如何在小说中描写亲密关系｜三明治英文写作工作坊

三明治 · 公众号 · · 2025-03-20 12:33

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文｜李梓新

我认识Melissa 是在2023年7月，英国利兹城的西边，女性主义和灵性色彩浓厚的Hepton Bridge小镇。一群肤色各异的写作者在英国著名诗人Ted Hughes的旧居聚会。Melissa引起我的注意是她的姓氏Wan, 结合她略带黑色的头发，我一下子就断定她有华人血统。

果然，她说她爸爸是英国人，妈妈来自香港，她出生在曼彻斯特。Wan究竟指代哪个汉字，她也不清楚。后来我们一起破案了，我写出几个汉字给她辨认，她选择了"温"字——她还记得妈妈给她写过的笔划。尽管在身份证上还是父亲的姓氏，但写作的笔名，她决定用母姓。

Melissa偶尔需要拄拐，她的腿脚明显有些不方便，多发性硬化症（MS），一种影响中枢神经系统的慢性疾病使她的平衡功能受损，腿部也出现萎缩。在这种情况下，以全奖奖学金及Distinction优等学位从UEA小说创意写作研究生毕业后，她还是坚持继续就读利兹大学博士学位，研究小说中的性写作及其和残疾的交集: Making the absent present: Disability, textual erasure and (not) writing sex。这是她的论文题目。

研究Writing Sex in Fiction是她在UEA时期发展出来的兴趣。她和同学主办了一次名为"I Will Show You Mine"的研讨会，谈及研究源起，他们这样写道：

Why Sex Writing?

Sex is not something easily written about in fiction. Very often the act is reduced to a paragraph break or so dressed up in elaborate metaphor that you can barely find it. And in our internet age, sex has become permeated by the language of pornography or drenched in cliché which does little to get us any closer to what it's all about.

We believe the task of literature is to break down clichés and reveal something new about the world in which we live. So how can we, as writers, write sex in a way that reveals something true? How do ideas of shame, normalcy and representation affect our reading of sex-writing? What can we, as readers, writers and thinkers do to create a more sex-positive environment in literature? How does one technically approach the writing of sex, particularly outside of mainstream representations and traditional publishing?

这一次，我邀请她来第一次面向全球写作者开设Writing Sex and Intimacy in Fiction 的工作坊。

Writing Sex and Intimacy

In these three writing workshops we will unpick the writing of sex and intimacy in fiction, thinking not only about language and form but also about the politics of bringing sex to the page. Some of the themes we will cover include desire and domesticity, fantasy and pornography, writing sex from lived experience and linear narratives of orgasm. Workshops will be split into two; the first half will involve close reading and discussion of novel extracts or short stories which write sex, including work by the workshop tutor, and in the second half we will focus on writing exercises, generating writing and thinking about the techniques of craft.

Syllabus

Workshop 1

The language of writing sex in English-language fiction: use of dialogue, interior monologue, implicit and explicit language, the use of metaphor or abstraction

Time： Apr 5th (Saturday) 20:00-22:00 (Beijing Time)

Workshop 2

Playing with perspective: what difference does it make when writing sex in first, third – close third v omniscient – or second person?

Time : Apr 12th (Saturday) 20:00-22:00 (Beijing Time)

Workshop 3

Writing from life – how to mine personal experience when writing sex, how to protect oneself and others, the politics of writing sex

Time : Apr 19th (Saturday) 20:00-22:00 (Beijing Time)

Breakdown of each workshop

20:00 – 20:40 – Introduction and Close reading

20:40 – 20:50 – BREAK

20:50 – 21:30 – Writing Exercises

21:30 – 21:40 – BREAK

21:40 – 22:00 – Editing and Close

This is an online course conducted in English with Zoom .

Every workshop will assign creative writing homework, which in the end of the workshop will come into a full essay of 1,000 to 1,500 words.

Fees: ¥1,599

No refund available after the first class begins.

Melissa Wan

Melissa Wan is the author of This Must Be Earth, published by Nightjar Press. Her short fiction has been published by independent presses, including Bluemoose Books, Dead Ink Books, Salt and Cōnfingō Publishing. She was awarded the Crowdfunded Writers’ Scholarship to study Creative Writing at UEA, and her practice research PhD at the University of Leeds looks at the writing of sex and its intersection with disability.

- MA Creative Writing: Prose Fiction, University of East Anglia (2018 – 19), Distinction

- MA Paris Studies, University of London Institute in Paris (2012 – 13), Distinction

- BA (Hons) Social Sciences, University of Manchester (2009 – 12), First Class