如何搜集素材.doc

Getting Material 如何搜集素材 By Ellis Parker Butler 李毅 译 1)The other day a young woman of Spokane, Washington, wrote me and asked how I get the material for the stories I write. 2)Every once in a while some young woman who wants to be a great author writes to ask me that. They usually say: “The characters in your stories are so 3)quaint and odd and yet so true to life. They seem so real. How do you get the material?” I am so well established in the author business now, and have such a steady trade, that at last I feel it is safe for me to give the secret to the world. I get the material for my stories by putting on my hat and 4)poking around until I find a queer-looking character, and then I ask him the story of his life. For example, I look in a window and see an old, gray-headed shoemaker sitting on a bench, working away at a pair of shoes. I go in and speak to him. “Good afternoon,” I say. “Are you a shoemaker?” “Yes,” he says. “What did you think I was doing? Think I was painting a 5)flagpole on a submarine? What do you ask fool questions for?” “I’m an author,” I say. “I write short stories and books. I’m getting material for a short story now, but if you turn out to be interesting enough I may make a whole novel of you.” This always pleases. It puts the subject 6)at his ease, too. Sometimes I give him a cigar. That helps. It shows I am friendly and mean well. The first thing I have to do after the introduction is to get the 7)local color of the man and his business. It doesn’t do to say, “A shoemaker was making a pair of shoes”, and 8)let it go at that. You must get the proper atmosphere. You must mention the tools of his trade by their correct names. So I take a seat and take out my note-book and a pencil. “The smell I smell in here is leather, I suppose?” I say. “I have to get the smell right in my stories.” “Yes, that’s it,” he says. “Tanned leather. It smells like that. That’s the way it smells.” “And that thing that holds the shoe—that leather strap you put y