On WritingThis volume "really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists", written by American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy, Stephen King (b. 1947). The first third of the book contains King's memoir, which includes heartfelt tidbits about his brother, mother and his long battles with alcohol and drug addiction. The second part of the book, "On Writing," is where aspiring novelists might find inspiration. King describes the symbolism in many of his novels and offers writers common sense advice. He presents his taboos of writing: adverbs (especially those in dialog) and the passive voice. He describes his writer's toolbox, including examples of both good and bad writing, sometimes taken from his own work, sometimes taken from other writers. He also describes his approach to research. King concludes by including a list of nearly a hundred novels that he considers the best that he's read in the last three or four years. |
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actually adverbs agent Annie Annie Wilkes asked back story begin believe boys Bryan Smith called character cigarette copy course Dave desk dialogue door draft E. B. White Elements of Style Enslin Eula-Beulah eyes feel fiction Fillebrown Frank friends fucking girls H. P. Lovecraft Happy Stamps Hart's War high school idea John Grisham kids later laughing least Lisbon Lisbon Falls live look magazine Mike mind mother movie never night novel Olin once Ostermeyer paragraph Paul Sheldon perhaps plot pretty probably published Randall Flagg reader remember Salem’s Lot seemed sentence shit sitting someone sometimes sort started Stephen King Strunk stuff summer sure Tabby talk tell there's things thought tion told Tommyknockers toolbox turned Uncle Oren usually walk week wife words writing wrote
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Page 125 - ... the fact that," a phrase that causes him to quiver with revulsion. The expression, he says, should be "revised out of every sentence in which it occurs." But a shadow of gloom seems to hang over the page, and you feel that he knows how hopeless his cause is. I suppose I have written "the fact that" a thousand times in the heat of composition, revised it out maybe five hundred times in the cool aftermath. To be batting only .500 this late in the season, to fail half the time to connect with this...
Page 111 - Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold.
Page 142 - If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.
Page 278 - Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who...
Page 145 - if you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write.
Page 120 - Will felt that the reader was in serious trouble most of the time, a man floundering in a swamp, and that it was the duty of anyone attempting to write English to drain this swamp quickly and get his man up on dry ground, or at least throw him a rope.
Page 81 - Are you sitting down?" Bill asked. "No," I said. Our phone hung on the kitchen wall, and I was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. "Do I need to?
Page 111 - Someone snatched the old woman's blindfold from her and she and the juggler were clouted away and when the company turned in to sleep and the low fire was roaring in the blast like a thing alive these four yet crouched at the edge of the firelight among their strange chattels and watched how the ragged flames fled down the wind as if sucked by some maelstrom out there in the void, some vortex in that waste apposite to which man's transit and his reckonings alike lay abrogate. As if beyond will or...
Page 163 - Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered preexisting world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.