King On Writing

The novel, “On Writing” by Stephen King is divided into 3 main sections and a post-reading section. The novel starts off with King problematizing the actual purpose of the book to the books audience. He uses very informal language in this section and throughout the novel as a whole. This language includes speaking to his audience directly, asking them questions and to even perform tasks, and informal phrases including swearing. He ultimately tells the readers that this book is not an autobiography or the end-all-be-all of writing rules. Rather it is his story of how he, as a writer, was formed. The first section following those forwards, discusses many incidents from his childhood. King grew up in a rather unstable environment frequently moving
from state to state. He talks about his experiences moving from Wisconsin to Connecticut to Maine and inputs some of the major important events in his life that ultimately led to his success and formation as a writer. King was always a bit behind in school due to suffering from ear infections and colds and needing to miss a year on this account, thus as he moves he is always the older one in his class. While growing up, King constantly was writing stories and submitting them to publishes but was continuously rejected. He kept all of his rejection slips tacked to a board in his wall and continued his dream. At certain points King took positions at his various school as newspaper editors and other writing positions. King found himself in trouble numerous amounts of times for he would write offensive satires or was fund of drinking too much as a child. These instances help shape his character and showed how his life was not that easy for him and he succumbed to devious behavior. However, he was blessed with forgiving principles and understanding parents and seemed to always escape his actions without too harsh of consequences. Eventually, king goes to college and then marries a women he falls in love with for her ability to write and understand her own poetry. He emphasizes several times throughout the novel the important of his wife to him and the importance of a life partner in funeral, especially in his line of work. He and his wife have two children who he loves dearly and he enjoys life as a father. However, he was not always rich or a hit. He and his wife started at the bottom working full time laborious jobs and could barely make ends meet for their children. However, after finally getting success from his novel Carrie, King’s luck changed and he began consistently writing hits and making a steady income. This allowed him to care better for his sick mom in her final days and to provide college educations for his children. However, despite his success, King still suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction.
At his lowest point, his wife even hosted an intervention for him and threatened to leave and take the kids with her if he didn’t quit drinking. He did and bought a real desk, signifying the beginning of his new healthier life. The next section of the book described what writing means to King. He explained how to him, writing is the most real form of telepathy in life. He explained writings amazing power to transmit ideas throughout time without directly speaking or seeing the same things ergo a form of telepathy. King takes writing very seriously and he hopes the audience reading his book do too if they wish to continue reading. The next section is about a toolbox both literally and figuratively. King describes and talks about a toolbox that was made by his grandfather and passed down to his uncle to carry all of his important tools and how the most used and important ones were on top. He tells of a story when one day he only needed one tool to fix a hole in a screen but he lugged over the whole heavy box anyway and learned the importance of planning for the unexpected just in case. He relates the toolbox to a writer’s figurative toolbox in which they use different writing tools to create the best
writing. He says on top of a writer’s toolbox is their vocabulary, their grammar (which has debatable importance to him), and their personal style, which should come before following any writing rules. He also talks about his detest for adverbs in this section and his personal view that writing is like seduction and the power of word choice.
The following section gets into the real nity-gritty of his writing tips and tricks. He beings by stating right away that a bad writer cannot be a good writer. That a good writer cannot be a great writer (himself included), but that a decent writer could be a good writer. Having established that, King uses the rest of the book to provide tips and textual examples to support his tips to his audience. Kings tips include reading and writing as much as possible to learn. If you do that, writing classes or seminars are really not even fully needed unless you do them for enjoyment. He explains how writing shouldn’t even feel like work if you really have a passion. He talks about after completing a draft of a book the need to put it aside for at least 6 weeks and to do a new activity. He explains that the completed first draft should be entirely the authors ideas and that it should be written in a room with the door closed so no ones thoughts can penetrate you own, because they will later. He talks about the need to find a decent writing-loving editor and agent once you get to that level and start making a
profit. He talked about the general lack of importance of themes or symbolism when actually writing and how if they appear naturally then great but they should not be forced. For him, dialogue, description, and narrative are the keys to good story telling. Any extra research isn’t really necessary because what s produced should be your own experience and knowledge or inspiration though research is acceptable but it should be background. While not in order, those are the general ideas discussed in this final section of the book. In my personal opinion, this book was easy and fun to read. I got through the 279-page novel with relative ease and really enjoyed what I was reading. King kept it interesting and vibrant with examples and exciting language. I particularly enjoyed the first part of the novel reading about King’s upbringing. The stories were personable, enticing, sometimes funny, and the connections from them and their relationship to King becoming a good writer were usually vey clear. The writing tips themselves I thought were very practical and somewhat enlightening. His idea to focus less on theme and symbolism and those types of aspects and more on just telling a good story was exciting and freeing form the lessons I am taught in school. It was also reassuring to read that even without placing so much effort and force to get those elements into ones writing them seem to come anyway. I really liked his thoughts about the characters having their own real distinct lives and how their thoughts and feelings should be taken into account when writing. I love the idea of fiction writing after reading this book and I would be willing to give it a shot myself using King’s guidelines. I am very happy to have read and enjoyed this book thoroughly!