Tips from Stephen King from his book ‘On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft’
Stephen King is an American author of various genres — fantasy, supernatural fiction, horror and suspense. His first published book was Carrie in 1973 and since then he has published 61 novels. His books have sold more than 350 million copies worldwide.
Many of his books have been adapted into miniseries, feature films, television series and even comic books. One of the latest adaptations is IT Chapter 1 and 2, which became a phenomenal box office hit.
This article was inspired by an interview I watched with Stephen King and George R. R. Martin, who is best known for his series of epic fantasy novels: A Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted into the HBO series Game of Thrones.
If anyone is interested, here’s the video of the interview on YouTube:
Even George R. R. Martin was amazed by how Stephen King writes so fast and can finish a novel within just a few months’ time.
Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Stephen King’s novels can be long and wordy. He’s known to be one of the most prolific writers of all time.
On his book ‘On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft’, King talks about his fast-writing ability. Apparently, he would set about a 2,000 word goal each day. That would add up to about 180,000 words in just three months of writing!
Also, he wrote about the maximum time a writer should take to finish a first draft, which is three months. He stated that if it takes longer, it would get harder to get back to the story with the right frame of mind.
King would also get involved in writing marathon sessions. He wrote one of his best-selling novels The Running Man in just one week!
Although I have been a fan of Stephen King for a long time because of his novels like The Shining and Carrie, the interview linked above with King and Martin in it reminded me of how great a writer he really is and how much I could learn from him.
That sparked my interest to read more of his writings and stumbled upon one of his books that I truly learned a lot from. After I finished it within 2 weeks or so, I decided to share with you what those lessons are.
Here is the summary of what I’ve learned from Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft:
- The most interesting questions can usually be expressed as a ‘what-if question’.
- Never use ‘emolument’ when you mean ‘tip’.
- Call a person that you think is an ‘ideal reader’. Ask that person if he or she can take a look at your work or even be in your writing room.
- Set a daily writing goal. As with physical exercise, it would be best if you set your goals low at first and then work your way up as time progress.
- The road to hell is paved with adverbs.
- Talk. How your characters say things, whether it’s the words or mannerisms as they say it — beautiful or ugly — is their index.
- The best stories always end up being about the people or characters rather than the event.
- Whether it’s a vignette of a single page or an epic trilogy like ‘The Lord of the Rings’, the work is always accomplished one word at a time.
- The situation always comes first; the characters are only second to that.
- If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above others: read a lot and write a lot.
- You should avoid a passive tense. With a passive verb, something is being done to the subject of the sentence, therefore, the subject is just letting things happen.
- Description begins in the writer’s imagination but should end in the reader’s.
- Stories consist of three parts:
Narration: This is what moves the story from point A to point B.
Description: This is what creates a sensory reality for the readers.
Dialogue: This is what brings characters to life through their speech.
14. If you can do it joyfully, you can do it forever.
As a writer, you can learn a lot more from Stephen King’s book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, so I suggest if you’re looking to improve your craft or just want a good read, go check it out.
If you’re a fan of a specific writer, be it Stephen King or not, try and research their methods and delve into their minds.
They say not to copy your heroes, I say to hell with that, you can do whatever you want. If you want to follow on their footsteps, go do it. If you want to mix their style with yours, go for it.
It’s your writing, you can make up your own rules.
