现实中影子写手的工作是怎样的？

For 15 years, I’ve led a professional double-life, working as editor, writer, author, and podcaster in plain public view, while also helping famous people produce their own books—memoirs, mostly—behind closed doors. This parallel professional existence was outed in 2014, when one of my more well-known clients told a reporter about the arrangement. At the time, this caused me headaches, as some readers wondered (not unreasonably) how my day-to-day editorial choices were being influenced by these side-hustles. But in the long run, it was a plus, because the disclosure brought in more clients.

15 年来，我一直过着职业上的双重生活。在公众面前，我是编辑、作家、作者和播客，同时在背地里帮名人创作他们自己的书，主要是传记。这种平行职业生活于 2014 年曝光，当时我一名较为著名的顾客把我们的安排告诉了记者。在当时，这让我头疼，因为一些读者想知道这些副业对我平时编辑选择有怎样的影响。这也不无道理。但从长远来看它是件好事，因为这次曝光带来了更多客户。

It also brought inquiries from other writers, who wondered whether ghostwriting might be a viable means to supplement their own incomes. This month brought in a fresh round of messages, following on a prominent story involving one of the books I’d worked on being published by a state-run Chinese company. And while the controversy didn’t implicate me, it did provide the push I needed to set out my thoughts on ghostwriting in some kind of systematic way.

它也引得其他作家打听，他们想知道做代笔是不是一个补充收入的可行途径。这个月有一篇热文，里面提到我参与过的一本书被一家中国国有企业出版了，我因此又收到了新一轮信息。虽然这次争议没有牵涉到我，但它确实给了我所需的推动力，稍微系统地写写我对代笔的想法。

The simple way in which most people imagine this kind of work was captured well in episode 124 of that highly underrated animated children’s show Cupcake & Dino: General Services, in which the eponymous protagonists are hired to ghost the memoirs of action-film hero Greggy Naturo (“Star of the Caveblasters movies, the Cavehunter movies, and other movies with caves in them”). But as soon as the anthropomorphic cake and dinosaur begin interviewing Naturo, he reveals himself as an airheaded fraud—thus leaving Cupcake and Dino with no choice but to re-script the star’s life out of whole cloth.

大多数人对这种工作的简单想象很好地体现在了被高度低估的儿童动画节目《Cupcake & Dino: General Services》第 124 集中，在这一集中，同名主角被雇来为动作片男主演 Greggy Naturo（电影 Caveblasters、Cavehunter 和其他带 Caves 的电影的主角 。）代写回忆录。但拟人化的蛋糕和恐龙刚开始采访 Naturo ，他就暴露了自己是个呆头呆脑的骗子，Cupcake 和 Dino 别无选择，只好凭空重新编造这位明星的生活。

No doubt, there are some real-life celebrities whose contributions to their own ghostwritten memoirs really do conform to this unflattering stereotype. But in my experience, this isn’t how these collaborations work. Contrary to cliché, in fact, some of the famous people one meets through ghostwriting are actually a lot smarter and more interesting than their public image might suggest. (That includes Justin Trudeau, by the way, as I wrote way back in 2015—which is one reason why I found his surrender to the most dogmatic forms of identity politics during his second term as Canadian prime minister to be so baffling and disappointing. But I digress.)

毫无疑问，现实中一些名人对自己的代笔回忆录的贡献确实符合这种不好的刻板印象。但就我的经验，合作一般不是这样进行的。与陈词滥调相反，有时候你通过代笔工作接触到的名人其实比他们公众形象看起来要聪明和有趣得多。（顺便一提，如我在 2015 年写到，当中包括贾斯汀·特鲁多——这也是为什么我觉得他在担任加拿大首相的第二任期向最教条主义的身份政治妥协非常令人费解和失望。原谅我跑题了。）

In many cases, a ghostwriter is brought in—whether by a publisher or agent—only after the client (or “author,” as the grandee whose name goes on the book cover is typically described for contract purposes) has already made a stab at writing out the story of his or her life, at least in outline form. No matter how incoherent that first text may be, it can supply the ghost with a basis for identifying promising themes, and giving structure to the interview process. (To some extent, the role of Diane Nguyen on the equally underappreciated BoJack Horseman was very true to life.) And in some cases, you find out at this early stage that the author is actually a pretty good writer—and the ghostwriter becomes redundant, or, if he stays on the job, transitions into an editor’s role.

多数情况下，只有在客户（或者说「作者」，合同中通常会用这个称呼指代名字印在在书本封面的大人物）已经尝试写他或她的人生故事，至少写出大纲之后，才会请来代笔作家——无论是出版商还是代理人请的。无论最初的文本多没条理，它都可以为代笔作家找出有希望的主题提供一个基础，为采访环节建立框架。（同样被低估的《马男波杰克》里的角色 Diane Nguyen 一定程度上非常真实。）有时，还在初期阶段你就会发现「作者」其实是个相当好的作家——代笔作家变得多余，如果他留下继续工作，他会转变为编辑的角色。

An experienced ghostwriter also knows how to quickly identify projects that aren’t suitable, because the genre in question lies completely outside his or her literary wheelhouse. In my case, that has meant saying no to books, mostly written for women, about wellness, self-esteem, spirituality, relationships, meditation, and nutrition—which is too bad, because these are profitable sectors of the book market.

一个有经验的代笔作家还知道如何快速识别不合适的项目，因为有关体裁完全超出了他或她的笔力范围。对我来说，即意味着拒绝那些写给女性看的，关于健康、自尊、灵性、情感、冥想和营养的书——这很可惜，因为它们是图书市场中盈利的部分。

If you pick the right projects, on the other hand, ghostwriting can be highly lucrative, especially as compared to the low payouts available to mid-list authors publishing non-fiction books under their own name. That’s because ordinary people love buying books written (or purportedly written) by famous people. It’s really that simple. As I tell my accountant, the worst thing I can do to a book is put my name on it.

另一方面，如果你选对项目，代笔可以是利润丰厚的，尤其是与以自己名字出版非小说类书籍的销量居中作者所能获得的低报酬相比。这是因为普通人喜欢购买名人写的，或据称是名人写的书。真的就这么简单。就像我对我会计师说的，我对一本书最坏的影响就是在上面加上我的名字。

The other advantage is that, as a ghostwriter does his or her work in secret, he or she isn’t likely to be cancelled for wrongthink. So if you’re good at it, you’ll continue to get work, no matter what you once got caught tweeting about Donald Trump, Black Lives Matter, or J.K. Rowling. What’s more, your knowledge of this secure financial lifeline will (in my experience) allow you the freedom to take more risks, and write with more candour, in your above-ground literary life. Who knows? You might even become confident enough to quit your stifling day job and, say, take a flier on some ambitious new journalistic venture headquartered on the other side of the world.

另一个好处是，由于代笔工作是秘密进行的，他或她不太可能因错误思想而被取消。因此，如果你干得好，你就会继续接到工作，不管你是否曾被抓到发关于唐纳德·川普、BLM 或 J.K.罗琳的推特。而且，你知道有这可靠的经济救生索在，（依我的经验）会带给你更多的自由，在明面上的文字生涯中承担更多风险，更坦率地写作。谁知道呢，你甚至可能变得足够有信心，辞掉你那沉闷压抑的正职并且，比方说，在某个总部在地球另一端的雄心勃勃的新闻初创公司上搏一搏。

When you’re interviewing for a ghostwriting gig, there are usually a few awkward first meetings, during which the publisher, agent, and author try to figure out if you’ll bring good chemistry to the project. In these early stages, an aspiring ghost shouldn’t waste his or her time asking about the actual substance of the author’s story (which will be on Wikipedia anyway). Rather, the ghostwriter needs to come away with answers to two specific (and usually interrelated) questions: “What is the book’s purpose?” and “Whose idea was it?”

当你面试一份代笔工作，通常都会有几次尴尬的初期会面。在这期间，出版商、代理人和作者会琢磨你能否给这个项目带来良好化学反应。在这些早期阶段，一个有抱负的代笔作家不应该浪费他或她的时间询问作者故事的实际内容，反正维基百科上都会有。反而，代笔作家需要就两个具体的，常常还互相关联的问题问出答案：「这本书的目的是什么？」以及「这是谁的主意？」

In some cases, these answers are obvious, or at least stated explicitly. When you’re working for a politician, for instance, the goal is to get the author elected (or re-elected). With celebrities, the book might be oriented toward getting the star on TV to talk about some planned pivot in public image or professional orientation. Or it might simply be a financial play intended to help a rich athlete get richer.

有时候，答案是显而易见的，或至少明确指出的。譬如，如果你服务的对象是一名政客，那目标就是让作者当选（或连任）。至于名人，这本书可能是为了让这位明星上电视，谈谈计划好的公众形象或职业方向转变。或者说它只是一个敛财手段，目的是帮富有的运动员变得更富有。

But more complicated situations can arise when you’re dealing with an author who is highly accomplished in a less visible field, such as business, science, or academia. These projects tend to come with a less well-defined sense of mission. Interviewed ghostwriters will be told that there’s “an important story to tell,” but it’s not always clear that the people in the room know what that story is.

但是，当你面对的作者是在不那么引人注目的领域（譬如商业、科学或学术界）有很高成就的人，就可能会出现更复杂的情况。这些项目的使命感往往不太明晰。受面试的代笔作家会被告知「有一个重要的故事要讲，」但在场的人常常不清楚这个故事到底是什么。

And this gets us to that second question, “Whose idea was it?” In this regard, one common pattern is that the children, grandchildren, or spouse of an aging corporate magnate might realize that there are only a few more years left to set down the beloved patriarch’s stories for posterity. These situations can be tricky for a ghostwriter to manage because the author himself may be a passive (or even reluctant) participant in the writing process, and because the real movers don’t always know what they want the book to look like, except to such extent that it reads back to them their own sentimental attitudes.

这让我们来到第二个问题，「这是谁的主意？」对此一个常见的模式是，年迈公司大亨的子女、孙子、或配偶可能意识到只剩几年时间来为后人记录下这位深受爱戴的家长的故事了。这些情况对代笔作家来说可能是棘手的，因为在写作过程中，作者本人的参与可能是被动的，甚至是不情愿的，又因为实际推进者常常也不清楚他们希望这本书怎么样，除非这本书能令他们感同身受。

You also have to consider the role that’s going to be played by certain people who aren’t yet in the room with you, but soon will be if you get the job. That’s because a ghostwriter’s role often requires him or her to penetrate certain inner domestic and professional sanctums that are otherwise guarded by small armies of assistants. From the perspective of a celebrity’s entourage, the ghostwriter is just some badly dressed rando who suddenly gets a hall pass to waltz into the boss’s home or office, interrogate everyone about old memories, pore over photo albums, and make snacks in the kitchen. And putting aside their suspicions of your physical presence, many of these people will also have their own thoughts, or fears, about what you’re going to put in the book.

还有些人虽然没在初期会面出现，如果你得到这份工作，你很快也会遇到他们，而他们的影响也是你必须考虑的。由于代笔作家的工作需要，他或她常常要深入某些内部的家庭和职场圣地，它们平时都是由助理小军团把守的。在名人的随从看来，代笔作家不过是个衣衫不整的流浪汉，突然得到了进入老板家里或办公室的通行证，向每个人询问陈年往事、翻阅相册，还在厨房做点心。撇开他们对你实体存在的怀疑不谈，当中许多人也会对你要写进书里的东西有自己的想法或担忧。

To offer one specific (but suitably anonymized) example, I once interviewed with a legendary real-estate developer (no, not that guy) who had a great story to tell about the history of high-rise construction and urban planning in one of America’s biggest cities. He and I got along well. But it emerged that, if I got the job, I’d be working through the client’s corporate aide-de-camp, who was clearly focused on redirecting the book in a way that signal-boosted the company’s day-to-day messaging on environmental sustainability and corporate responsibility. These are important boardroom issues, of course, but they had nothing to do with what made the author’s story unique and interesting. I didn’t get the job, and that’s probably a good thing.

举一个具体（但适当匿名）的例子，我曾经采访过一位传奇房地产开发商（不，不是那个人），对于美国某个最大城市之一的高层建筑和城市规划史，他有一个精彩的故事可以分享。他和我相处融洽。但后来发现，如果我得到这份工作，我还要应付客户公司的副手，而他显然一门心思想将该书转向公司日复一日宣传的环境可持续性和公司责任。它们无疑是董事会关心的重要议题，但是与作者故事的独特和有趣之处毫无关系。我没有得到这份工作，这大概是件好事。

Another cautionary tale involves a job that I did get, but which fizzled before we got to a published book. In this (again, anonymized) case, the prospective author was a successful entrepreneur with a quirky backstory. Interviewing him was difficult because he could never stay on timeline, and every anecdote led to a dozen others. But I could tell that if he kept talking, and I kept banging away on my keyboard, I’d eventually get everything I needed, much in the way that a random rain-drop pattern will eventually soak an entire surface if you just wait long enough. The problem was that he also happened to be an extremely private person with a complicated family life, and it was made plain that he’d never really understood why this book needed to be written in the first place. The project had been conceived by a trusted communications colleague who believed that telling the boss’s life story in book form could help earn media eyeballs, attract new investors, and give everyone on the team their proper morale-boosting due for past triumphs. And even if this kind of book probably wouldn’t become a bestseller, it was reasoned, the project made commercial sense as a loss-leader at speaking events and conferences.

另一个警示故事是关于我接到手的一份工作，但它在我们将书出版之前泡汤了。在这个案例中（也是匿名的），潜在作者是一名成功企业家，有着离奇的背景故事。采访他很艰难，因为他总是游离于时间线，每一个轶事都会引出一打其他轶事。但我知道，只要他继续说下去，我继续敲我的键盘，我终会得到我需要的一切，就像只要你等得够久，随机的雨滴终会浸湿整个表面那样。问题是，他恰好是个极其不爱吐露心思的人，有着复杂的家庭生活，而且显然，他一直不太清楚为什么非得写这本书。这个项目是一位受信赖的传播部门同事构思的，他认为以书的形式讲述老板的人生故事可以帮助赚取媒体眼球，吸引新投资者，过去的成功也能适当提升团队里每个人的士气。而且即便这样的书不太可能成为畅销书，它也有其商业意义，可以在演讲活动和会议中当促销品。

I ended up submitting seven chapters—half the book. Unfortunately, the experience of reading them seems to have validated the client’s original doubts. Most of us will die without anyone writing down a comprehensive, publicly accessible account of our lives. As a writer, I have to remind myself that a lot of people, even those with inspiring stories to tell, are totally fine with that.

我最终提交了七章——半本书。遗憾的是，阅读它们的体验似乎印证了客户最初的疑虑。我们大多数人死后都不会有人为我们留下关于我们人生的详尽、公开的记录。作为一个作家，我必须提醒自己，很多人，甚至是那些有鼓舞人心的故事可讲的人，对此完全无所谓。

Another lesson I’ve learned is that some of the people who do want to tell their stories are simply incapable of doing so, even with a ghostwriter’s assistance. This includes at least two prospective clients I met who suffered from depression. One of the unfortunate effects of this condition is that it can cause those afflicted by it to lose interest in many of the events and relationships that once brought them joy and success, thus making it difficult for a literary collaborator to elicit information during the interview process. You’ll ask the person about some important milestone, and they’ll respond with short, canned responses—even monosyllables. (As a side note, I will say that this has only deepened my admiration for those writers who are capable of writing about their depression. For someone like this to create a whole book about his or her life must be like a swimmer who goes the length of a pool with rocks tied to feet and hands.)

我学到的另一个教训是，即便是在代笔作家的协助之下，有些人也完全没能力讲述自己的故事。其中包括我遇到的至少两位患有抑郁症的潜在客户。这种疾病的一个不幸影响是，它可能导致受其困扰的人对许多曾经带给过他们快乐和成功的事件和联系失去兴趣，使得在采访过程中，写作协助者难以引出信息。你会问对方一些重要的里程碑，他们则会回以简短，罐头式的答复——甚至是只言片语。（顺便一提，我会说这只加深了我对那些能够描述自己抑郁症的作家的钦佩。对这样的人来说，创作一整本关于他或她的生活的书无异于一个游泳者手脚绑着石头游完一个泳池的距离。）

The opposite problem can occur when an author who’s rebounded from a period of adversity, or even disgrace, comes to you because he wants to write a book that helps restore his reputation and rebut his detractors. In this case, you typically won’t have trouble eliciting words—as they will come at you by the thousands, sometimes in manic torrents. But because this kind of author is trying to settle scores, he’s often inclined to skate over inconvenient facts or events whose inclusion (at least in some abbreviated form) is essential to any kind of coherent narrative. You can’t spend a whole chapter denouncing the motives of one’s “false accusers,” for instance, if you aren’t willing to inform readers what the accusations were and why they were wrong.

当一个作者刚从一段逆境甚至耻辱中走出来，找你是想写本书来助他恢复名誉，反驳诋毁他的人，则会出现相反的情况，你通常不难引出话头，它们会成千成万，甚至如狂热洪流般向你涌来。但是，此类作者的目的是算旧账，他往往倾向于略过对自己不利的事实或事件；而对于叙述的连贯性来说，它们（至少是缩略形式）又是必不可少的。比方说，你不能花一整章来谴责某个「诬告者」的动机，又不愿意告诉读者是什么指控，它们又为什么是错的。

In this context, the ghostwriter’s role is somewhat analogous to that of a lawyer who has to know all the sordid facts surrounding his client’s case, if only so that he might better explain them to a judge and jury. Of course, there are always going to be no-go literary zones in everyone’s life when it comes to, say, the bedroom or the doctor’s office. But a client who isn’t forthcoming with important details is usually either an unreliable witness to his or her own existence, or simply doesn’t trust his writing partner. Neither scenario lends itself to a productive outcome.

这种情况下，代笔作家的任务有点类似律师，他必须了解所有围绕其客户案件的肮脏事实，即便只是为了更好地向法官和陪审团解释它们。当然，每个人的生活都会有一些不可记述之处，譬如在床榻之内和医生办公室。但是，一个不愿意透露重要细节的客户，通常要么是个不可靠的证人，要么根本不信任他的写作搭档。两种情况都无助于带来好结果。

A more mundane problem that a ghostwriter often faces is the tendency of clients to take a jaded view toward their own rarefied professional or artistic subcultures. They’ve been operating within their silos for so long that they forget what it is about them that makes them unusual or mysterious to outsiders.

代笔作家常常面临的一个更寻常的问题是，客户往往对他们自己所处的稀有专业或艺术亚文化感到厌倦。他们在自己圈子里呆得太久了，以至于已记不起，在外人看来他们有哪些不寻常或神秘之处。

By way of example, I’m thinking of an amazingly successful immigrant who’d essentially invented a whole branch of production engineering in the late 20th century—probably the smartest person I’ve ever had the privilege to meet. Part of my ghostwriting job involved touring his corporate facilities, interviewing his engineers, and following him around to meetings. And all of the eye-popping technology on display convinced me that our book should go beyond being just a straightforward memoir, and should also include a capsule history of this hugely important industry he’d pioneered.

对此，我想起了一个极其成功的移民的例子，可以说他在二十世纪末发明了一个整个生产工程分支——大概是我有幸见过最聪明的人。我代笔工作的一个环节是参观他公司的设施，采访他的工程师，以及跟着他参加会议。我所见所闻那些令人膛目结舌的技术让我相信，我们这本书不应只是一本简单的回忆录，还应该包括他所开创的这个极其重要的行业的简史。

Alas, the client rejected this approach, thinking it dull, and encouraged me to write instead about his corporate mission statement, his philanthropy, and all the value and great service he’d delivered to his many satisfied customers. I said that this would be a great plan if we were writing the “About Us” section of his corporate website—instead of a book that human beings would actually have any interest in reading. As you might guess, it was at about this point that I was handed my walking papers.

然而，客户拒绝了这个建议，觉得它没什么意思，转而鼓励我写写他公司的使命宣言、他的慈善事业，以及他提供的令众多顾客满意的价值和优秀服务。我说，如果我们写的是他公司网站的「关于我们」部分，而不是一本人类真的有兴趣读的书，那是个很棒的计划。你可能已经猜到，我差不多就是在这时候收到了解聘书。

I was already on thin ice with this client, I should note, because I’d been lecturing him about how we needed to include chapters on his (absolutely fascinating) childhood roots overseas; whereas the author instead wanted me to start the story off with him already ensconced on North American shores as an adult immigrant, climbing the ladder to fame and fortune. I countered that this was like starting off Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone with Harry already enrolled at Hogwarts instead of attracting the reader’s empathy in a cupboard under the Dursleys’ stairs.

我应该注意到，我和这位客户的关系已是如履薄冰，因为我一直告诫他，我们需要用几章来讲述他在海外的童年生活；而作者希望我以他成年以后移民北美海岸安顿下来，攀登名利之梯作为故事的开头。我反驳说，这就像《哈利波特与魔法石》一开头哈利已经在霍格沃兹就读，而不是为吸引读者共鸣，以德思礼家楼梯下的碗橱为开篇。

When I look back on these arguments, I realize that I was 100 percent correct about my editorial instincts, but 100 percent wrong to keep pressing them on the guy paying my freight. And this gets us to the core tension embedded in the ghostwriter’s craft. On one hand, most clients want someone who’s passionate enough about writing to care about the finished product, push back gently on bad ideas, and generate a few good ones of his or her own. On the other hand, no client wants a writer who doesn’t respect the chain of command, or who gets huffy and precious.

回顾这些争论，我知道我的编辑本能是百分百正确的，但把它们强加给付我差旅费的人是百分百错误的。这让我们看到了蕴含在代笔这门手艺的核心矛盾。一方面，顾客希望代笔作家对写作有足够热情，关心成品，温和地反驳糟主意，给出一些自己的好主意。另一方面，没有客户想要一个不遵守指挥链，或者会发火较真的人。

It’s a fine line to fly, and what you tend to end up with in the field are writers straddling both sides of it—either an obedient yes-man struggling to get his or her prose to lift beyond tree-top level, or a soaring artiste manqué who bristles at the client’s landing instructions and risks running out of fuel.

个中平衡颇难把握，这个领域的作家常常在两边摇摆——要么是听话的应声虫，努力让他或她的文章提升到顶尖水平，要么是放飞自我的平庸艺术家，冒着耗尽燃料的风险对顾客的降落指示不以为然。

If you’re an aspiring ghostwriter, think carefully about which of these two categories describes you best. In the end, every client will get what he or she wants—whether from you, or from the next warm body rooting around the office fridge. Before setting out to write a single word, find out whether that wanted thing just happens to be a book that your conscience won’t ever allow you to deliver.

如果你是个有志向的代笔作家，仔细想想两类人中哪个最能形容你。最终，每位顾客都会得到他或她想要的东西——无论是从你，还是下一个在办公室冰箱周围翻箱倒柜的人。在开始写第一个字之前，想清楚客户心目中想要的书会不会恰好有违你的良心。

作者：Jonathan Kay

日期：2021 年 9 月 26 日

来源：Quillette

网址：

https://quillette.com/2021/09/26/my-life-as-a-ghostwriter/

翻译：DeepL

校对：FungChuh

编辑：辉格

Photo by Zan on Unsplash