Sentences are my core output, the little widgets I make in my workshop of words. It helps to think of it like this, as just cranking out a daily quota of sentences, instead of being a writer, which feels like a claim that will need to be stamped and approved. I write maybe three and a half thousand sentences a year. Is this too many, or not enough, or about right? I have no idea. I write one sentence, then another, and repeat until done. I don't know when done is.

Some writers claim to have sentences in their heads hollering to get out. Flaubert wrote that he was "itching" with them. These writers just seem to have a knack for putting words into right-seeming order, as if it were a skill as randomly allotted as being able to wiggle one's ears. Not me. But I can spot a good tune when I hear it. I know what a good sentence looks and sounds like, so that when I come across one in my own writing I have the good sense not to delete it but to try and replicate it. Having only minor gifts has its compensations. It has forced me to think hard about how words join up and why some sentences work better than others. A nightingale has no idea why such a bewitching noise emerges from its throat; a human nightingale impersonator must parse every note.