Thursday writing class | is it hard to describe the sounds of nature?

Author: Man Tang

Song Baoying/Cartography

First, please read a description of the sunrise.

When reading, please pay attention to the way the author, where do you show the strengths? What else is missing?

At this time, above the trees in the country garden, there was a faint blue color. In folklore, this hour is called the Dawn of the Moon. At this moment when the morning sun was rising, the morning star glowed low above the earth. The air is as fresh as spring water. At the dawn of the morning sun, in the dawn, there is something virgin-like innocence. The grass in the morning sun is bathed in dew, and the smell of warm freshly squeezed milk ripples in each village. On the pasture, in the morning fog, there was the sound of the shepherd's reed flute. Soon dawn broke. In the warm home, there is a silence, a haze. One side of the orange-yellow morning light, reflected on the log wall. The logs shone like layers of amber. The sun is out. ”

This is a passage from the literary masterpiece "The Golden Rose". I read it when I first started writing, and I thought the author was writing smartly and energetically.

The agility and brilliance of the natural scenery depicted are almost the same thing, which is to make the scenery come alive, not to be sluggish and rigid, obscure and dull. I accepted the teachings of this book at the time, and I salute it here.

Now it seems that this text has another strength: the calm tone of the narrative. The rhythm that is not urgent and not slow is conducive to the unfolding of emotions and stopping in the right place. If you can see this advantage, it should be said that your writing has reached a better state.

There are also deficiencies in intentions that appear in the middle of the citation. One is that "there is a virgin-like innocence", such a metaphor lacks foreshadowing, like a subjective lyricism that has not been implemented; the second is that "every village is swaying with the smell of a warm newly milked cow", this breath is big, originally in a village, here there is no need to use God's perspective to bring all the villages under the world; the third is "there is a burst of shepherd's reed flute sound", the only place in the text to write about the sound, skimming by, how to make the reader feel empathy?

We are reading Chinese translations, the above deficiencies, may come from the author, may be from the translator, it does not matter, what matters is our personal prose writing, we must write the sound of nature.

The sounds of nature, like the colors, cannot be ignored.

In ancient China, Zhuangzi borrowed a dialogue between a pair of teachers and students in the "Theory of QiWu" to teach us to appreciate the sounds of nature.

The teacher said, "You have heard the sound of people blowing, but you may not have heard the sound of the earth blowing, nor may you have heard the sound of nature blowing." The air that emanates from the earth is called the wind. Haven't you ever heard the howling wind? ...... They make sounds like rushing water, like the sound of flying arrows, like angry breathing and groaning, shouting and crying. The wind in front roars, and the wind behind resonates..."

The student said, "Got it." The human voice is a wind instrument. The earth is the trick hole of all things. Dare to ask how is Tianlai? ”

The teacher said: "The wind cannot blow when you want to blow, you can't be strong if you want to be strong, you can't be weak if you want to be weak, and you can't roar if you want to roar." The wind blew and the hole sounded, which was a natural thing... If you can hear the sound of the earth, if you can realize that nature is at work, you can hear the natural sound that exists in it. ”

After writing their dialogue, Zhuangzi played again and said, how endless is Tianlai. That natural existence, unknown to its natural existence, is nature.

Later people's feelings about nature were weaker, not as high as Zhuangzi's recognition, and it was also considered smooth to assign the earth to tianlai.

The processes of modern society have moved us farther and farther away from nature. If you are lucky enough to hear the natural sounds, you should not forget it and describe it.

I have an essay about the rooster chirping at dawn.

To write about this, we must first have an environmental background. Not too simple, and not too complicated. Against the backdrop of that essay, I wrote about staying in a small mountain village and waking up with some light in the sky. The autumn wind is cold, the grass and trees are shaken, and the white dew is frost. I went into the wheat stack and exposed only my head. The dried wheat is gentle and warm.

(Now the chicken cry can begin.) I have a feeling that the sounds of nature should be combined with colors. ）

A distant rooster chirp appeared at this time.

With his eyes wide open, he looked in the direction of the chicken cry, a dark mist could not be seen clearly, and he vaguely felt that there were a few rectangular things that were darker, as if it were another village, as if it were the roof of a farmhouse.

As we looked over, the first rooster cry of the mountain village stopped. It was a kind of chicken cry that had quietly come from the depths of darkness, somewhat timidly, tentatively, undecided about whether to chirp or not, and had stopped without singing to the highest syllable, without singing enough length. After about ten seconds of pause, the second chicken cry sounded again, still the same chicken just now, a little higher than the first chirp, and the tail note dragged out very long.

In the village behind us, a chicken began to crow.

Obviously, its underpinnings are more sufficient, and its voice is loud enough, and it only raises it immediately after a short sound, strengthens the oscillation in its high-pitched area, and then slowly weakens and slowly disappears. Even if you've heard a chicken cry many times, you have to admit that it's a very high-level chicken cry.

(The instrumental or vocal range division is borrowed earlier, with a little comment.) Next, interrupt the chicken cry and write a change of color, like in a Hollywood movie, where there is a buffer after a small climax. ）

With this chicken cry, the thick black curtain in the east opened a gap, and a faint white was revealed.

I saw a word in an ancient book, the whiteness of the East. What kind of white is white, I don't know.

What I see now is only a very low brightness of green and white. According to my guess, if you use gouache to ton, it is the gray that needs to include all three primary colors, the brightness is very low, the purity is not high, and it must be placed in the background of the black earth mountains and the sky where black to gray is excessive, in order to show its blue and white. I think that this color is difficult to tune out, and if you don't get it right, you may dirty the picture, and there is no feeling of dawn...

(Back to chicken crying below.) We are often powerless to describe the sounds of nature in words, so I added some social elements. ）

At this time, the chicken cry has become a multi-voice chorus.

In the distant village and the mountain village behind us, there are many roosters joining in. When a chicken cry did not stop, a second, third, and fourth sound were added one after another, synthesizing a long echo.

At this time you will hear that the roosters that sing are different. The voice of each chicken is drowned out in this chorus, and the chirp of each chicken is incomplete, but you have heard its personality. Some of the voices are obviously from middle-aged and elderly roosters, with their own complex experience, although the voice is hoarse, the tone is rich and straight to the heart. And those clear, simple, childish, young voices did not stop singing because they were not mature enough. You're not a chicken, you don't know what they're singing or saying, but you're impressed: they're all doing their best to join the singing contest at dawn.

(Let's use the color to make another buffer.) The environment in front of you is blurry, and the description text should be blurred. ）

We saw that far away, a faint light had just come on, becoming the only warm color in the heavens and the earth. Judging from its faint flicker, it may not be a light, but an early riser, using the faint darkness of the sky, to send the firewood into the stove pit to ignite... If it were a little brighter, and it was indeed firewood, I would see rising cooking smoke.

(Below is the chicken tail.) At this time, do not write too full, laborious and unflattering. ）

As mentioned earlier, this chicken cry is a singing competition. Now the game continues.

After a period of chorusing, most of the chickens in the two villages were tired and gradually evolved into the cries of two roosters. The two chickens with excellent voices, or extremely strong physical strength, or extremely scrappy spirits, won the game just now, and it seemed that they were going to play the final final.

It is as if the winner of the two ab sets must have one chicken in the nearby village and the other chicken in the distant village. In this way, across the vast space, they can show their respective abilities. I can't describe the rest of the final. They are the essence of the dawn chicken crying, if I can describe it in words, then what kind of essence is it?

All I can say is that with their perfect and loud cries, the sky gradually brightened, the dawn reflected between heaven and earth, and a brilliant autumn morning finally arrived.

(Now, please remove the rational analysis in parentheses and read it again.) Those are my reading aids, and I don't necessarily think about them when I write them. ）

Guest Editor: Dong Xueren

Source: China Youth Daily client