
Stephen King's “Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully” - takinola
http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2015/02/24/stephen-king-everything-you-need-to-know-about-writing-successfully/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
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SwellJoe
I really enjoyed King's _On Writing_. I was a huge fan of his fiction as a kid
and into young adulthood, and kinda grew out of it. But, I read and then
listened to _On Writing_ as an adult, and really enjoyed it both times. King
is extremely effective at his craft, whether one enjoys the resulting work or
not, and I learned a lot from his process.

I think King (like Asimov and a few others) is proof that being prolific is at
least as valuable as being great. If you do something enough, you're far more
likely to have lightning strike and result in something like _Shawshank
Redemption_ ; which is unarguably a beautiful work, in both prose and film
form. Most of King's work isn't that good, but for most authors _none_ of
their work is that good, because they haven't produced enough to find that
piece of brilliance (if they have such a piece of brilliance in them).

I've been working on being more prolific, lately, in all things I do. And
being less of a social media junky, which conflicts with being a prolific
creator.

~~~
tjradcliffe
I found _On Writing_ extremely valuable, but like all King's writing on
writing, it's about the way King writes. Which is great, but it's not the way
I write. I appreciate his insights and I've learned a lot from reading and
thinking about his work, but he's a fundamentally different animal from me.

He's intuitive and exploratory to a degree that I--and many others--are just
not. He's willing to let his instincts guide him because he has great
instincts, and more power to him.

But most people--including most writers--don't have great instincts, and can
benefit from a more analytical approach. As someone tilted pretty far over on
the analytical end of the axis, I found King's advice valuable because it
pointed me toward alien alternatives, but for young writers in particular I'd
advise being very cautious about taking King's or anyone else's advice too
seriously (including mine, I guess.)

King et al do their best to teach you and show you how to write like them, and
writers need to learn to write like themselves, which can only be discovered,
not taught.

~~~
vog
I'm a bit confused by your line of argument.

 _> He's intuitive and exploratory to a degree that I--and many others--are
just not._

 _> King [teaches] you how to write like them, and writers need to learn to
write like themselves, which can only be discovered, not taught._

If King encourages you to follow your instincts, isn't this a direct advise to
learn to write like yourself?

Isn't the "analytical" way the exact oppisite, learning to write in a
predefined style?

~~~
tjradcliffe
> Isn't the "analytical" way the exact oppisite, learning to write in a
> predefined style?

Nope. In my case "analytical" is the way I naturally write. King explicitly
advocates throwing the kind of analysis that comes to me naturally overboard.
He doesn't advocate exploration into how a writer best creates stories. He
advocates a specific, narrowly defined method of creating stories, which
involves intuition and instinct.

The important fact is this: _I don 't have any instincts_ in the sense that
King means. Or so few that they are useless to guide my stories. This is true
of lots of people, and I daresay that there are people who lack both
"instincts" in the sense King means them and "analytical skills" in the sense
I mean them, and find some other ways to create stories.

It's important to recognize that King means something very narrow and specific
by "instincts" (in fairness, I'm not sure he actually uses that word, but he
definitely talks a lot about intuition as a guide to story.) King is all about
letting some inner emotional compass guide your story, and personally I _hate_
the kind of stories he creates. I recognize the genius of his craft, but his
stories are medieval emotionalist gibberish, and that is reflected by his
process of creation: he lets the idiot darkness within tell him where to go
next.

There is nothing wrong with this: by saying his stories are decidedly not to
my taste is not to say they are "bad" in any objective sense. They move people
and are meaningful to people; they are well-crafted and emotionally engaging.
I find grapefruit repulsive as well, but would hardly condemn anyone for
enjoying it.

But this does mean that King's method of creating a story is very restrictive.
He is intuitive and exploratory with regard to creating stories, not with
regard to the method of creating stories.

So my advocacy of self-exploration is on a different level than King's. He is
telling writers: "Explore your story intuitively and emotionally." I am
telling writers: "Explore your method of creating stories by any means you see
fit."

~~~
afarrell
Do you have any advise for highly analytical folks that get hung up on not
knowing how people read things? My biggest frustration with writing is that I
don't have an interpreter I can run over my work to test that it "works" and I
have a voice of anxiety in the back of my head that someone is going to
misinterpret what I write I horrible[1] ways. Less dramatically, when I sit
down to write documentation, I don't really know how to verify that it is
understandable and get hung up on trying to figure out how to do so.

[1] Like [http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/mit-professor-explains-
th...](http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/mit-professor-explains-the-real-
oppression-is-having-to-learn-to-talk-to-women/), but I've long decided to
avoid writing anything public about anything that could relate to social
justicey or gender-related topics.

------
paganel
> 4\. Remove every extraneous word

This reminded me of Georges Simenon's (of Inspector Maigret fame) recollection
of his former boss, Colette
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colette](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colette)):

> Just one piece of general advice from a writer has been very useful to me.
> It was from Colette. I was writing short stories for Le Matin, and Colette
> was literary editor at that time. I remember I gave her two short stories
> and she returned them and I tried again and tried again. Finally she said,
> “Look, it is too literary, always too literary.” So I followed her advice.
> It’s what I do when I write, the main job when I rewrite.

> INTERVIEWER: What do you mean by “too literary”? What do you cut out,
> certain kinds of words?

> Adjectives, adverbs, and every word which is there just to make an effect.
> Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You know, you have a
> beautiful sentence—cut it. Every time I find such a thing in one of my
> novels it is to be cut.

From here: [http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5020/the-art-of-
fic...](http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5020/the-art-of-fiction-
no-9-georges-simenon)

~~~
malka
Perfection is not when there is nothing more to add. It's when there is
nothing left to remove. Because you have only kept the best.

------
ars
It only took 6.5 minutes, including the story and double introduction.

My favorite quote, and quite applicable:

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to
add, but when there is nothing left to take away." \- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

~~~
jacobolus
Your quotation has distorted the original a bit. (Well, of course the original
is in French, but Lewis Galantière’s translation into English is also lovely.)
It’s from chapter 3 of the book _Wind, Sand & Stars_ (in French, _Terre des
hommes_ ). Here’s the full text of that chapter, which I highly recommend to
everyone:
[https://gist.github.com/anonymous/cd950f8ac6d58349e9e6](https://gist.github.com/anonymous/cd950f8ac6d58349e9e6)

And here’s the paragraph surrounding the quotation in question (if I remember
correctly the paragraphs are arranged a bit differently in the French
original, but anyway...):

 _It is as if there were a natural law which ordained that to achieve this
end, to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship’s keel, or the
fuselage of an airplane, until gradually it partakes of the elementary purity
of the curve of a human breast or shoulder, there must be the experimentation
of several generations of craftsmen. In anything at all, perfection is finally
attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no
longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its
nakedness._

~~~
swamp40
Thank you, I was just searching for the provenance of that quote.

------
bmelton
Compare and contrast Stephen King's lessons with Elmore Leonard's "10 (really
11) Rules of Writing", and the difference is as stark as the author's
respective works.

~~~
Tomte
Stark difference?

3\. and 4. are identical to King's recommendations in "On Writing". King is
pretty passionate about that.

5\. is the same, I think.

7\. is kind of a difference, although King laments that few writers can
actually handle it.

8\. and 9. are real differences.

~~~
philmcc
Having read On Writing I can say that 8 and 9 aren't even real differences.

King is against detailed description of characters -- (paraphrased) "If I
describe character too much, it conflicts with your view of them."

He's also against overly detailed description of places -- (paraphrased) "Keep
it brief. You want to give a description of the room, it's not a travelogue."

------
brudgers
Zinnser's _On Writing Well_ improved my writing. Alabama Power does not take
internet points, however, and I remain talentless.

[http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-
Edition/...](http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-
Edition/dp/0060891548)

~~~
samsolomon
I second On Writing Well. It's an absolute must read for anyone writing non-
fiction.

There are two other books I'd throw up with it—Revising Prose by Richard
Lanham and The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

Those three books together are a fantastic course in writing.

------
vonnik
This is good advice, as far as it goes. It will lead new writers to produce
something readable, if not something great. Like a newspaper article, for
example. IMO, Stephen King has not written anything great. I think this advice
suggests one reason why: he doesn't focus on the material he's working with.
Words themselves, rhythms, sentence structures -- all the figures of rhetoric
that invisibly lead a reader into the story. Another major flaw in King's work
is his inability to move beyond entertainment. Why does he write? Why do
people read him? Those are questions I can't answer after finishing his books.

~~~
halfcat
>IMO, Stephen King has not written anything great

In your opinion, who has? What should I read to see great writing? Genuinely
interested.

------
gkoberger
Another great article on how to write is "How to Say Nothing in 500 Words"
([http://www.mrgunnar.net/ap.cfm?subpage=348270](http://www.mrgunnar.net/ap.cfm?subpage=348270))

------
dceddia
> 8\. Ask yourself frequently, “Am I having fun?”

> The answer needn’t always be yes. But if it’s always no, it’s time for a new
> project or a new career.

I like this. It's realistic. It doesn't say "Pick a new career if you ever
stop having fun," like too much of the follow-your-passion advice out there
these days. It's normal and ok for work to suck sometimes.

------
hluska
I think Stephen King's early career (specifically the use of Richard Bachmann
to increase output without tarnishing his main brand) was a brilliant example
of marketing. This tactic maybe doesn't apply so well to publishing today, but
it sure worked!!

------
WaltPurvis
I love it when a web site devoted to writing engages in blatant copyright
violations like this. I mean, they acknowledge right up front that "copyright
remains with Mr King" — and then proceed to violate King's copyright anyway.
Brilliant!

------
blacksmythe
Universally good advice:

    
    
      >> Ask yourself frequently, “Am I having fun?”
    
      >> The answer needn’t always be yes. 
      >> But if it’s always no, it’s time for a new project or a new career.

------
logicallee
Oh really? Everything? In ten minutes? Well, I am reading this, then I will
reply to this comment and you all can judge for yourself.

-

Edit: see my reply, in which I use the rules I just learned. This was a
genuine experiment. Any feedback is appreciated. :)

~~~
eru
You can learn most of what you need to know about weight lifting in ten
minutes. Doesn't mean you can get strong in ten minutes.

~~~
brudgers
_Now, how to play the flute. (picking up a flute) Well you blow in one end and
move your fingers up and down the outside._

[http://www.montypython.net/scripts/howtodoit.php](http://www.montypython.net/scripts/howtodoit.php)

