On Writing

Summary:

On Writing is Stephen King’s memoir on his life and writing career, as well as his advice on how to write novels.

Review:

This is the second time I’ve read this book, the first being two years ago. I picked it up because there was a new edition and I gave my previous copy to another writer friend.

Stephen King is what you would call a prolific writer. He has written and published over sixty-five books at this point and has been writing professionally for more than fifty years.

The first half of the book is his memoir of how he became a published writer. Like many authors, he did not magically get published right away. He had quite a difficult life and career before Carrie was published and worked cleaning hospital sheets for barely any money. He did eventually become a high school teacher, but the pay was still below liveable wage.

Either way, he experienced a lot of life prior to becoming a published author. He also struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, which he is very transparent about in the book. There are entire books, such as Cujo that he doesn’t remember writing due to the drugs. While that’s very sad to think about, King embraces it as a part of his story.

In the second half of the book, he gives his best advice on the craft of writing. He covers many topics, but the most consistent messages are:

• Stories are like fossils that we, the writer, are discovering.
• Our job as a writer is to tell the truth and allow the story to unfold as it’s supposed to.
• Your first draft (behind the closed door) is you telling yourself the story, while the second draft (door open) is you telling the story to others.
• Consistency is what matters more than anything.
• Your main job if you want to be an author is to read a lot and write a lot, period.

One of the things that sticks out to me the most is his discussion on writing with a closed door for your first draft. He addresses the fact that most writers get excited during the drafting process and want to share their stories with others before they are finished (something I’ve been guilty of many times in the past) and says that this is not good for several reasons - but the primary one being that it has the tendency to prevent you from telling the true story because of the feedback you receive from sharing it with others.

He says that the best writing advice he ever got came from John Gould, the editor at the newspaper he held a job at for a short time in high school. When he handed John an article he wrote on a game, the editor began striking out words and phrases in front of King. He eventually looked up and said:

Your job when writing the first draft is to tell yourself the story. Your job in the second draft is to remove everything that’s not the story.

I also found his encouragement about consistency to be very good. He says that the most important things we can do as authors is to read a lot and write a lot. The latter should be done daily without fail, as long as you can manage it. He suggests writing 1,000 words a day, but to set a minimum goal and write until you hit it no matter what.

The purpose of those words isn’t to get them perfect the first time. It’s to get the words out and show up daily so you have a chance at reaching the flow state and getting the story out. The more that you show up and do the thing, the higher the chances that you will succeed.

He covers several other topics in the course of the book and many of them contain excellent advice sprinkled with anecdotes from many of the stories he has written. I believe anyone who is interested in writing novels would do well to read this book, even if you aren’t a discovery writer (pantser) like King.