5 Things I've Learned From Stephen King

By Tyler Duniho on November 2, 2012

Photo Courtesy of mrsdkrebs via Flickr.com.

Whether you like him or not, you have to admit that Stephen King can write. He’s no James Joyce (or insert another author you admire), but that level of grace isn’t needed to create a great story. I’d argue that King has a better grasp of character development and creates more interesting plots than most of the so-called literary authors. But that’s neither here nor there.

In “On Writing,” Stephen gives some practical advice on becoming a better writer. Here are the top five things I learned from reading through it.

1. Destroy adverbs. Nothing makes me throw a book across the room faster than reading prose similar to this:

“I want you now, Christian,” she said sexily.

He eyed her lustfully. “Come over here now,” he said grittily.

“Should I bring the rope, wrench, or candlestick?” she asked obediently.

Okay, so I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey, and since I’m not a middle-aged woman reminiscing about the good-old-days, I’m not going to either. But I assume they role-play Clue at some point. Do you see how annoying that conversation is? If you take out the adverbs quickly, efficiently, yet ruthlessly, the scene sounds a little better. Adverbs exist for a reason, but don’t get carried away with them.

2. “You can’t please all of the readers all of the time; you can’t please even some of the readers all of the time…”. I recently (adverb!) wrote an article for Uloop that became the most (debatable adverb!) read article of the week. I received mostly (adverb!) positive feedback, but I managed to offend a few people. Did I care? Not a bit. Why? Because I remembered the quote above. For every group of people you please, there will be one you piss off. That’s life.

3. Write fast, wait, then edit slow. This advice seems to be unanimous across the board. On the first draft, say what you want to say. You should then wait, as long as necessary, until what you wrote seems foreign. Only then is it time to edit. But on the first draft, don’t worry about sentence flow and grammar; just write. Let me warn you that this makes editing a pain, but you’re prose will benefit from it.

4. Read and write everyday. What’s that? Everyday? Yes, everyday. That’s crazy, I can’t do that. Why not? It’s too much. Not if you want to be a writer, it isn’t. Hey, are you going to keep having conversations with the alter egos in your head? Unless the voices stop, probably. Seriously (adverb!), read and write everyday. Stephen King writes 2000 words a day, but not everyone needs to be as prolific as the king of horror. Pick a quota and try to meet it, come hell or high water.


5. “If there’s no joy in it, it’s just not good.”
You may argue that this is life advice, not writing advice, but I disagree. If you don’t enjoy writing, then don’t do it. If reading and writing everyday sounds daunting or stressful, then perhaps you’re not getting into the right business. There are far easier things out there that need to be done, so choose them instead.

 

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