PDF Summary:On Writing, by Stephen King

On Writing is Stephen King’s musings on his craft—about how he discovered writing, what he learned about it, and his advice to you as a writer. Part memoir and part practical advice, it’s a personal look at one of the bestselling authors of all time.

Learn how Stephen King got his start by writing as a teenager, then struggled as an early writer until his breakthrough book Carrie. Then learn his key tips on writing good fiction, including how to develop a realistic story and characters, why you must avoid adverbs, and how to make it in the writing business.

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• During that time, shut your door and remove all distractions. You should get lost in your own world.
• Set your daily goal low and achievable. He suggests 1,000 words a day. Until you meet this goal each day, your door stays shut.
• Take no more than one day off a week. Keep up the momentum when writing to prevent the self-doubt from creeping in.

What to Write About

You can write about anything. The only requirement is that you tell the truth.

Good writing pulls readers in by telling the truth. The characters seem real and behave in recognizable ways; the reader sees herself and her beliefs embedded in the story. In contrast, you likely stop reading a book when you can’t identify with any of the characters and find them implausible.

You’ll probably start by writing in the genres you like to read—if you’re a science fiction fan, you’ll write science fiction. You might even emulate the style of writers you like, which is nearly unavoidable for novice writers until they develop their own voices.

What you shouldn’t do is write what you think other people will like—friends, colleagues, critics, book buyers. Don’t try to emulate the form, plot and style of bestselling authors. All this takes you away from authenticity, and your readers will know.

So write what you know and like, and bring your truths into the story. You know some unique truths about the world, which will make your writing unique.

Writing Mechanics

A writer is an artisan who has a number of tools in her toolbox available for use—diction, grammar, phrasing. You likely already have these tools, so don’t worry that you don’t understand them well enough to be a writer. For dependable guidelines, look to The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

King does single out two of his pet peeves—passive tense and adverbs.

Avoid Passive Tense

Passive tense arranges words so that things are done to subjects. “The car was started by the driver.” “The discovery was announced with great fanfare.” “The meeting is scheduled for seven.”

All of these sentences sound weak. In active tense, the subject does the action. “The driver started the car.” “The grandmaster announced the discovery with great fanfare.” “The meeting’s at seven.” Don’t these sentences feel better?

This is common enough advice, but why do writers still use passive voice? Because it’s safe. Passive voice avoids the need to assert a subject doing a deliberate action. Passive voice is the refuge of timid, uncertain writers.

Avoid Adverbs

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They usually end in -ly, as in “Tom started the car dejectedly.”

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, but this blunts the power of the verb.

Instead of using adverbs, make the context clear so that the adverb becomes unnecessary. If Tom is starting the car, the prose preceding it should be so clear it makes “dejectedly” redundant: “Tom sat for ten minutes, imagining the look on his boss’s face as he pounded out the email at 3AM that morning. He sighed and started the car.”:

The Elements of a Story

Stories consist of three things:

• Narration: telling what happens and moving the story along
• Description: adding sensory details to enliven the story
• Dialogue: how characters talk

Narration and Avoiding Plot

King hates the idea of pre-planning a story’s plot. This feels artificial. Our lives are plotless—we don’t know in advance what’s going to happen—and that gives life a constantly surprising, entertaining flavor. Writing a story should be the same.

Instead, King believes the story reveals itself as he writes. He doesn’t force the action to move in a particular direction; the characters decide what to do, and he merely narrates what is happening as he observes it.

He analogizes writing like this to archaeology: The story already exists, buried in the dirt like a fossil. Your job is to unearth it delicately.

What does this mean, in practice? King typically starts his stories with a situation, then discovers how his characters work their way out of the situation. Interesting situations typically start as “what if?”

• Carrie: What if a bullied girl in high school learned she had telekinetic powers?
• Misery: What if a psychotic fan kidnaps a romance writer?

From there, he lets the story develop without an ironfisted demand for what should happen. He usually doesn’t know how the story will end. Instead, he watches the characters work their way through the situation. The characters may surprise him with their ingenuity or complexity; King doesn’t know what they’re going to do until they do it.

Description

Description provides sensory texture to the story, which draws the reader in viscerally. You’ll primarily describe the environment and the characters.

You don’t want too little or too much description.

• Too little description leaves the reader without a mental world to construct.
• Too much description feels onerous and buries the story in unnecessary detail. Some writers get carried away, describing the world in florid detail. In reality, your job as a writer is to tell the story.

Aim for the middle. Provide enough detail to seed the reader’s imagination, but not so much that you prevent the reader from filling in her own details. As you visualize a scene, choose the few details that immediately come to mind.

Dialogue

Dialogue is what characters say. It defines who they are and what they’re like.

The best dialogue sounds truthful—a reader believes that real people would talk that way. Wooden dialogue sounds forced and grates on the ear.

Writers vary in their ability to write good dialogue. Part of it depends on how writers interact with people. Writers who write the best dialogue like listening to other people, absorbing their rhythms, accents, and slang. Recluses often don’t know how real people talk and so find it hard to make their characters talk convincingly.

Other Literary Devices

Beyond these three basic elements, the writing toolbox contains many other tools, like symbolism, themes, and back story.

King’s advice on these tools is to make use of any tool that will enhance your story. Like spices in a recipe, they add flavor and character to the writing. But don’t go too far—remember that the point of the story is to tell a story, not to show how many words you can alliterate.

The Writing Process

How do you get from first draft to final draft? Here’s Stephen King’s writing process:

• Write and finish the first draft with no help or advice from anyone else—their well-meaning words can trigger self-doubt (if critical) or make you complacent (if positive). Write as quickly as you comfortably can—this keeps your enthusiasm high and limits self-doubt from creeping in.
• After you finish the first draft, take a few days off from writing. Have fun and relax.
• When you’re ready, go back to writing, but write about something totally different from what you just finished drafting. King suggests taking at least 6 weeks off from your draft. This distance will help you “kill your darlings.”
• Finally, go back to your draft. By this point, it should feel oddly familiar yet unrecognizable. Read the draft in one sitting, if possible.
  • Note fixes for specific issues, like grammar and usage, deleting adverbs, plot holes, and character motivations.
  • Also ask yourself big-picture questions. What is the story about? Is there a theme? Are there recurring elements? Is the story coherent?
• Go back through and revise for your second draft. Fix the small specific issues and polish your big picture ideas.
• After you finish, give the second draft to a small group of readers you trust. Listen to their feedback and incorporate as you like.
• Use however many revision cycles you’re comfortable with. King’s standard process takes two drafts and a final polish.

Incorporating Feedback

Some writers struggle with incorporating feedback healthily. Changing your masterpiece novel simply because your readers didn’t like it feels like a corruption of art.

But if you feel this way, why invite readers you respect to review your draft at all? If it’s simply because you want adulation for what a genius you are, then at least be honest about what you’re looking for. Instead, think of reviewers as your own personal focus group.

If your reviewers are unanimous about one direction (whether something is great or terrible), they’re probably right. If they’re tied on an issue, then you win and don’t have to change anything.

The Ideal Reader

There is usually one person whose opinion you trust above all: the Ideal Reader. For King, it’s his wife Tabitha.

The Ideal Reader is the person you have in mind as you write. You come to know your Ideal Reader’s tastes so well you can predict how he or she will feel about any particular thing you’re writing. Will she laugh at this scene? Will she get bored here if I explain too much? The Ideal Reader helps give you an audience as you write and is perhaps the only exception to writing with the door closed.

The Ideal Reader should also be a honest reviewer—eternally supportive but unrelenting. You might disagree with Ideal Reader’s feedback, but you know there’s truth to it.

The Business of Writing

Now you know how to produce writing that tells the truth. How do you survive on this writing? King ends his advice with practicalities of getting an agent, getting published, and writing programs.

Here are tips on building a writing career:

• Start by building up your writing credentials. Get published wherever you can and work your way up. You need to be your own advocate before anyone else becomes your advocate.
• Study the places where you want to publish. Read magazines to understand what they like. Find new publications through books like Writer’s Market.
• Polish your submission to look professional, such as including a brief but meaningful cover letter, printing double-spaced copy on good paper, and showing word count clearly.
• You might have to aim lower at first, such as your college literary journal or small magazines that only pay issues.
• As you build up your resume, consider getting an agent, particularly if you’re targeting a bigger work like a novel. Agents will take you more seriously if you write a professional letter and have a publishing record.
• Don’t worry about attending writing workshops, classes, and seminars. Novice writers also often see writing programs as the secret sauce to getting their lucky break. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. The best way to learn to write is to read a lot and write a lot. You often learn the most important lessons all by yourself.