46 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen KingOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Grotesque and Bizarre in Nature
Throughout the memoir, King makes frequent reference to bizarre and grotesque occurrences in nature. He is fascinated by the “jungle,” an area by his apartment building in Connecticut, which is a “huge tangled wilderness area with a junkyard on the far side and a train running through the middle” (30). This strange area captures King’s imagination, and he spends time there with his brother. He notes that the jungle appears in many of his later works, including IT.
These bizarre elements of nature continue as King grows older. When he works in a factory, he hears a story about giant rats, “Some of them, goddam if they weren’t as big as dogs” (60). Their large size strikes King as strange and interesting and inspires him to write “Graveyard Shift.” Also, when he works at the laundromat, he washes restaurant tablecloths, and“[b]y the time the tablecloths upon which [lobsters] had been served reached [him], they stank to high heaven and were often boiling with maggots” (68). He is horrified and captivated by the unlikely appearance of maggots. All of these images infiltrate King’s imagination and influence his work.
Body Horror
In his early life, King notices and remembers incidents of body horror and mutilation. A significant incident relates to his own body—when he is in first grade, a doctor repeatedly punctures his ear drum to drain puss. He also remembers speaking to his mother about suicides that she witnessed. When she relates the story of the sailor who jumped from the roof of a building and splatters on the street, she says, “I have never forgotten,” and King replies, “That makes two of us, Mom” (23).
As he grows older, King continues to notice these types of images. While he works at the laundromat, he washes hospital linens. One day, he washes surgical gowns and sees, “what looked like a complete set of human teeth” (69). Furthermore, one of King’s supervisors, “had hooks instead of hands” (70). This man, Harry, would come up behind people and lay a cold hook on their neck. Later in life, King once again encounters his own personal body horror when he endures a near-fatal road accident. King keeps a mental note of all of these images surrounding body horror and mutilation and uses them to fuel the image systems of his writing.
The Toolbox
King makes extensive use of the toolbox motif in order to convey his advice on writing. Every writer must have a toolbox that contains all the elements necessary for effective writing: “It behooves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so you can carry it with you” (114). He discusses all the shelves on which writers should store their various tools, such as grammar, vocabulary, style, and dialogue. He likens various writing elements to tools, noting that plot is “the writer’s jackhammer” (164). He also mentions more delicate tools, like “airhose, palm-pick, perhaps even a toothbrush” that must be used to create an effective story (164). King uses this motif in order to make his writing advice accessible and easy to understand.
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