Lessons from Stephen King's "On Writing"

It has been some time since my last blog post (nearly two weeks, if I remember correctly), and for my lapse in writing I offer the justifications that it was midterms, the book I was reading was nonfiction and thus took me longer to get through, and a friend of mine passed away. So no, I'm not apologizing.

The nonfiction book I was reading was Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Now, I have to admit to never having read any of King's work. Horror has never appealed to me. It is as surprising to me, then, as it probably is to you that I was reading writing advice from the guy. My reasoning (I'm explaining myself a lot today. Geez): I had to read a nonfiction book for my contemporary literature class, so decided it may as well be a book on storytelling. I have a friend who recommends books about writing to me relatively often, so I turned to them and said I wanted a book that was more about story than writing. This is the book that was recommended.

It is a lot more about writing than about storytelling, but oh well. I wanted a book that was more about storytelling because my education has been in writing, but I've noticed that the story side of things has been largely ignored. So I'm starting to focus my self-education on it. Or trying to, anyway.

This book was not a waste of my time, however. For your edification and mine, I've collected the things I learned from this book:

• " ... Stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shove s**** from a sitting position" (pg. 69).  I'm going to have to try this, but my usual approach to writing when it's just not coming is to edit instead. I will go back a few pages, or to the beginning, and spend my writing time editing. My hope is it will get my creative juices flowing or else help me think over things.
• People hate what they are afraid of. I think I knew this before, but it was good to identify for myself so I can possibly use it in the future. Nietzche says people only learn things they already know, and I think this snippet falls under that category.
• Too much detail takes the fun out of writing. That's not prose, that's an instruction manual. First off, I loved that he phrased it this way. Secondly, he went from there into an idea of giving only key details, such as his example of a number 8 on a rabbit's back. The details included should be unique and should stick in the reader's mind, or at least give them a feel for what is going on. I think this should help me find a balance on how much detail to add. Currently, I have no idea how much detail I tend to include. I need to start paying attention to it.
• Always write with passion. I liked this idea; King says that if the writing does not entertain or connect with me on some emotional level, it will not entertain or connect with someone else. I have not noticed the idea of writing as entertaining others being taught in the creative writing program I am in right now, and it was an idea that was novel when it should not have been. I'm not saying I've been told to be boring, but I've been taught a "who cares?" mentality. So your characters aren't likeable, my professor would tell me. So what? Thanks to King and a recent lesson in my contemporary lit. class, I'm realizing that stories and characters should incite emotion, whether that be positive or negative emotion. A story or character that is just "meh" is the worst sort of story or character.
• Writing is a form of telepathy. This was such a cool idea. King argues that if I tell you about the weather outside right now, where I can see yellow-green grass and a white sky setting boundaries on the light flakes coming down in haphazard fashion, some going down and some bouncing along for a while before finally settling on the ground and some actually floating upward instead of coming down, that you get an image very like the one I am looking at. To see my snowfall, I am looking through a narrow window at a wooden banister with a short, but full, pine tree beyond. See it? It probably does not look exactly like mine, yet I was able to transfer an image from my mind to yours via words on a screen. You aren't even here now, and you'll be reading this at some future point in time, which means I'm grabbing this image and sending it to you not only across a physical distance, but also through time. Incredible.

• "Use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colorful" (pg. 110). Usually, the first word is the least complicated and most precise option available. When I help people to write, I like to type while they say whatever comes to their mind, even if that is, "I have no idea what to say, I haven't eaten since I woke up this morning, and that was only a leftover biscuit from the night before. No, there wasn't any butter. Just a cold biscuit." Usually, I can write all of what they have to say and then work with them to delete everything but the stuff that sounds good, and you know what? When people write that way, pretty much everyone is a good writer. Maybe good writers are just the people who don't overthink things?
• If there is no play-time with a talent you are working to develop (you practice and that's it), it probably isn't for you. Exhibit A: I am typing this blog post in my parents' living room. I failed to notice that there were clothes to be folded (none of it mine, but I try to help out when I'm visiting). I also failed to compute the fact that their dog was outside barking. It's an inside dog, a mutt that is mostly shih-tzu, I think, and here I was talking about how it was snowing outside. When my mom came to fold the clothes, she looked out the window, saw that it was snowing, and connected that with the barking into an "Oh my gosh, the dog's outside in that!" I was too engrossed in my writing to put two and two together . . . and this was just a blog post. That's just one of the many reasons I can tell this whole writing thing is for me.
• None of the bells and whistles are for use in telling story. Only story is about story. I've been focusing on writing and the correct use of bells and whistles. It was nice to be told I could put that to a rest when it comes to telling story; that the story is what comes first, not the writing. It was a suspicion I had, but I'm glad to have it affirmed by someone else.
• Consider the theme of the piece ... later. For King, "theme" is the ideas behind a story, such as environmentalism being the idea behind Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. I've learned that when a person tries to be profound, they end up sounding stupid. I like the idea of thinking about being profound after the story has already been set up, so that it is a side note instead of the main focus. I am a firm believer that a story gets the most stage time. To go look at the other stuff later makes sense to me.
• Concept of an Ideal Reader. King says that when he writes, his first draft is written without giving a thought to how it will be received. During the second draft, he focuses on his "ideal reader." For him, that's his wife. This ideal reader is the person who will love the concept and want to read the story, the person whose sense of humor complements your own, the person who will say "that is so right," when you get a detail spot-on. I think my ideal reader changes per story and its intended audience, but then, I've never really thought about it. The purpose of the second draft is to provide maximum entertainment and value for this ideal reader; this is when the writer needs to keep their audience in mind. It's a method I will have to try.