A brief discussion of the differences between a writer, a novelist, and a writer

Author | Dark Horse Beijing

Source | Confucius old book network dynamics

In 1985, less than half a year after graduating from graduate school, I had a good opportunity to go to Australia to hold a literary conference for the leaders, wrote a speech for the leader and read it in English, and answered questions for 45 minutes. My photo was on the conference brochure, which was called speedper.

One of the advantages of being a spokesperson is, of course, being able to have close contact with other speakers who are well-known writers and publishers in the country. Among them, the great British writer Chambers helped me the most. He was the most vigorous writer and critic of the conference, almost sought after, and the language of the conference was English, and his elegant king's English naturally increased his charm to the point where everyone looked up to him. I caught Lawrence's attention for his research and translation, especially telling me that he was from a working-class family and whose ancestors were miners like Lawrence's father. He also said that he was greatly influenced by Lawrence's works since he was a child, and then told me about the relationship between Lawrence and bloomsbury circles. After reading Lawrence for half a day, I was the first time I listened to a British writer talk about Lawrence's influence on himself, and the first time I heard people talk about life encounters outside of Lawrence's works, I was dumbfounded. This Chambers is indeed a high man, and in the first two years when "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" swept the world, the Andersen Literary Prize did not give Rowling, did not give Tolkien, but fell to their British counterpart Chambers, which seems to represent the Disdain of the Andersen Award for the value represented by Rowling and Tolkien. I'm thankful to have been coached by Chambers more than twenty years ago.

If there is any advice, and most specifically, he made me understand the difference between a novelist and a writer in the ordinary sense. It's humiliating to say, I read English and English literature for half a day, and I didn't care about the difference in the potential meaning of these two words. Writers, of course, include novelists, novelists, of course, writers, and writers are better than novelists, because in general, if you say that someone is a novelist, it is only because he has published many novels. But Chambers made me understand a certain potential difference in the industry: I was chasing the stars and asked him: I want to introduce you to Chinese readers, as a beginning of the introduction, it is best to translate a few of your short stories for publication in our Children's Literature, and then translate your novels when there is a response. His answer surprised me: Oh no, you know, I'm a novelist, I don't write short stories. I asked in amazement, aren't you a writer, how could a writer not write short stories? What I want to say is that just writing long is not short, indicating that you are not comprehensive enough. Everyone writes short first, writes well and then writes long, why don't you write short practice pen and only write long, how is this possible? He seemed to understand what I meant, and said tolerantly: Maybe the situation in China is different, and there are indeed a group of people in Britain who only write long stories and do not write short stories, so we are only called novelists, not writers.

When I came back, I checked the dictionary specifically for this purpose, and found that those writers who had long and huge works were first named novelist, and if he wrote anything else, it was listed after and, such as poets, playwrights, short story writers, but none of them were generally called writers. If you only write short stories like Ms. Mansfield, you just call them short-story writers. Generally speaking, a writer writes a short story first, writes almost well, attacks the long story, and then starts to basically only write long stories, and finally becomes a novelist. But it's rare for someone like Chambers to write only long stories or to write only short stories like Mansfield. Lawrence, Hardy, Mrs. Woolf, etc. actually write short stories very well, but their "titles" are novelist, because they are based on long stories. Presumably, people who don't write long stories but write everything are called writers.

But the strange thing is that the great writer Wells is called the english author, these English devils who compile dictionaries, really people can't understand, it feels that they don't buy Wells very much, but people's fame must be placed there to include in the dictionary, so they use the very neutral word author for him. It seems that when we talk to the British and Americans about ourselves, we must be careful to use the word novelist, which is the meaning of a great writer; It is said that writer has become a non-writer again. Simply say that you are an honoror is more insurance, love how to understand how to understand how to understand. But if I had published five novels, I think I would have dared to say I was novelist. But Wells published more than a dozen novels, still called author in the dictionary. English is something that some learn, and even the simplest words are difficult to say.