卡耐基演讲·3.讲出围绕中心的细节

细节本身不具备趣味性。到处散置着家具和古董的房间不会好看，一幅图画满是不相关的细物，也不能让眼睛停留。同样，太多无关紧要的细节，也会让交谈和当众演讲成为无聊的耐力试验。所以，你要只选用能强调你的讲演重点和缘由的细节。如果你想告诉大家：在长途旅行前，应先检查车辆状况，那么你应该详细讲述旅行前因为没有事先检查车辆所发生的悲剧。但如果你去讲怎样观赏风景，或者抵达目的地后在什么地方过夜，就只会遮盖重点，分散注意力。Detail, of itself, is not interesting. A room cluttered with furniture and bric-a-brac is not attractive. A picture filled with too many unrelated details does not compel the eyes to linger upon it. In the same way, too many details-unimportant details-make conversation and public speaking a boring test of endurance. The secret is to select only those details that will serve to emphasize the point and reason of the talk. If you want to get across the idea that your listeners should have their cars checked before going on a long trip, then all the details of your example step should be concerned with what happened to you when you failed to have your car checked before taking a trip. If you tell about how you enjoyed the scenery or where you stayed when you arrived at your destination, you will only succeed in clouding the point and dissipating attention.

但是，如果你围绕你的话题重点，用细节来渲染你的故事，确实是最好的方法。它可以帮助你重现当时的状况，让听众感觉历历在目。只说你从前曾因疏忽而发生意外，很难让听众为此而小心驾车，这样的方法是愚蠢而无趣的。如果把惊心动魄的经验转化为语言，使用各种辞藻传达你的感受，那么就能把这件事烙在听众的心里，他们也就相信了你的忠告。请看下面的实例，这是一个学生有关在寒冷冬天的路上，驾车要万分小心的一段讲演：But relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picturize it for the audience. To say merely that you once had an accident because of negligence is bald, uninteresting, and hardly likely to move anyone to be more careful behind the wheel of a car. But to paint a word picture of your frightening experience, using the full range of multisensory phraseology, will etch the event upon the consciousness of the listeners. For instance, here is the way one class member developed an Example step that points up vividly the need for great caution on wintry roads:

“1949年，就在圣诞节前一天的早上，我在印第安纳州41号公路上往北行驶，车中有我的妻子和两个孩子。我们已经沿着一段平滑如镜的冰路缓慢地行驶了好几个小时——稍稍触及方向盘，便会让我的福特车滑得一塌糊涂。时间就这样一小时一小时慢慢地过去。I was driving north on Highway 41 in Indiana one morning just before Christmas, in 1949. In the car were my wife and two children. For several hours we had been creeping along on a sheet of mirror-like ice; the slightest touch on the steering wheel sent the rear of my Ford into a sickening slide. Few drivers got out of line or attempted to pass, and the hours seemed to creep as slowly as the cars.

“我们来到一处开阔的转弯处。这儿的冰雪已经开始融化了，所以我就踩上油门，想弥补失去的时间。其他的人也一样，大家似乎都很匆忙，想第一个到达芝加哥。危险引起的紧张卸下了，孩子们也开始在后座唱起歌来。Then we came to an open stretch where the ice was melted by the sun and I stepped on the accelerator to make up for lost time. Other cars did the same. Everybody suddenly seemed in a hurry to get to Chicago first. The children began to sing in the back seat as the tension of danger subsided.

“汽车开始走上一段上坡路，进了一处森林地带。当汽车急驰到坡顶时，突然我看到——可是太迟了——北边的山坡因为没有阳光，所以路面的结冰没有融化，我们的车便打滑冲了出去。我们飞过路沿，完全失去了控制，然后落进雪堆里，直立着。汽车的车门被撞碎了，落了我们一身碎玻璃。”The road suddenly went uphill and into a wooded area. As the speeding car reached the top I saw, too late, that the northern slope of the hill, still untouched by the sun's rays, was like a smooth river of ice. I had a fleeting glance of two wildly careening cars in front of us and then we went into a skid. Over the shoulder we went, hopelessly out of control, and landed in a snowbank, still upright; but the car that had been following us went into a skid, too, and crashed into the side of our car, smashing in the doors and showering us with glass.

这件事例中丰富的细节，很容易让听众身临其境。你就是要让听众看到你所看到的，听到你所听到的，感觉到你所感觉到的。要做到这一点唯一的方法，就是使用丰富而具体的细节。如同第二部第一章里所指出的，讲清楚时间、地点、人物、事件和发生的原因这五个要素来刺激听众的视觉想象。The abundance of detail in this example made it easy for the audience to project themselves into the picture. After all, your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. The only way you can possibly achieve this effect is to use an abundance of concrete details. As was pointed out in Chapter Four, the task of preparation of a talk is a task of reconstructing the answers to the questions Who? When? Where? How? and Why? You must stimulate the visual imagination of your listeners by painting word pictures.