{"id":17082,"date":"2020-11-05T09:35:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T13:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=17082"},"modified":"2021-12-16T16:22:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T20:22:17","slug":"stephen-king-toolbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/stephen-king-toolbox\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen King’s Toolbox: Your Guide to Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is Stephen King’s toolbox? How can this writing toolbox help you become a better writer<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen King’s toolbox is outlined in the book On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft.<\/em> This writing toolbox helps you evaluate and build your skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about Stephen King’s toolbox and how it can help improve your writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Stephen King: The Toolbox<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On the mechanical level, writing is made up of words, sentences, and paragraphs. How you choose words, in what sequence you use them, and how you divide them all affect the quality of your writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his memoir, Stephen King explains the toolbox like this. A writer is an artisan who has a number of tools in her toolbox available for use\u2014diction, grammar, phrasing. You likely already have these tools, so don\u2019t worry that you don\u2019t understand them well enough to be a writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re new to serious writing, examine each of these tools you have. If they\u2019re rusty, clean them off. But don\u2019t be embarrassed about the tools that you have; you likely have enough to start writing. And if you keep reading and writing without pause, as King recommends, you will polish your tools so that they do exactly what you want them to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For dependable guidelines, look to The Elements of Style<\/em> by Strunk and White. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vocabulary and Diction<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Diction is the choice of words you use in your writing. It draws from the vocabulary you have. According to Stephen King, the toolbox should include these fundamentals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t feel ashamed if you feel your vocabulary is weak. \u201cIt\u2019s not how big it is; it\u2019s how you use it.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is good writing of both extensive vocabulary and pedestrian vocabulary. Here are two examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe leathery, undeteriorative, and almost indestructible quality was an inherent attribute of the thing’s form of organization, and pertained to some paleogean cycle of invertebrate evolution utterly beyond our powers of speculation.\u201d\u2014H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney.\u201d\u2014Ernest Hemingway, Big Two-Hearted River<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second passage uses mostly monosyllabic words. All of the words can be understood by a child. Yet Hemingway\u2019s stories still communicate depth and truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So whatever vocabulary you have, use it unashamedly. Use whatever word comes first to your mind. Do <\/strong>not<\/em><\/strong> mull over your diction and conjure fancy words you wouldn\u2019t ordinarily use.<\/strong> The first word that comes to mind is often the best one. Why would you use any other?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grammar<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Grammar consists of rules that we collectively agree to uphold to minimize confusion. If you disregard the rules of grammar, you risk confusing your reader. This is another concept in Stephen King’s toolbox. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last time you really thought about grammar might have been in high school English. Don\u2019t worry\u2014the grammar you need is simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At its most basic, a complete sentence is made up of a subject (a noun) and a predicate (a verb). Rocks fall. Tom hovers. Trees explode. You can write as simply as this (Hemingway pretty much did).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this baseline, you can construct more complicated sentences, with dependent and independent clauses, participial phrases, and so on. But when you get stuck, never forget that the minimum you need is a noun and a verb.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can break grammar rules when they serve your purpose<\/a>. For instance, you can write incomplete sentences to produce the rhythm you want to telepathically transmit to the reader. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Style<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, you can follow grammar rules but produce poor writing. King has two glaring dislikes: passive tense and adverbs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Avoid Passive Tense<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Passive tense arranges words so that things are done to subjects. \u201cThe car was started by the driver.\u201d \u201cThe discovery was announced with great fanfare.\u201d \u201cThe meeting is scheduled for seven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these sentences sound weak. In active tense, the subject does the action. \u201cThe driver started the car.\u201d \u201cThe grandmaster announced the discovery with great fanfare.\u201d \u201cThe meeting\u2019s at seven.\u201d Don\u2019t these sentences feel better?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is common enough advice, but why do writers still use passive voice? Because it\u2019s safe.<\/strong> Passive voice avoids the need to assert a subject doing a deliberate action. Passive voice is the refuge of timid, uncertain writers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Avoid Adverbs<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They usually end in -ly, as in \u201cTom started the car dejectedly.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like passive voice, adverbs are a sign of weak, timid writing. Writers often use adverbs to make sure the reader knows exactly what is happening. The side effect of adverbs is to blunt the power of the verb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortform example: Take this passage from Twilight<\/em> by Stephenie Meyer, a notorious abuser of adverbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018As if you could outrun me,\u2019 he laughed bitterly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He reached up with one hand and, with a deafening crack, effortlessly ripped a two-foot-thick branch from the trunk of the spruce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 I\u2019d never seen him so completely freed of that carefully cultivated facade.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This passage could be rewritten without adverbs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018As if you could outrun me,\u2019 he laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He reached up for a two-foot-thick branch on a spruce and ripped it off with a deafening crack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…I\u2019d never seen him so free of his facade.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of using adverbs, make the context clear so that the adverb becomes unnecessary.<\/strong> If Tom is starting the car, the prose preceding it should be so clear it makes \u201cdejectedly\u201d redundant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortform example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom sat for ten minutes, imagining the look on his boss\u2019s face as he pounded out the email at 3AM that morning. He sighed and started the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poor writers also use adverbs in dialogue to break up the monotony, as in \u201c\u2018Put down the gun,\u2019 she pleaded tentatively.\u201d Delete the adverb, and as a default use the simple \u201che said, she said\u201d construction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fear Drives Bad Writing<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The pattern underlying bad writing<\/a> is fear\u2014fear that your reader won\u2019t understand you, or fear that you sound like a simpleton.<\/strong> Have confidence. You probably know what you\u2019re talking about, and good writing is about how well you tell the truth<\/a>, not how fancy your language is. For Stephen King, the toolbox helps stave off this fearful writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paragraphs<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Paragraphs are the next level of organization above the sentence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paragraphs communicate rhythm and intensity. Detailed expository writing has dense, long paragraphs. Easy fiction has short paragraphs and airy dialogue. When you open a book, you can tell at a glance what the writing will be like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In expository writing, paragraphs tend to have a logical structure\u2014a topic sentence, followed by sentences that support the topic sentence. This is a methodical structure that keeps the thinking organized and the writing focused on the topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fiction, you have more freedom. You can use paragraphs to communicate a rhythm and beat, to enhance character descriptions or actions, to transition. You can break up a cohesive paragraph into multiple short paragraphs to transmit the right energy. A paragraph can be as short as a single word or as long as a dozen pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paragraphs may communicate more than the sentences they contain. Thus King considers the paragraph, not the sentence, as the basic unit of writing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is Stephen King’s toolbox? How can this writing toolbox help you become a better writer? Stephen King’s toolbox is outlined in the book On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft. This writing toolbox helps you evaluate and build your skills. Read more about Stephen King’s toolbox and how it can help improve your writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,43],"tags":[145],"class_list":["post-17082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career","category-self-improvement","tag-on-writing-a-memoir-of-the-craft","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nStephen King's Toolbox: Your Guide to Writing - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What do writers mean when referring to Stephen King's toolbox? 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