In 2000, Stephen King took a break from scaring the pants of the American public and penned another type of book: a memoir. Entitled On Writing, it is a writing guide disguised as the story of King’s life—after all, they’re irrevocably intertwined.
King taught high school English in a former life, and so giving advice on writing—both on craft and getting the words on the page—is second nature.
Since publishing his memoir, King’s book has been counted among the best resources for authors, right up there with The Elements of Style.
So, without further ado, here is our five favorite bits of advice from the Master of Horror, himself.
1. Description is much more important than you realize.
“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s… In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”
You need to have enough description to cause a reader to “prickle with recognition,” but you don’t want to get bogged down in the details. Leverage a few choice details to give the reader the image you want, but allow them space to run with it in their minds.
2. Write your first draft without outside influence.
“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right – and breaking your train of thought and the writer’s trance in the bargain – or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. […] You can check it … but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don’t do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.”
When you revise, that’s when you can bring in all of the dictionaries and encyclopedias. Breaking your flow to look something up and then trying to find the same magic is stressful and almost impossible, so avoid it if you can!
3. Edit mercilessly.
King is very tough on this point: cut any word that doesn’t need to be there. During revising, “If you haven’t marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don’t be a slob.” After all, “To write is human, to edit is divine.”
4. Take a break.
“When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.”
Taking a break of at least 6 weeks between writing and editing allows you to find mistakes, and be far enough away from your content to fix them.
But remember, when you find mistakes, “you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or to beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us.”
5. Love what you do.
Writing isn’t always fun, but if you’re looking to make a career out of writing, you need to love it. King claims “if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”
And be aware of your goals—are you writing to get to an end, or does writing fulfill a deeper need in you?
“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid or making friends. Writing is magic, as much as the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink.”
Readers, what is your favorite piece of writing advice?
This is great advice–all of it. My favorite, and the way I work also, is to just sit down and write. I do have a huge canvas chalkboard on which I place my characters as they enter the story, as well as locations and sometimes even photos or clippings. I only do that in-between writing time, not during. Thanks to Stephen King for sharing his expertise.
I don’t know if it’s advice as much as it is following SK’s example – 2000 words a day. Every day. Every. Day.