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Kazuo Ishiguro， author of The Remains of the Day， Never Let Me Go， and most recently The Buried Giant， and oh， also our newest Nobel Laureate in Literature，1 turns 63 last year. I have long admired Ishiguro’s work， which seems almost effortless， presenting its multi-faceted subjects with cold-water clarity while nimbly experimenting with genre， style， and subject.2 He also has the distinction of being among the small class of authors whose work is critically lauded3 and commercially successful， which is no small feat. So in case you would like to follow in his footsteps， here’s Ishiguro on his process， what he likes （and hates） to see in literature， and some advice for young writers.
Don’t write what you know.
“Write about what you know” is the most stupid thing I’ve heard. It encourages people to write a dull autobiography4. It’s the reverse of firing the imagination and potential of writers. —from an interview with ShortList 5.
Let go of genre boundaries.
Is it possible that what we think of as genre boundaries are things that have been invented fairly recently by the publishing industry？ I can see there’s a case for saying there are certain patterns， and you can divide up stories according to these patterns， perhaps usefully. But I get worried when readers and writers take these boundaries too seriously， and think that something strange happens when you cross them， and that you should think very carefully before doing so… I would like to see things breaking down a lot more. I suppose my essential position is that I’m against any kind of imagination police， whether they’re coming from marketing reasons or from class snobbery.6 —from a conversation with Neil Gaiman in the New Statesman.7
Write towards emotions， not morals. I’m not looking for any kind of clear moral， and I never do in my novels. I like to highlight some aspect of being human. I’m not really trying to say， so don’t do this， or do that. I’m saying， this is how it feels to me. Emotions are very important to me in a novel. —from an interview at HuffPost 8.
In fact， start with the relationships.
I used to think in terms of characters， how to develop their eccentricities and quirks.9 Then I realized that it’s better to focus on the relationships instead， and then the characters develop naturally.
Relationships have to be natural， to be authentic human drama. I’m a little suspicious of stories that have an intellectual theme bolted10 on， when the characters stop and debate before they carry on. I ask myself： What is an interesting relationship？ Is the relationship a journey？ Is it standard， cliché11， or something deeper， more subtle， more surprising？ People talk about flat versus three-dimensional12 characters； you can talk about relationships the same way. —from an interview with Richard Beard13.
To eliminate distractions， try a “Crash.”14
Many people have to work long hours. When it comes to the writing of novels， however， the consensus seems to be that after four hours or so of continuous writing， diminishing returns set in.15 I’d always more or less gone along with this view， but as the summer of 1987 approached I became convinced a drastic16 approach was needed. Lorna， my wife， agreed… So Lorna and I came up with a plan. I would， for a four-week period， ruthlessly17 clear my diary and go on what we somewhat mysteriously called a “Crash”. During the Crash， I would do nothing but write from 9 am to 10：30 pm， Monday through Saturday. I’d get one hour off for lunch and two for dinner.I’d not see， let alone answer， any mail， and would not go near the phone. No one would come to the house. Lorna， despite her own busy schedule， would for this period do my share of the cooking and housework. In this way， so we hoped， I’d not only complete more work quantitatively18， but reach a mental state in which my fictional world was more real to me than the actual one… This， fundamentally， was how The Remains of the Day was written. Throughout the Crash， I wrote free-hand， not caring about the style or if something I wrote in the afternoon contradicted something I’d established in the story that morning. The priority was simply to get the ideas surfacing and growing. Awful sentences， hideous dialogue， scenes that went nowhere—I let them remain and ploughed on.19 —from “How I Wrote The Remains of the Day in Four Weeks，” as published in The Guardian20.
Embrace the “down draft21.”
I have two desks. One has a writing slope and the other has a computer on it. The computer dates from 1996. It’s not connected to the Internet. I prefer to work by pen on my writing slope for the initial drafts. I want it to be more or less illegible22 to anyone apart from myself. The rough draft is a big mess. I pay no attention to anything to do with style or coherence. I just need to get everything down on paper. If I’m suddenly struck by a new idea that doesn’t fit with what’s gone before， I’ll still put it in. I just make a note to go back and sort it all out later. Then I plan the whole thing out from that. I number sections and move them around. By the time I write my next draft， I have a clearer idea of where I’m going. This time round， I write much more carefully… I rarely go beyond the third draft. Having said that， there are individual passages that I’ve had to write over and over again. —from an interview with The Paris Review23. Protect your mind from unwanted influences.
I find that when you’re writing， it becomes quite a battle to keep your fictional world intact24. In fact， as I write， I almost deliberately avoid anything in the realm of what I’m working on. For instance， [while working on The Buried Giant] I hadn’t seen a single episode of Game of Thrones25. That whole thing happened when I was quite deep into the writing， and I thought，“If I watch something like that， it might influence the way I visualize a scene or tamper with26 the world that I’ve set up.” —from an interview with Electric Literature27.
Make deliberate choices.
Most writers have certain things that they decide quite consciously， and other things they decide less consciously. In my case， the choice of narrator and setting are deliberate. You do have to choose a setting with great care， because with a setting come all kinds of emotional and historical reverberations28. But I leave quite a large area for improvisation29 after that. —from an interview with The Paris Review.
Be sparing with your allusions.30
I don’t really like to work with literary allusions very much. I never want to be in a position where I’m saying， “You’ve got to read a lot of other stuff” or “You’ve got to have had a good education in literature to fully appreciate what I’m doing.”… I actually dislike， more than many people， working through literary allusion. I just feel that there’s something a bit snobbish or elitist about that.31 I don’t like it as a reader， when I’m reading something. It’s not just the elitism of it； it jolts me out of the mode in which I’m reading.32 I’ve immersed myself in the world and then when the light goes on I’m supposed to be making some kind of literary comparison to another text. I find I’m pulled out of my kind of fictional world， I’m asked to use my brain in a different kind of way. I don’t like that. —from an interview with Guernica33.
Be careful what you start.
Everything is built on the early part of the process. It’s important to be careful about what projects you take on， in the same way that you should examine someone you want to get married to. It’s different for everyone： should it be based on your experience， or do you write better at greatest distance， do you write best in a genre？ Don’t take on a creative project lightly. —from an interview with Richard Beard.
1. Kazuo Ishiguro： 石黑一雄（1954— ），日裔英國小说家，2017年诺贝尔文学奖获得者，知名作品包括《长日将尽》（The Remains of the Day）、《别让我走》（Never Let Me Go）、《被掩埋的巨人》（The Buried Giant）等；laureate： 得奖者。 2. multi-faceted： 多面的，丰富的；nimbly： 灵活地，敏捷地；genre：体裁。
3. critically lauded： 得到评论界称赞的。
4. autobiography： 自传。
5. ShortList： 英国《入围杂志》，一本男性生活时尚杂志。
6. 我认为我的立场就是拒绝对想象力进行任何形式的钳制，不管这种钳制是出于商业层面考量还是来自阶级歧视。police：监督，管制；snobbery： 势利。
7. Neil Gaiman： 尼尔·盖曼（1960— ），犹太裔英国作家，擅长撰写科幻小说、视觉文学及剧本，名列文学传记辞典十大后现代作家之一，代表作包括《睡魔》（The Sandman）、《美国众神》（American Gods）等；New Statesman： 《新政治家周刊》，英国知名杂志，关注政治及文化领域的话题。
8. HuffPost： 《赫芬顿邮报》，美国网络媒体，提供国内外时政新闻资讯。
9. eccentricity： 古怪之处；quirk： 奇想，怪癖。
10. bolt： 奔，窜，此处形容文学作品中角色及情节发展过快。
11. cliché： 陈词滥调。
12. three-dimensional： 三维的，立体的。
13. Richard Beard： 理查德·彼尔德（1967— ），英国小说家，东京大学客座教授。
14. eliminate： 消除；Crash： 原义是碰撞、倒塌，作者用这个词来描述自己与外界完全隔绝、全身心高度集中在创作之上的极端状态。
15. consensus： 一致看法，共识；diminishing returns： 邊际收益递减，是经济学术语，指在短期生产过程中，当其他条件不变时，连续增加某一种投入到一定程度后，新的效益增加量会呈现递减趋势。
16. drastic： 猛烈的。
17. ruthlessly： 无情地，残忍地。
18. quantitatively： 从数量上来看。
19. 糟糕的句子、讨厌的对话、无用的场景——我都保留了下来，并继续笔耕不辍。hideous： 令人厌恶的；plough： 耕耘，费力运作。
20. The Guardian：《卫报》，英国的全国性综合内容日报。
21. down draft： 倒灌风，下冲气流，这里指石黑一雄在写作中随时捕捉并为手稿补充新想法。
22. illegible： 无法辨认的。
23. The Paris Review： 《巴黎评论》，文学评论杂志，1953年创刊于法国巴黎。
24. intact： 完好无损的。
25. Game of Thrones： 《权力的游戏》，美国HBO热播剧，改编自乔治·马丁（George R. R. Martin）原创系列小说《冰与火之歌》（A Song of Ice and Fire）。
26. tamper with： 干扰，破坏。
27. Electric Literature： 《电子文学》，文学季刊，以小说为主。
28. reverberation： 反响，后果。
29. improvisation： 即兴创作。
30. sparing： 少用的，省着用的；allusion： 典故。
31. snobbish： 自命不凡的；elitist：自以为高人一等的，精英主义论的。
32. 这不仅仅是一种精英主义；这还会让我从当前的阅读中猛然抽身而出。jolt sb. out of sth.： 使震惊，使觉醒。
33. Guernica： 美国一网站杂志，内容涵盖艺术与政治。
Don’t write what you know.
“Write about what you know” is the most stupid thing I’ve heard. It encourages people to write a dull autobiography4. It’s the reverse of firing the imagination and potential of writers. —from an interview with ShortList 5.
Let go of genre boundaries.
Is it possible that what we think of as genre boundaries are things that have been invented fairly recently by the publishing industry？ I can see there’s a case for saying there are certain patterns， and you can divide up stories according to these patterns， perhaps usefully. But I get worried when readers and writers take these boundaries too seriously， and think that something strange happens when you cross them， and that you should think very carefully before doing so… I would like to see things breaking down a lot more. I suppose my essential position is that I’m against any kind of imagination police， whether they’re coming from marketing reasons or from class snobbery.6 —from a conversation with Neil Gaiman in the New Statesman.7
Write towards emotions， not morals. I’m not looking for any kind of clear moral， and I never do in my novels. I like to highlight some aspect of being human. I’m not really trying to say， so don’t do this， or do that. I’m saying， this is how it feels to me. Emotions are very important to me in a novel. —from an interview at HuffPost 8.
In fact， start with the relationships.
I used to think in terms of characters， how to develop their eccentricities and quirks.9 Then I realized that it’s better to focus on the relationships instead， and then the characters develop naturally.
Relationships have to be natural， to be authentic human drama. I’m a little suspicious of stories that have an intellectual theme bolted10 on， when the characters stop and debate before they carry on. I ask myself： What is an interesting relationship？ Is the relationship a journey？ Is it standard， cliché11， or something deeper， more subtle， more surprising？ People talk about flat versus three-dimensional12 characters； you can talk about relationships the same way. —from an interview with Richard Beard13.
To eliminate distractions， try a “Crash.”14
Many people have to work long hours. When it comes to the writing of novels， however， the consensus seems to be that after four hours or so of continuous writing， diminishing returns set in.15 I’d always more or less gone along with this view， but as the summer of 1987 approached I became convinced a drastic16 approach was needed. Lorna， my wife， agreed… So Lorna and I came up with a plan. I would， for a four-week period， ruthlessly17 clear my diary and go on what we somewhat mysteriously called a “Crash”. During the Crash， I would do nothing but write from 9 am to 10：30 pm， Monday through Saturday. I’d get one hour off for lunch and two for dinner.I’d not see， let alone answer， any mail， and would not go near the phone. No one would come to the house. Lorna， despite her own busy schedule， would for this period do my share of the cooking and housework. In this way， so we hoped， I’d not only complete more work quantitatively18， but reach a mental state in which my fictional world was more real to me than the actual one… This， fundamentally， was how The Remains of the Day was written. Throughout the Crash， I wrote free-hand， not caring about the style or if something I wrote in the afternoon contradicted something I’d established in the story that morning. The priority was simply to get the ideas surfacing and growing. Awful sentences， hideous dialogue， scenes that went nowhere—I let them remain and ploughed on.19 —from “How I Wrote The Remains of the Day in Four Weeks，” as published in The Guardian20.
Embrace the “down draft21.”
I have two desks. One has a writing slope and the other has a computer on it. The computer dates from 1996. It’s not connected to the Internet. I prefer to work by pen on my writing slope for the initial drafts. I want it to be more or less illegible22 to anyone apart from myself. The rough draft is a big mess. I pay no attention to anything to do with style or coherence. I just need to get everything down on paper. If I’m suddenly struck by a new idea that doesn’t fit with what’s gone before， I’ll still put it in. I just make a note to go back and sort it all out later. Then I plan the whole thing out from that. I number sections and move them around. By the time I write my next draft， I have a clearer idea of where I’m going. This time round， I write much more carefully… I rarely go beyond the third draft. Having said that， there are individual passages that I’ve had to write over and over again. —from an interview with The Paris Review23. Protect your mind from unwanted influences.
I find that when you’re writing， it becomes quite a battle to keep your fictional world intact24. In fact， as I write， I almost deliberately avoid anything in the realm of what I’m working on. For instance， [while working on The Buried Giant] I hadn’t seen a single episode of Game of Thrones25. That whole thing happened when I was quite deep into the writing， and I thought，“If I watch something like that， it might influence the way I visualize a scene or tamper with26 the world that I’ve set up.” —from an interview with Electric Literature27.
Make deliberate choices.
Most writers have certain things that they decide quite consciously， and other things they decide less consciously. In my case， the choice of narrator and setting are deliberate. You do have to choose a setting with great care， because with a setting come all kinds of emotional and historical reverberations28. But I leave quite a large area for improvisation29 after that. —from an interview with The Paris Review.
Be sparing with your allusions.30
I don’t really like to work with literary allusions very much. I never want to be in a position where I’m saying， “You’ve got to read a lot of other stuff” or “You’ve got to have had a good education in literature to fully appreciate what I’m doing.”… I actually dislike， more than many people， working through literary allusion. I just feel that there’s something a bit snobbish or elitist about that.31 I don’t like it as a reader， when I’m reading something. It’s not just the elitism of it； it jolts me out of the mode in which I’m reading.32 I’ve immersed myself in the world and then when the light goes on I’m supposed to be making some kind of literary comparison to another text. I find I’m pulled out of my kind of fictional world， I’m asked to use my brain in a different kind of way. I don’t like that. —from an interview with Guernica33.
Be careful what you start.
Everything is built on the early part of the process. It’s important to be careful about what projects you take on， in the same way that you should examine someone you want to get married to. It’s different for everyone： should it be based on your experience， or do you write better at greatest distance， do you write best in a genre？ Don’t take on a creative project lightly. —from an interview with Richard Beard.
1. Kazuo Ishiguro： 石黑一雄（1954— ），日裔英國小说家，2017年诺贝尔文学奖获得者，知名作品包括《长日将尽》（The Remains of the Day）、《别让我走》（Never Let Me Go）、《被掩埋的巨人》（The Buried Giant）等；laureate： 得奖者。 2. multi-faceted： 多面的，丰富的；nimbly： 灵活地，敏捷地；genre：体裁。
3. critically lauded： 得到评论界称赞的。
4. autobiography： 自传。
5. ShortList： 英国《入围杂志》，一本男性生活时尚杂志。
6. 我认为我的立场就是拒绝对想象力进行任何形式的钳制，不管这种钳制是出于商业层面考量还是来自阶级歧视。police：监督，管制；snobbery： 势利。
7. Neil Gaiman： 尼尔·盖曼（1960— ），犹太裔英国作家，擅长撰写科幻小说、视觉文学及剧本，名列文学传记辞典十大后现代作家之一，代表作包括《睡魔》（The Sandman）、《美国众神》（American Gods）等；New Statesman： 《新政治家周刊》，英国知名杂志，关注政治及文化领域的话题。
8. HuffPost： 《赫芬顿邮报》，美国网络媒体，提供国内外时政新闻资讯。
9. eccentricity： 古怪之处；quirk： 奇想，怪癖。
10. bolt： 奔，窜，此处形容文学作品中角色及情节发展过快。
11. cliché： 陈词滥调。
12. three-dimensional： 三维的，立体的。
13. Richard Beard： 理查德·彼尔德（1967— ），英国小说家，东京大学客座教授。
14. eliminate： 消除；Crash： 原义是碰撞、倒塌，作者用这个词来描述自己与外界完全隔绝、全身心高度集中在创作之上的极端状态。
15. consensus： 一致看法，共识；diminishing returns： 邊际收益递减，是经济学术语，指在短期生产过程中，当其他条件不变时，连续增加某一种投入到一定程度后，新的效益增加量会呈现递减趋势。
16. drastic： 猛烈的。
17. ruthlessly： 无情地，残忍地。
18. quantitatively： 从数量上来看。
19. 糟糕的句子、讨厌的对话、无用的场景——我都保留了下来，并继续笔耕不辍。hideous： 令人厌恶的；plough： 耕耘，费力运作。
20. The Guardian：《卫报》，英国的全国性综合内容日报。
21. down draft： 倒灌风，下冲气流，这里指石黑一雄在写作中随时捕捉并为手稿补充新想法。
22. illegible： 无法辨认的。
23. The Paris Review： 《巴黎评论》，文学评论杂志，1953年创刊于法国巴黎。
24. intact： 完好无损的。
25. Game of Thrones： 《权力的游戏》，美国HBO热播剧，改编自乔治·马丁（George R. R. Martin）原创系列小说《冰与火之歌》（A Song of Ice and Fire）。
26. tamper with： 干扰，破坏。
27. Electric Literature： 《电子文学》，文学季刊，以小说为主。
28. reverberation： 反响，后果。
29. improvisation： 即兴创作。
30. sparing： 少用的，省着用的；allusion： 典故。
31. snobbish： 自命不凡的；elitist：自以为高人一等的，精英主义论的。
32. 这不仅仅是一种精英主义；这还会让我从当前的阅读中猛然抽身而出。jolt sb. out of sth.： 使震惊，使觉醒。
33. Guernica： 美国一网站杂志，内容涵盖艺术与政治。