On Writing
by Stephen King
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Book Reviews of On Writing
Book Review: Insights from a Master
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been a writer since I was in my teens. I've studied the craft and I have a shelf full of books on writing. This book is one of the best.The subtitle of the book is telling. King called this "a Memoir of the Craft." He is an excellent memoirist.
The memoir part is fascinating. King tells us about his life and it's quite an interesting one. He talks about his youth, about meeting his wife, about his early years and his writing, about his alcoholism, about his near-fatal accident, all enriched with a myriad of details. This is the stuff of which of which good memoirs are made.
Throughout the book, King throws off little droplets of observation about writing and the writer's life. For example, "Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don't have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough."
That line comes amidst the discussion of meeting his wife and what she's meant to him. As someone who's been in relationships that were both helpful and not, it resonated with me. There are insights like that sprinkled throughout the book. Some of them are about writing. Others are not.
All of this is fascinating, more so because King is an excellent writer, and he conveys a lot with very little verbiage. But the core of the book is about the craft of writing. King leads into it in this way. "What follows is everything I know about how to write good fiction."
As the subtitle says this is about the craft of writing. It is about craft, not art, not inspiration, not "being a writer." It is about craft - the work of writing and how to do it well.
King lets us in on this hard-core craft focus early on. "There is a muse, but he's not going to come fluttering down to your writing room and scatter creative fairy dust all over your typewriter or the computer station."
In other words, folks, King is saying that it is up to you. Then he gets down to some practical nuts and bolts. "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."
We find out how much King likes to write. We find out what his rhythm is, and how he alternates periods of intense work with lying fallow. We find out how important he thinks health and the support of his wife are. We find out where he thinks you should work.
Some of this is very directive. "You need the room, you need the door, and you need the determination to shut the door. You need a concrete goal, as well. The longer you keep to these basics, the easier the act of writing will become. Don't wait for the Muse."
While King is specifically directive on some things, his overall tone is quite different. He tells you what works for him and suggests that you might want to consider it for you.
Here's a brief part where King talks about symbolism and theme and how he gets them into his work. "Mostly I don't see stuff like that until the story's done. Once it is, I'm able to kick back, read over what I've written, and look for underlying patterns. If I see some (and I almost always do), I can work at bringing them out in a second, more fully realized draft of the story."
If you are a working writer, or if you would like to be, this is a great book to read and to return to. There is a wealth of unvarnished advice from a master writer. Of all the craft books on my writing shelves, this is the most readable book and it is one of the most helpful.
What if you're not interested in writing? Well, if you read a lot, even if you don't read Stephen King's work, but you're fascinated by the sounds coming out of that writing workshop out back, you'll find this a great read, too.
Book Review: Strunk & White meets the Graveyard.
Summary: 4 Stars
First, I am not a fan of Stephen King. I dislike his vulgarity. Like rampant mistletoe, it chokes out the story with dead wood. Second, I recognize his talent as an author, which I why I bought the book. He has something to teach me, and I want to learn.
This book begins with a quick autobiography, from his birth to publishing "Carrie (Signet)." Next is King's philosophy of writing--Mental Telepathy. The third section is the analogy of the toolbox, with the fourth being an expanded description of the nuts and bolts of writing.
King's 1999 accident occurred during the writing of this book. In the last section "On Living," he discusses at length how the accident impacted his writing, his impact with the van, and how you still need to write, regardless of how the pain impacts you.
Compared to other craft books it has an odd organization. But as you read, it flows.
Some of his pointers include:
1. "Take out the boring parts." (47) He compares writing a story as uncovering a fossil (160). You have the story there, and slowly chip away the bad.
("Omit needless words" The Elements of Style (4th Edition))
Not only does he tell, but he also shows how this works. He includes an early draft of "1408 (Widescreen Edition)," then has the same draft with the chicken-scratch corrections. This is quite a find, and is exactly what a budding author needs. If this exercise helps, then get the 50th Anniversary edition of Anthem. The Appendix has Rand's first version of the story, with her cross-outs and emendations.
2. "2nd Draft=1st Draft minus 10%." (224). One of King's first rejection letters included this quick comment. It changed his life. And with our word processors, doing this is child's play.
3. "Write with the door closed. Rewrite with the door open." (47) When we write the first draft, we are writing to ourselves, and should not worry about what other people think. But when we rewrite, we need to make the story presentable for the world.
There are other pointers--write ten pages per day, have an isolated workspace (James E. Talmage's was the best), have a six-week break between writing and rewriting, and so forth. Most writers discover these on their own. But it is nice to have King vindicate our experience.
Surprisingly, King doesn't worry about plot. Read why on page 159ff.
King also provides two career-path models. The first is his own, contained in the autobiographical section of the book. The second is a Forrest Gump compilation called Frank (243ff). Frank shows the incremental aspect to career building. We climb the career ladder one rung at a time, publishing one story at a time. Be patient.
He also offers advice on handling rejection letters: as a teenager, he would impale his letters on a nail in his attic bedroom (28). Later, that nail became a spike, and is depicted on the cover of the paperback book. Get the message: ridicule rejection, crucify it.
As I said, I am not a fan of King's vulgarity. But this book is both a career compass, and a great handbook.
Book Review: Probably the best writing primer available.
Summary: 5 Stars
Before I discuss this book, readers should know I have probably read fewer Stephen King Horror novels than any living American. I have little time for his epics - I prefer to watch the movie versions.Why? Most novels I read need to be less than 150 pages or I lose interest. I see a 300 page novel and I fear I'll get bogged down with descriptions of yet another unique acacia tree or that sun's ray with some peculiar glow. I'm not accusing King of having done so in his novels, it is just that I remember too many of those books from when I was a youth in the 60s.
Besides, I am more of a non-fiction buff. That was why the first Stephen King book I have ever read cover-to-cover is On Writing - A Memoir Of The Craft.
This is a terrific book that honestly discusses the inner needs a budding author must have without wasting too much time discussing the nuts and bolts.
King once wrote, "I write because I cannot not write." This has always stuck in my mind.
In On Writing King mentions that good writers are good readers. The man goes nowhere without a book close at hand and an audiobook in his car.
That comment is worth reams of advice. I know far too many writers who seldom read even one book a year but think they are qualified to write a best-selling novel. Whatever your interest, it can't but make for a more compelling book if you have read a dozen or more similar books.
His advice on how to write active, instead of passive was also beneficial. Just as does King confess, I tend to be unsure as to whether I am understood and thusly(!), revert to the "ly" verb. If you're confused by this line you won't be after reading On Writing.
His frank discussion of telepathy and comparison to the same is a breath of fresh air. In many ways writing is telepathy. Some will scoff at his free acceptance of telepathy and the psychic phenomena. Not me though. I know for a fact it is for real. At least sometimes for some of us.
Still, even if readers don't ascribe to esp, if they can imagine that they are sending their thoughts into the future to someone thousands of miles away, they will then have the necessary imagination to convey their musings with just the right amount of description.
I appreciate that King did not bog us down with the discussion of how to plot a story. Good stories are usually what-ifs and King points this out. He also opens us to how most good stories are inspired by blending two or more common but isolated observations. Carrie was such a story.
Within 288 pages King has masterfully shown aspiring writers how to:
1 - Write an autobiography (his, with just the right amount of humor and tragedy).
2 - How to develop idea-driven fiction not overladen with detail and description.
3 - How to write a concise article in reverse pyramid style (his encounter with a van that nearly killed him.
The man did this without preaching and without overly stressing the value of this secret or that secret.
No aspiring fiction writer should be without this book. No journalist should fail to keep it in his or her personal library.
King does not claim to be a genius. Nor, probably, is he. His ability to simply explain the basics of the craft and to provide simple examples without preaching and without mind-boggling details proves that.
For those of us who want to write but are intimidated by the brilliance of writing geniuses, a simple discussion and down-to-earth advice is what we need.
King's On Writing is precisely the book we need.
I have both the print version and the audio narrated by Stephen King. And I will not part with either.
Book Review: A modest, sensitive, and useful book
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm not a reader of Stephen King's fiction, nor am I fiction writer, but this book is a fine gem that will provide an afternoon of lively entertainment to those who love to read as well as those who love to write. I bought the book on an online recommendation. Though I've not read his novels, I have admired his consistent, reliable, disciplined creativity. For those who wonder how writer can be consistent, reliable, and disciplined through a long and productive career, this book provides great insights. His secret, I begin to see, is his approach to writing both as a craft and as a trade. This book offers insights into both.
I was surprised and delighted by how personal the book is. In his book, King is generous in sharing the experiences that contributed to his becoming a writer and how these experiences shaped his approach to the trade. Without going into great descriptive detail (this is done thoroughly in other reviews here), I can assure you that the first half of the book, which describes King's early life and his first successes as a writer, is wonderful. This is very personal material and I suppose it must be in order to communicate the essential character of the writer himself.
Among other wonderful insights were the revelations of his early jobs - scut work really - supporting his growing family and trying to perfect his writing. I enjoyed his description of working in a professional laundry by day and writing in a cramped closet by night. I also appreciated hearing about his family life during this period: this really helps put in perspective the pressure to succeed and the kind reassurance of his wife (who is also a writer). This is sound and very personal advice for anyone starting out in any chosen profession, including writers.
Perhaps not surprising to King's avid readers, the book is tremendously funny. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the book is also entertaining. Yet the humor and entertainment colors a superb description of writing as a profession. Herein are both tricks of the trade and a workman's shop-talk. This is essential material for all writers. However, it's also fantastic material for those non-writers who are interested in how novel are made.
Other reviews here contain details of the practical advice King gives on writing so I won't go into this except to say that it seems useful. I will say, however, that it is rare to see a writer of King's professional stature approach the task of writing about writing with humility and common sense. The resulting modest tone is perhaps the most impressive and wonderful aspect of this book. I appreciated his reluctance to wax artistic or pedantic.
Among its other practical aspects, one I appreciated, was his willingness to talk about the writing of other writers. This, I learned, grows from his belief that any professional writer must always be reading the writings of others and learning from them. In this book we see King's critical evaluation of what works and what does not work in the writing of others. He also generously provides a list of the novels that he read during the course of his writing.
This book is a good addition to the shelf in your library that contains style guides, dictionaries, thesaurus, and other recommendations on writing. It is also a fine addition to the shelf that contains memoirs. Surprisingly, it's also a good beach book.
Book Review: How to Write and Why
Summary: 5 Stars
"This is not a textbook," writes Stephen King of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, and indeed, King's observation, like nearly all of those in the book, is astute. On Writing is no step-by-step guide, no collection of exercises to make the reader a best-selling novelist. King's goals, first of all, are not so lofty. "[I]t is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer" (136), he says, and equally "impossible to make a great writer out of a good one" (136). But King does think that many people do have the talent to write and tell entertaining stories, and these talents, he believes, can at least "be strengthened and sharpened" (4).
To this end, King spends roughly half of the book offering a surfeit of practical advice on how to tell compelling and honest stories. Writers, he suggests, should be concise and should write directly, avoiding use of the passive voice. For grammar and style, writers would be smart to listen to Strunk and White. Writers, too, should trust their vocabularies, choosing the first word that comes to mind, so long as it is "appropriate and colorful" (110). No matter what their vocabulary tells them, writers should shun adverbs. And mapping out a plot, to King's mind, is unnecessary. If a writer puts characters in interesting situations, they will find their own ways out.
But for King, the writer's most powerful tool, it seems, is telepathy. According to King, reading is an act of shared consciousness, and it is through this communion that the learning writer comes to understand "about style, graceful narration, plot development, the creation of believable characters, and truth-telling" (141). Exposing writers to great writing--his own--is the most memorable feature and King's most useful strategy of On Writing. In the book's opening third, King relates tales, frustrating, humorous, sad, and inspiring, from his childhood and his early efforts to be a writer. And at the end of On Writing, in a section unplanned when he began the book, he narrates the tale of the terrible accident in which he was struck by a van and of the arduous struggle back to health afterward. King's own story and his narration of it here are as compelling as any of his novels.
On Writing truly has earned its reputation as an outstanding book on the subject of writing. It is admirable, first, for King's humble and practical approach to the craft. King's advice on writing is simple and sound, and he illustrates each of his counsels concretely and convincingly for the reader. Additionally, it is easy to imagine writers of diverse ages and abilities, and even writers working in different genres, understanding King's precepts and improving their writing as a result.
But most importantly, On Writing is successful because through it King makes such an articulate case for the value of writing. Reading King's stories and anecdotes in On Writing are both entertaining and insightful, great writing of the sort that may serve for as "a spur, goading the writer to work harder and aim higher" (141). And the story of King's recovery, which was facilitated in part by the way writing made his life "a brighter and more pleasant place" (275), demonstrates the enriching power of the art. Readers of On Writing will have acquired some tools to help them to write better stories, but more significantly, they may want to try.