On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“If you’re just starting out as a writer you could do worse than strip your television’s electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall.”

King advises writers to limit their engagement with television. He believes that time should be spent reading in order to maximize your talent as a writer.

“There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere.”

Contrary to what many believe, King explains that his ideas come to him spontaneously. This relates back to his central belief that stories should evolve naturally, without too much interference from pre-conceived plot.

“One thing I’ve noticed is that when you’ve had a little success, magazines are a lot less apt to use that phrase, ‘Not for us.’”

King reflects on his publication journey, and thus the publication journey of all writers. It’s easier to get published once you have made a name for yourself as a writer, and can show in your cover letter that other places have published your work.

“If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it.”

Throughout his life, King has had to overcome negative feedback from those around him. He expands this to all creative people, and lets them know that there will always be opposition to and criticism of what they do.

“I tend to go through periods of idleness followed by periods of workaholic frenzy.”

Here, King reflects on his own writing process. At some times he is inspired, at others not. This relates back to his idea that writing cannot be forced.

“The mill itself was a dingy fuckhole overhanging the polluted Adroscoggin River like a workhouse in a Charles Dickens novel.”

These lines provide an example of King’s stylistic tendency to combine high and low language and references. The slang of “dingy fuckhole” sits alongside the literary reference to a Dickens novel. This sort of linguistic pastiche is a trope in the book.

“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a difference.”

As a writer, it’s important to have support. In King’s own journey as a writer, his wife’s support has kept him moving along and pursuing his creative goals. Indeed, it is Tabitha who rescues King’s initial draft of Carrie, after King throws it out.

“I’d been drunk the night before but was only moderately hungover, which was good. One wouldn’t want to be too hungover at the deathbed of one’s mother.”

These lines provide an example of King’s dark humor. He references being hungover for his own mother’s funeral, thus demonstrating just how dire his alcoholism is at this point in his life.

“I was, after all, the guy who had written The Shining without even realizing (at least until that night) that I was writing about myself.”

King discusses his character development in relation to his substance abuse. The writing of the book reveal unconscious cries for help, even though his conscious mind does not yet acknowledge that he has a problem.

“The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.”

King challenges the notion that you have to abuse substances in order to create art. This is something he once believe before he got sober, but he realizes that this is not the case and that he can still produce good work with alcohol and/or drugs.

“If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close the book and do something else.”

King directly addresses the reader with honesty. You must be committed to the task of writing if you are to succeed. This relates back to his overarching idea that you must have the innate talent and ability in order to seriously pursue writing.

“The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God’s name would you want to make things worse by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you really wanted to use.”

King analyzes the use of vocabulary as a tool in the writer’s toolbox. It’s important to use the words you know and those which come naturally to you; the writing will ring false if you try to do otherwise.

“I think timid writers like [passive verbs] for the same reason timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe.”

Timid writers, who also often writers new to writing, employ passive voice as a way to attempt to hide their lack of confidence in the sentences and worlds they create. King—like most writers—urges writers to eschew passive voice, which makes the object of a sentence into its subject. The language of a piece of writing is stronger when active voice is employed.

“The reader must always be your main concern; without Constant Reader, you are just a voice quacking in the void.”

It’s important to look outward when writing. King thinks you should be considering how your work touches readers in order for it to be moving and effective. While it may be impossible to always to keep an audience in mind with a first draft, during the revision process, it’s vital to consider an audience for a work, and how they will react to one’s writing.

“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops.”

King makes use of humor in order to convey his stylistic preferences. By using humorous exaggeration, he explains just how terrible he feels adverb use is. The common thinking here is that overt adverb use allows writers to get away with using poor verbs; if one removes adverbs from their work, it almost mandates that verb choice becomes better.

“Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes.”

Here, King says language does not have to be formal be effective; indeed, there is a way for overtly-formal language to detract from both the pace of the plot and a reader’s ability to engage with a story.

“You feel as Victor Frankenstein must have when a dead conglomeration of sewn-together spare parts suddenly opened its watery yellow eyes.”

Here, King uses metaphor to describe how it feels when a paragraph takes life. You are like Frankenstein creating his monster—the result is both terrifying and wonderful. This quote also speaks to the notion that in fiction, paragraphs can harbor a greater breadth of content than they do in journalistic writing.

“We are talking about tools and carpentry, about words and style…but as we move along, you’d do well to remember that we are also talking about magic.”

While it’s important to treat everything as a tool, you must also acknowledge the abstract and “magical” aspects of writing. This magical quality arrives from work, King contends: the more consistently you write, the more likely the magic is to appear.

“Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.”

King provides advice that writers should follow in their daily lives. One big part of this is reading extensively and continually absorbing language and other elements of craft from an array of voices and sources. Even if the writing is bad, you can learn what not to do.

“Writing is at its best—always, always, always—when it is a kind of inspired play for the writer.”

These lines speak to a central concept for King: writing should be loose and intuitive. The story should not be forced, but rather be playful and come from the depths of the writers’ experience and imagination, especially in the initial draft.

“The door closes the rest of the world out; it also serves to close you in and keep you focused on the job at hand.”

King advises that writers should have a distinct space for their writing practice. This relates back to his concept that writers must be committed to their endeavor and exclude distractions. Finding a space where one can be shut off from the rest of the world is vital.

“The job of fiction is to find the truth inside the story’s web of lies, not to commit intellectual dishonesty in the hunt for a buck.”

King believes that the process of writing should be an intuitive and honest one. If you are just in it for the money, you will not produce good work.

“A strong enough situation renders the whole question of plot moot, which is fine with me.”

King discusses at length the way in which the writer should rely on situation rather than plot. Instead of outlining a plot, the writer should set up characters and situations and let them work themselves out. This advice falls into King’s overarching advice to let the story grow on its own.