On Writing 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft
by Stephen King (2010;
first published 2000)
Stephen King is a veteran author who has wooed millions of
avid fans with his own special brand of suspense, horror, faith and the battle
between good and evil. To date he has
written 65 books and sold over 330 million copies. To be honest, I’ve read only one of his
novels – The Stand – and have watched
the film adaptation of the emotional The Green
Mile.
Whatever you may think about his preferred genre, his book on the
writing craft On Writing is an
influential classic often quoted and still relevant some 14 years after it was
first published.
As indicated in the title On Writing is part memoir, part handbook. King writes with
a lucid, entertaining and humerous style peppered with the occasional strong
language. The first one third of the book recounts the difficulties of his early
childhood, his adventures as an adolescent, his burgeoning interest and success
in writing, his enduring romance with his wife Tabitha, and his winning struggle against drug and alcohol addiction as a successful writer. Interspersed within this colourful
narrative, with its focus on the influences that propelled King into his writing
career, are occasional gems of writing advice. The last quarter of the book
details King’s near encounter with death after being struck by a van in 1999 while halfway through On Writing . I found
his honest account of this struggle to return to writing particularly moving.
The middle of the book (over a third), gives King’s approach
to writing – from the prime rule ‘write a lot and read a lot’, the basic tools
in the writers toolbox – vocabulary, grammar, style, and voice. He speaks about
the writing process, how to court the muse (work consistently and hard), right
through to finding ideas, critique, editing, looking for agents and publishers. He has
a lot of good stuff to say about adverbs, dialogue, description, characterisation,
back story, research and theme. He is wary of writing groups (but not against
them) and is even more sceptical of plotting – being the archetypical panster.
And in all this, for him the story is king.
As a writer, I found On
Writing refreshing and encouraging. Even
the middle section takes a much broader approach than the strictly how-to tomes
that tend to focus on the mechanics. King’s book doesn't neglect the mechanics
but I think he also addresses the heart. I was fascinated by King’s own writing
journey and how his background (from a poor single parent family with strong
work ethic and Methodist ties) has impacted on him as a man and a writer. I was particularly inspired by his discussions about how these principles worked in
creating his own fiction. He is definitely in the ‘tell it how you
hear it’ side of language debate – and is not averse to being blunt. On the
other hand, themes of God, faith and redemption often recur in his fiction and
he notes that these themes are important to him personally (see here also).
I’m glad I took to the time to read Stephen King’s On
Writing.
Jeanette O’Hagan
“The rest of it - and perhaps the best of it - is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will.”
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Jeanette has practiced medicine, studied communication,
history and theology and has taught theology. She is currently caring for
her children, enjoying post-graduate studies in writing at Swinburne University
and writing her Akrad's fantasy
fiction series. You can read some of her short fiction here. She is
about to have a short story published as part of the Tied in Pink
anthology next month (profits from the anthology go towards Breast
Cancer research) .
She is actively involved in a caring Christian community.
