…Steven King’s On Writing

Jul 16

In the second foreword (there are three) to this book, Stephen King says:

“This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do- no why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less bullshit.”

Say what you want about King, about his writing, or about his standing in the literary world. When it comes to the bullshit, he’s right.

I was doing research for the creative writing classes that I teach. My students often come to me looking for resources to help them improve their writing. For various reasons, budget being the primary, I have never been able to purchase writing text books, and honestly, I wouldn’t have much use for them. Text books have a nasty way of turning off the student/reader with the technicality of language and general redundancy of activities. So I began looking for alternative writing guides and activity books for my kids. At least I thought that was my rationale.

But as I read through the second half of this book, the “On Writing” portion, I found myself waiting for King to transmit through the pages that secret mystery of success that all struggling writers are grasping for. I am in the same boat as my students.

On Writing does not have the silver bullet I am looking for. King says as much himself. Throughout the course of the book he has difficulty explicating how he is does what he does, and instead focuses instead on the process.

The end goal of any working writer is, of course, to be published. King has arranged his book into two halves to help writers reach this goal. The first half serves as an autobiography of sorts, the major themes of his life that has influenced his path to be the writer he became. The events of his life are somewhat common, but he applies his masterful skill at storytelling to craft a compelling narrative of his life as a writer. It is often funny, sometimes sad, but never boring. The second half is what he describes as a writer’s toolkit. Rather than doing what most books on writing do like have interesting and redundant writing prompts or hackneyed self-help style guides, he instead creates several suggestions for building good writing habits which can make the journey to being published a little easier. These suggestions include simple ideas like use words you know, have a daily writing schedule, and revise your work. Reading these one might say, “DUH Stevie!” But each tool in the toolkit is given context through King’s interesting anecdotes and writing samples. The most compelling thing in the whole book is towards the end when he presents a first draft of a piece of writing and then shows his own edits on the first read, before even showing it to someone else. The importance of revision is obvious.

Not all of what he says is golden, however. There is a particularly awkward section where he describes how he perceives a hierarchy of writers, from bad writers to great writers. Some on the hierarchy, he says, can jump up a level, but others are doomed to be forever stuck. It’s something that I, as a writing instructor, cannot swallow so easily. How could I enter my creative writing classes every day and teach if I thought that no matter what I did, it could not improve my students’ work? But these gaffs are sparse and do not detract from an otherwise interesting look into the writing habits of one of the most successful authors ever.

Why I enjoyed the book so much, and why I intend to use it as a writing tool in my class is that he addresses writers as peers, never making seem things beyond anyone’s grasp so long as they are willing to put the time and effort in. His writing philosophy matches mine in that I believe that the only way to become better is to practice and to revise. Even if I were not a writer, I think I would have enjoyed On Writing for the insight it gives into King’s life and practice. But it is made even more valuable as an honest discussion of the craft.