Bad Writing Advice from Stephen King's ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT
On Writing by Stephen King is the often the first book new writers pick up to learn the craft. Unfortunately, it's full of bad, unhelpful advice for novice writers.
In this video, I walk you through the bad advice, why it's wrong, and what you can do instead to level up your craft as a writer.
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🧰 Additional Resources
- The Myth of 'Read a Lot, Write a Lot' - • 'Read a Lot. Write a L...
- Adverbs: Un-Boring Your Writing - • The #1 Fix to Write En...
- Theme - • The 1 Thing All Great ...
- Narrative Device and Ideal Reader - • Narrative Device: 3-Pa...
- How to Learn How to Writer - • 3 Steps to Master the ...
- 19 Ways Writers Fail - • The 19 Worst Writing M...
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I read this book when it came out, and now I'm listening to the audiobook as you suggested. I think some of this boils down to the way the marketing plays out: it's subtitled "A Memoir of the Craft," which is exactly what it is, through and through: this is my life as a writer, and this is the stuff I found to be true. The problem is that somewhere there was a turn, and it became "Stephen King gives Writing Advice," and it's shelved under writing guides, and it's just really not that. The book is a joy if you read it as a memoir, and it can be inspiring for all of that. You just have to remember that his advice is actually anecdotal personal experience.
That is how I read the book. By the time he started to talk about how to write, I lost interest in the book.
Yes I see it as a memoir not writing advice.
I too, read it when it first came out. I couldn't agree with you more.
well, he actually teaches how to write properly, and even gives a thesis as to why bad writers can't become good ones, so I have to disagree with your statement here. it's half memoir for sure, but it's half writing advices as well. the latter being quite counter-productive for beginners by the time you reach the last third of the book, lots of personal thoughts being portrayed as absolute truths that can mislead people into very wrong conclusions.
@@ginofactaphe said that bad writers can become decent writers. Decent writers can become good writers. But good writers cannot become great writers. He put himself in the good writer category, knowing that he never become Faulkner type. As for "bad" writing advices, these are the rules that worked for him. All creative people, has rules that worked well for them and badly for others. Everyone who had done any creative works knew this as a fact. King cannot write the way Hemingway write, and the latter cannot write the way Joyce write. If a reader is a creative person, they already understood that fact without King pointing it out.
The best thing I got from “On Writing” was motivation that I could be a writer. I felt empowered. Second best point was to make everything tighter. Cutting 10% of all writing is generally good advice. I wish he took it more to heart as I believe his books generally need some shortening.
It rambles on a whole lot
Even the second point is "it depends...". I'm an under-writer, as in my first drafts tend to be skimpy and underdeveloped, so cutting 10% of the writing would not be helpful. I do tighten things up a bit in the very last draft, but it's more like 1% at that point.
I definitely agree with the notion that a writer should read a lot. I'm a former English teacher who has been doing a LOT of beta reading for new writers, and one of the biggest faults many of them have is they don't read. They will admit it. They watch TV and movies and play computer games. This gives them an idea of 'story' and also makes them want to produce a story. But without being an experienced reader, they don't actually know what a written story is like, or how to introduce characters, make settings come to life, pace the story so it works, etc. It's like a moviemaker deciding to make a blockbuster movie without ever having watched one. You have to know your medium. If you don't, what you end up doing is creating a screenplay with talking heads delivering reams of dialogue that is supposed to carry the story. And this is after introducing them by height, weight, hair colour EYE colour and probably age. Hello.
As a current English teacher I agree! Even when I took creative writing in high school we talked about different aspects of the craft and read short stories that exemplified it and then we practiced. Mentor texts can go a long way in improving ones writing.
I've been suffering from a related problem in that because of a long commute and the fact I read a lot of non-fiction, I've been reading fiction solely via audiobooks. And I realized a little while ago that that's why I've been struggling with things like paragraph breaks and other details - because it's not intuitive to me. I can only imagine what else would fail to be intuitive if you straight up just didn't read fiction in any form
Mark Twain also said that a writer should not use adverbs. However, his novels were full of them. They are wonderful words. You must remember that Mark Twain - Samuel Clemens - started his career as a reporter. If you look at news columns, you will find that adverbs are very seldom used.
Every European language I've studied has adverbs. They're crucial for communication. Not is an adverb.
SUBSCRIBED Immediately only because this guy starts out his video with the actual topic. He STARTS TALKING. No dumb intro, no music and title screen, no click-subscribe request. I'm so sick of having to see all that so repeatedly.
Yep, I hear you!
Before writing "the road to hell is paved with adverbs", King clearly states that context matters and that it's about avoiding redundancy. "Boringly wholesome" isn't redundant.
I feel like the best advice for aspiring writers is 1) Read a lot 2) Write a lot and 3) GET FEEDBACK Remember, performance without an audience is merely rehearsal.
Counter point: in theatre, actors are sometimes trained to treat rehearsal as the work, and the performances as the fun icing on top of the cake, the treat they get for their hard work in rehearsal. We might need to slightly adjust this analogy haha 😄
@@bluryder4186 "Their drills were bloodless battles, their battles bloody drills.” -Flavius Josephus
@@bluryder4186 your desire to argue semantics makes it look like you missed the point. Yes, rehearsal is indeed work, just like writing. That is not in dispute. But without an audience (or a reader) to tell you how your work looks/sounds, outside of yourself, one gets trapped in a circle jerk of self congratulation.
I can personally say learned a lot from that book. It echoed a lot of what I already believed about writing but put things into a good perspective for me. Just another example of how art can never be right or wrong for everyone, it depends on the person
can u suggest me a book , i just wanty to explore the genre of styory writing as a hobby, im not profrssional about it i just want to learn this skill of story writing to express my thaughts but i know nothing about story writing , so please suggest me a book that can introduce me to story writing
This video literally summarizes in-depth how I felt after finishing On Writing. It was not a short book, it wasn't a bad one, but after I finished it, I was like... now what? I hadn't learned anything. Hell, most of what I know about writing, I've learned from literally just thinking: what is the best way to say this? To get this scene across? To tell this story? To check the boxes I need while making it flow nicely? And none of the answers to these most-asked questions ever involved some 'toolbox,' 'telling the truth,' or removing adverbs. The advice in On Writing is very surface-level, yet barely existent and hardly applicable. I don't get the reverence.
Yes! This! ^
The reverence is probably because Stephen King is an amazing writer, so the default assumption is that he'd give great advice about it. You're right, though. I got maybe one new rule from reading the book, and it's not one I consistently apply.
I don't know, I think it's pretty affecting as an example of the craft, while he writes about it, which he does in a pretty fourth-wall-breaking way, in a manner of speaking. And I think of the adverb thing all the time, more than ten years later, I think. I don't know, it felt like it helped me.
@@mixedmattaphors There's definitely a pearl of wisdom or two in that book (i.e. the adverb thing, which I also take to heart), and King is surely on to something given how successful he is. That said, some would treat this writing memoir as the paramount guide for all writing. It's helpful to put it in perspective from time to time.
@@MCshowuhz That's fair. I guess I sort of left it out (and actually sort of blindly, so) of my sort of suspicion for the trend of saying Stephen King is one of the best writers, etc. I think he's good at his best and is probably underrated, but there's also been a bit of a legend built up around him/his stuff. That said, I didn't realize how much I *did* like On Writing, until seeing some of this. I'm sort of amazed at how straightforward and honest he is, in that book, about what to do. Pretty good perspective.
This is a GREAT and *very* helpful video!! Subscribed and currently binge-watching.
Been waiting for this
Nailed it! Thank you for making this video
Such an awesome video. Thank you for this.
I would add that he also faced rejection as a writer and, if I recall correctly, after one such rejection threw the manuscript for Carrie into the trash, which was scooped out by his wife, who sent it to a publisher, which accepted it.
I didn't like that he said you should not have a notebook and shouldn't write your ideas in a notebook. King says if the idea is a good one you will remember it. That's just crazy I have a million ideas a day and some of them I have every day. If I don't write things down I'll keep having the same ideas AND other ideas. I'll write some ideas into stories and then forget I already wrote about them.
I would've lost some good ideas that way ...
I have ADHD and literally no matter how good an idea is, if it isn't written down immediately it is lost! I have been so grateful for the stuff I have saved over the years and can use that for inspiration now!
@@samanthafortier1763Haha, yeah, clearly his advice has worked for him, and I imagine it works for at least some other people, but for my needs I've found it to mostly just be a long list of ways to make writing more difficult than necessary for literally no reason.
@@neatoburrito3170 I hate how people sometimes think that their way is the only right way to do something without acknowledging that it might not work for everyone. I even try to provide a variety of methods for my students to try and see what works for them.
Absolutely Brilliant! Thankyou!
Hey Tim - You've really been cranking out the excellent videos the last few months! Are you going to produce a prescriptive writing advice book for new authors? I think just combining and editing your scripts for these vids would get you most of the way there! That would be really valuable to a lot of writers. I loved Shawn's original SG book, but that's really an analysis framework for professional editors. That's why I loved the early days of your podcast and the roundtable podcast, as well as the articles on the old website by [sg editors and authors whose names I can't recall] Thanks for the videos!
I was writing when I was a tween too. It wasn't any good, but I started trying to write my first novel when I was eleven. I wish I hadn't thrown it out. (Bit of writing advice I wish someone had given me: NEVER THROW OUT YOUR WORK. Even if it's crap. You will miss it. You will want to look back and remember that you were, in fact, worse at this once. You will remember that one character you want to salvage, and wish you still had her source material.)
I am grateful that I kept what I wrote in middle and high school. I am in fact rewriting and weaving pieces together of different stories that I wrote back then into something new. I would be heartbroken to have given up on these characters and the important story they have to tell.
Nice video. Thank you for sharing
I think his book is more personal than it says. Even when he shifts to writing advice near the middle it's not a literal "this is how you write" but more of a "this is what works for me". As a pantser I found his advice interesting, less concrete, but more of a good as a mindset alignment. I work full time so I keep a notebook with me at all times to write down ideas or plot as I go, which King warns against. But for general mood with writing I found his book still helpful even if I can't specifically point to a piece that had profound impact.
Stephen King is, and has been for a long time, a made man. He did the work himself to get there, but he has been in a place to basically write anything with little worry about how it would be received. So imho, On Writing was a little side project that he could easily sell without much effort. Doesn’t really matter what he put into it by way of ‘helping’ other writers.
Great point
It’s finally here ❤
Points number 2 and 3 are why On Writing is such a great book. As a beginner you are gaining knowledge from someone who has actual experience instead of what he thinks might work. The Intuitive nature is also good for beginners because it allows them to feel what happens in their story instead of ploting and planning out every little minor detail to make your book "perfect" instead of getting some actual writing done. The main two points I learned from the book was Read alot write alot, and Story over plot. That information plus the intuition you have can and will help you if you are a new fiction writer. But thats just my opinion and I'm bias towards Stephen King. I think he is a great writer, but his ending aren’t always stellar.
You can’t write well if you don’t recognize good writing when you see it. You can only do that if you read broadly. You don’t have to read everything, but you should be well read.
Thanks for sharing this! I feel like I gave up on writing a bit because of Stephen King and what he was saying. I might get back to it one-day!
A friend of mine and I listened to this on audiobook together, years ago, and we still reference it to this day. Stephen King has a particular way of speaking, and the way he says certain lines ("And I do believe there is" & all of those) stuck in our minds, even years later. I don't actually remember the writing advice that he gave, but I still remember the autobiographical stories he included. Good memories, at any rate.
I read this when it first came out. I didn't know it was on audio now! Nice
14:25 In my own writing, I am not trying to change or transform the reader, nor have I EVER been changed or transformed by the many stories I've read or movies I've watched. I don't know if it's a personal flaw of mine, but it's rather weird to me to think that writers actually go into writing with this in mind; and how you Tim are admitting that it is Story Grid's objective, (and probably why by extension I've been bothered by some of the story grid content), and my disagreement with some of SG"s genre theory, which seem to push story as a vehicle for social change. With that said, writers like a lot of creatives, tend to lean more towards the progressive end of the spectrum, and use their art to push a particular agenda (which borders on propaganda) to criticize culture or society. Orwell's Animal Farm (and 1984) does that to a degree, by showing the inevitable failure that is communism, using a farm as an analogy. Does it have the power to 'change' or 'transform' the reader? Perhaps if you were completely unaware of the true nature of communism, it might give you something to think about, and it might have done so in a time without the accessibility of the internet. In my opinion story can exist purely as a form of entertainment, rather than a form of social criticism, and some of the best books are ones where I'm not being told to think a certain way.
I never liked King's comment that writers shouldn't keep idea notebooks. He stated that notebooks are filled with bad ideas. He said that an idea should percolate and if it's bad, you need to discard it, and if it's good, use it for your book. He's basically using a mental notebook. So what's the difference?
I was really skeptical before listening (as I love Stephen King's work), but your observations are great! Especially noting how difficult it is for someone who has been successful for decades to remember what it was like at the beginning or what they might have needed back then to develop as an author.
I’ve learned more in a year being part of a great writers’ group than I have reading all the How To… books I could find. ‘On Writing’ is a great memoir and interesting, but you make some good points about his advice. Best book I’ve read on the craft for experienced writers is probably Chuck Palahniuk’s ‘Consider This’. For new writers, there are some good tips in Nigel Watts’s ‘Writing a Novel’.
I agree with Stephen King about bad writers. It's also impossible for some people to become competent astronauts, or some people to become competent actors or directors, or painters.
What a great video! Although my view on plot differs more in line with King, I locked onto something else you said about the 'reading and writing a lot' part. So I have dyslexia and read obnoxiously slow, which means I don't "read a lot" compared to my friends; however, I can recall a few key times throughout my own writing journey where my skills took a noticeable jump in quality (to me at least). It always seemed to happen whenever I picked up and read a better written book than anything I'd read prior. I can remember going from "okay" books to reading classics and genre masters and having some immediate leaps in my own quality.
Your main problem with the book seems to be that King doesn't consider writing to be mechanical and you do. 13:00 You say he was wrong about Orwell then go on to describe how he was right. He said Orwell was an exception he thought of...
Thnk you. Love you.
I had the benefit of reading it after I published my first book and sold a token number of copies to the public - not just friends or family or even acquaintances. Having at least his notch in my belt helped me to digest the book - King states in it that this qualification was sufficient to claim the title "writer" in his eyes so I could see a lot of what he said in my own creative process through hindsight and the confidence of not being a total newbie.
The pitfall I fell into with reading is that my head switches to editor mode as soon as I read the first sentence. It can take a chapter of reading to get to an enjoyable reading space and even then, it takes very little to throw me back into editor/review mode.
I feel like this book while not so helpful it gives great insight of his personal process as a writer. And him being such a known writer (I'm not too familiar with his work to call him a great one), I find it interesting. It feeds my curiosity on how a successful author works.
I'm glad I didn't get around to reading this book until after I'd been published - as you say, it's a great memoir but not a great advice book. He's the classic (and self-confessed) example of someone with amazing, intuitive skills but no idea how he does what he does or therefore how to teach it. One of my favourite writing gurus is James Scott Bell - he was the first person I came across who openly acknowledged that there is a spectrum from pantser to plotter and no one way is better than any other. Everyone I'd read previously tended to tout their own "my way or the highway" version of how to write, which is really not helpful if it doesn't fit the way your mind likes to put a story together.
Completly agree. What bothered me most about the book was his attempt to be funny, which mostly came off as irritating and condescending at points
Love this book … as an inspirational memoir.
I just went to KZhead and saw this. Oh, I was just kicking up my feet for the holiday. Where's the wine? I'm thrilled. Endless fun. Next can you do a little takedown of Hemingway?
April 13, 2024 I am reading this book for the 1st time. Pages 29 & 30 stole tears and laughter from me. I can't wait to read more.
Thanks for this. It's the very argument I've been making at writing conferences for 15 years. King's On Writing is a memoir, not a book on craft. And I found it to be condescending as well when I read it. Oh, from the sources I could find: Stephen King wrote "Jumper" in 1959 at 12 years old and self-published it in Dave's Rag, a weekly neighborhood newspaper run by Stephen and his older brother David (I could find no reference to a short story published in Spacemen, either in 1959, 1960, or ever, but not for lack of looking). His first short story not self-published was "Codename Mousetrap," Published in the Lisbon Falls HS paper in 1965, sixteen years after his fist story. And his fist “professional story,” "The Glass Floor," was published in Startling Mystery Stories in 1967, eighteen years and 17 short stories after “Jumper.” By the time he wrote Carrie, in 1974, he was 27 years old, had been writing for fifteen years, and had written 46 short stories, 25 of which were either self-published or published in the University of Maine’s literary journal, Ubris. I've found the whole "the ability to do art requires inborn talent" argument to be as factitious as "if you don't know, I can't explain it to you." Again, thank you for this helpful insight into acquiring skills and not relying on being "The Chosen One" lol.
Before you said what your favorite line in his book was, I knew what you were going to say. It was my favorite line too, and it is the line that stuck with me.
Read the book. Motivated me to start. Guy has sold millions of books and has created tons of iconic characters. He knows what he’s talking about.
can u suggest me a book , i just wanty to explore the genre of styory writing as a hobby, im not profrssional about it i just want to learn this skill of story writing to express my thaughts but i know nothing about story writing , so please suggest me a book that can introduce me to story writing
Imagine Stephen King starting out now. I bet he wouldn't be nearly as successful.
The greatest advice I've ever had.
Both Stephen King and Walter Mosley have given❤ wonderfully entertaining writing advice that has stuck with me over time.
i love that book and i love this video win win
I tried reading that book and became really discouraged. Good video.
Tim, I have followed the Story Grid since its inception. I am totally on board with Shaun's concepts. I loved following your journey on the podcast as you wrote your story. I have the book and I apply all of the 5 commandments as well as the trinity in my writing. I appreciate all the free stuff on the website and am so grateful for Shaun' and your dedication to helping authors, no matter what stage they are at. However, In my humble opinion, I don't like furthering the good cause by way of putting down others by name. I think you could have addressed the points in the above video without singling out the author. I guess I am saying, 'It comes across as negative'. Which I have never seen before with the StoryGrid.
Interesting video on king. I've had his book sitting on my book shelf for years, I've never opened it. I find it hard to believe that any serious writer doesn't have a theme before starting, what would be the point?
"Read a lot: Write a lot" (alone) does not make you a good writer. But it immerses the writer in the environment of the Written Word, which is essential. Learn from many sources. Study Grammar. Absorb books on the technical side of the craft. So "Read a lot: Write a lot" is critically important, but it is not the ONLY concern.
If you can talk, you can write. There is zero doubt about that. Language was always a verbal phenomenon first, before it ever became written. But being a great writer, or any type of artist, is more about how you SEE the world rather than how you depict it. And i agree with King, that can't be taught.
can u suggest me a book , i just wanty to explore the genre of styory writing as a hobby, im not profrssional about it i just want to learn this skill of story writing to express my thaughts but i know nothing about story writing , so please suggest me a book that can introduce me to story writing . and english is not my first language
Very good. Thank you. This book ended my reading books on writing. Instead, just write whatever I enjoy. Nothing further matters. There's already too many books anyway.
can u suggest me a book , i just wanty to explore the genre of styory writing as a hobby, im not profrssional about it i just want to learn this skill of story writing to express my thaughts but i know nothing about story writing , so please suggest me a book that can introduce me to story writing
I agree with this. It's like an amateur footballer asking Lionel Messi how to play football from beginner level. Messi doesn't know how to explain his genius.
On 14:55 "Plot is the good writer's last resort and the dullard first choice. " The language is strong but it is his personal opinion based on his preference of writers. I agreed though that it is the first choice of a dullard, even if great writers do plot their story, a dullard prefer to plot first. I think what he described is rigid plots. My favorite writer Patricia Highsmith wrote in 1966 book, "Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction" that " A plot, after all, should never be a rigid thing in the writer's mind when he started to work. I carry this thought one step further and believe that a plot should never be completed. I have to think of my own entertainment, and I like to surprise myself. If I know everything that is going to happen, it is not much fun writing it. But more important is the fact that a flexible plot line lets the characters move and make decisions like living people, gives them a chance to debate with themselves, make choices, take them back, make others as people do in real life. Rigid plots, even if perfect, may result in a cast of automatons." So you get two successful writers at 34 years apart, describing the flaws of plot. But Highsmith (IMO, a genius at plotting her novels) gave a better explanation of the same sentiment. King is horrible of plotting his ending, but his beginning and most middle portions are great because he did not start with plotting his long novels. Plotting at the start can be a problem if it is a strictly adhered to. In filmmaking, we have to plot our screenplays because of time demands, and it is always be expected to be altered in the filming and editing stages.
I skipped the entire first half once I realised that it was a partial memior. The second half had some interesting stories about his publishing of a book and I wish he had put more of that into it. Aside from that it was really just a few decent ideas that most serious writers pretty much can figure out for themselves. I finished it a couple of weeks ago and it had so little to"blow my mind" that I can't actually remember anything from it that I hadn't already figured out for myself.
I do plot my story. I start with something I want to read. Theme is something I don't really deal with. Most of my stories are just telling a story. I did enjoy King's book and found it helpful.
the thing is, adverbs are qualifiers, describing how the verb acts. Often, the verb comes across much more strong and forceful, without the adverb.
sure. but to say NO adverbs is dumb advice. It's short, snappy, easy to recall but like a lot of slogans, it's so inadequate as advice.
i really like adverbs I don't know why tho
2:10 I’ve been a competitive swimmer for over 40 years, but I remember clearly the traumatic first try at joining a practice group with the local swim team. Perhaps some of us really *_are_* able to time-travel back to the start of the thing we’ve been doing for four decades. An experience with lots of anxiety and trauma will help, I’m sure, both with the time-travel and for finding a story to tell. 😏
Favorite quotes from On Writing. As a reader, I like the sound of these ideas. Although even Stephen King might not follow these 100% (flashbacks). "In medias res necessitates flashbacks, which strike me as boring and sort of corny. They always make me think of those movies from the forties and fifties where the picture gets all swimmy, the voices get all echoey, and suddenly it's sixteen months ago... but I like to start at square one... I'm an A-to-Z man; serve me the appetizer first and give me dessert if I eat my veggies." "...(I find wardrobe inventory particularly irritating; if I want to read descriptions of clothes, I can always get a J. Crew catalogue). "I think locale and texture are much more important to the reader's sense of actually being in the story than any physical description of the players. Nor do I think that physical description should be a shortcut to character. So spare me, if you please, the hero's sharply intelligent blue eyes and outthrust determined chin; likewise the heroine's arrogant cheekbones." "For me, good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else. In most cases, these details will be the first ones that come to mind." "I'm not much of a believer in the so-called character study; I think that in the end, the story should always be the boss. Hey, if you want a character study, buy a biography or get season tickets to your local college's theater-lab productions. You'll get all the character you can stand." "In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it "got boring", the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling." "I should close this little sermonette with a word of warning-starting with the questions and thematic concerns is a recipe for bad fiction. Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story...But once your basic story is on paper, you need to think about what it means and enrich your following drafts with your conclusions. To do less is to rob your work (and eventually your readers) of the vision that makes each tale you write uniquely your own."
You were correct a few days ago, Tim. I did indeed love this video. Pretty much one to one what I've always felt about the book. On the adverbs, Mr. Kings feelings has actually been brilliant advice for me. Just not in the way he intended. Whenever I come across an adverb in editing my own writing, it is indeed a big, red flag but my first thought isn't to hit delete. It triggers - because King's words haunt me - that I reflect whether I'm being lazy with said adverb. Do I need to expand and/or improve my describtion and/or prose? Or simply adjust the sentence slightly, perhaps with a different word choice for the adverb? I'm not deleting it as rule though, just because it's an adverb and King hates him. Which is basically what I also took from the video, you refer on adverbs and un-boring your writing. Thoughts?
“Just not in the way he intended” His entire career is kind of like that. Great stuff, says a lot that resonates, but not always for the reasons he thinks. And for me, it’s more like “usually not for the reasons he thinks”.
He uses adverbs. The point is to only use them when necessary.
I picked up one of his Dark Tower books and found 10 adverbs in a couple of pages. He uses them... at times a lot.
What I've learned about you Tim, from kinda binging Story Grid vids for a little week or so, is that you sure love coffee .
I read kings book on writing. I found it very entertaining and very interesting. But it was only later, when people started talking about that book being so great for writers instruction, that I even considered it in that way. When I read the book, to me, it felt more like King just telling his story about how he did it, not any kind or to any degree a writing manual. Maybe it’s just me.
Judging by the comments, im glad I didnt start reading this yet. Looking forward to catching up with this video. As usual Tim wearing another cool T-shirt !
>”survivorship bias” @ 6:47 LOL BRUTAL I’m sure you didn’t even mean it that way, but I sure caught it that way! 😂
This is like sounding out the golden idols with a hammer. It's hard for people to hear, but incredibly helpful if we're willing to apply a clearer methodology to our writing (Story Grid), and to know why Stephen's method might not work for us. Another thought came up. A strength and conditioning coach pointed out how Lebron is the GOAT at basketball but can't do a back squat. What makes people good is what makes them bad. Steven King wasn't meant to give advice to the masses. He was meant to write like a demon and be a GOAT. This is important work you're doing Story Grid. You guys are making me a better writer, and you're going to make alot more if people keep an open mind
I like his book, but I saw it more of a memoir rather than writing advice. Do you have a video on Ray Bradbury's Zen and the Art of Writing.
1) Read a lot and write a lot, vs 2) Systematically learn a bunch of rules about writing. A couple of points about these two seemingly opposed viewpoints. 1 is advice for someone who approaches writing as art (original), 2 is advice to approach writing as engineering (formulaic). I should mention that #2 lends itself best to writing instruction channels so there may be some implicit bias on the part of AuthorTube on how important systematic learning is. On the other hand, I should also mention that Stephen King has an English degree, so whether he thinks about it or not, he did spend years systematically learning about writing, followed by years practicing writing before selling his first novel. I don't think a person can become a great writer without learning the rules of writing, but I don't think they can become a great writer just by following formulas either.
What if I'm an intuitive beginner writer in my 50's? My writer prof buddy has read some of my pieces and places me as good as any of his seniors. I've written pages of dialogue in one sitting. When he read it, he suggested collaborating on a screenplay. I had a day job at the time. What I find lacking is finding what I want to write about. I think I will begin with individual scenes, based on whatever theme or genre strikes me, much in the same way that musicians sometimes focus on mood, like program music.
As for On Writing, I tell people it's Stephen King's memoir - inspirational, not necessarily the greatest 'how to' treatise. On adverbs, if there is an active verb that works in place of an adverb+verb, try to use it. I actually think the 'no adverbs' IS a good aspiration for new writers. My thing with new writers (as an editor at a magazine) is: prove you understand the fundamental rules of grammar and style. Once they've exhibited mastery of said rules, only then are they allowed to break them.
Thanks for the comment and I 100% agree. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this video I did: kzhead.info/sun/gr6RoquMoph9o2g/bejne.html - Tim
While I don’t know if one has to “read a lot” one does have to read selectively, especially if one is writing a genre. I know many people, for example who try to write science fiction, and don’t read sf, but have seen movies. The great ideas they think they’re the first to ever come up with have invariably already been done better by the masters over 80 years ago, and many are so common as to be cliches - something they’d have known if they just simply read the ‘years best sf’ annual anthology. You need to know what’s being done in the field you’re working in.
Personally, I didn't really enjoy the 'on writing book' for the 'how to write better' aspect. I enjoyed his past and how he became a writer, but overall I didn't walk away with much. I think it's worth reading it if you enjoy his work and want to learn more about how he became who he is, but again I would rather read actual useful books. For example, "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" or most of K.M Weiland, and of course the Story Grid was a great one.
Can you make a video about subplots?
I liked his book as a memoir, but as a book on how to write it isn't great. I'm really surprised it gets recommended so much as a book on writing. I get him. I'm a pantser too. I write intuitively and I wouldn't be able to teach it as I don't slave at it, it just comes to me. I don't outline, I don't plot, the theme magically appears, I avoid adverbs unless they give it a punch that I want, I hear the characters talk so I just write it down... I get all that he is trying to say... but Steve, we can't teach. I do agree that you can't turn a bad writer into a great one though. I also agree that you should read a ton and write a ton. I have learned more from reading than from all the courses, BUT there isn't one path to writing. What works for me or Steve, may not work for you. I disagree that the editor is always right. I enjoyed reading his memoir, but at times it was a frustrating read. The clarity is not always there. Some reviews mentioned that the book needed more editing. I agree. I will 100% reread this book, and you can buy it too, just don't expect to learn much on how to write.
It doesn't matter how old he was when he did these things, it's that what he's writing is true. Or, at least, helpful. These seem more like criticisms of him being a good writer while looking past what's there. I'm surprised. He tells you what you need: To write all the time, and to read all the time, and he even makes the idea of inspiration somewhat straightforward and systematically explained. Or at least dioramacally. I think this sounds like looking way past it. Most of it, at that. And he tells you how he became so succesful: By writing and reading like crazy. It's straightforward. And then he makes the Craft fun, with metaphors. His metaphor about dusting off the dinoaur bones, in uncovering a story, was gold. First you dig heavily and deeply, then you brush off what you find. Really, good stuff.
Different strokes for different folks. I found the book very useful. But then again I’m a “what if…” story idea person to begin w/. I felt he was telling me what I knew to be true. I just needed to hear it in a voice I recognized. He loves what he does. If you don’t love it like he does, so be it. Move on. Not all advice is for everyone. And that is true even of writing advice from Mr. King. Essentially, don’t bash what you don’t understand. Just move on & find your own writing groove.
I always thought King's advice is bad. Besides great KZhead videos, my go to book is Matt Bird's The Secrets of Story.
I was just thinking about this book in the morning 😂 I particularly hate how he promotes pantsing which cost me years in my career as a writer. I should have just buy the bullet and learn plotting for real. The good thing I took from this book that you don’t mention and that’s dialogue tags. Just use she/he says not she/he exclaims wildly 😂
I think I read a piece of advice from King once that amounted to: "don't use was as a verb and your writing will be stronger." He has strong tactical recommendations, but I needed to go elsewhere to understand the structure of story.
A well-known example of a writer who started out lousy is Erle Stanley Gardner, the best-selling author of the Perry Mason series. A very interesting story if you are interested in other writers' craft. But I think that King is partially right, and the key here is his being an intuitive writer. It is the intuitive writers, IMHO, that do not derive much benefit from instruction.
YUUUUP. I read this shortly after finishing my first novel. I loved the first part about his life. If nothing else, it shows how experience, a poor kid, tough times, adversity etc. makes for an interesting person with interesting things to say. That said, this is a guy who loved to write and had the opportunity to figure it out for himself. He is the epitome of a DISCOVERY writer and says some of the most ridiculous things: He said something like 'a novel is an artifact, and I'm an archaeologist. My job is to uncover what's already there.' I guess this is how he see is, and I think he's trying to put a very complex creative process into words, so OK, but it shows that he has no clue. Furthermore, I CAN'T STAND the attitude of 'Some people are talented, and if you're not, sorry, you don't get to tell your story. Go do something else.' This is absurd. I'm sure some people are more predisposed to certain skills, because of both genetics and upbringing, so maybe say something more helpful, like "If you're 5'5", basketball may not be the sport for you because most successful players are tall." That's helpful--but then there's Muggsy Bouges. I hate this so much that it's a huge part of my fantasy worldbuilding for my current series--EVERYONE CAN USE MAGIC. It's easier for some, and magic (like writing) is complex, so some are better at different things than others. But we're all born with it, none of this royal blood or chosen one stuff. That was a lot of word vomit... Stephen King is incredibly skilled, made some wonderful books, and turned into a bitter, patronizing ass it seems. Like a lot of very "successful" people.
I had to roll my eyes at King giving any advice on dialogue.
When it comes to creating characters and writing their internal thoughts and feelings, King is hard to beat. I've read several of his novels (including The Stand). But I quit reading King books back in the early 1990s because I got fed up for the last time with his horrible pacing and just failing to move the story along.
I enjoyed On Writing when I read it many years ago, but even then I recognised it for what it was, part biography, part inspirational work...the nuts and bolts of actual writing? Not so much.
I wonder if Moby Dick was plotted before being written. Because Jane Eyre, by Bronte's own account, wasn’t.
First time I heard someone I agree with.
I'm so glad someone else felt similarly to how I did when I read On Writing. Like, he offers a lot of good advice, but he also offers a lot of bad advice. And I vehemently disagreed with that condescending crap about how bad writers can never become good and all that. But then again maybe you should take with a grain of salt any writing advice from a man who unironically wrote the line "A flood of fear came flooding in upon him." XD
I don't take King seriously as an author anyway. The guy is absolutely diabolical. I could write an entire novel myself on the amount of glaring errors in his books but I'll spare you. Oh also: "he was as noisy as a ninja." That juvenile piece of writing was from The Tommyknockers, an utterly dreadful poor excuse of a book. The man is a hack who was lucky to get popular. A writer of penny dreadfuls just like Harold Bloom said he was. I cannot stand him.
My favourite takeaway from on writing was him selling the film rights to his debut novel for 400k. I've heard Netflix can offer as low as 5k. I just need to sell the rights to 80 novels and I'm on a roll baby, WOOH!
It was actually for paperback rights which definitely doesn’t happen anymore. - Tim
If you want to be more depressed, factor in inflation!@@StoryGrid
Can you post your list of New York Times bestsellers please? That being said I do agree that it is difficult to distill useful advice from a self-proclaimed "pantser".
Great post. I eagerly bought King’s book when it came out and got nothing from it other than this process works for Stephen King. One particular thing he said was that stories are ‘found things’ so you should not plan but be a pantser. Lee child basically says the same. They always wrote like that and were successful because they both churn out pulp pot boilers. Yeah, lots of people like their stuff but that just proves the point. They can pants it because they’ve read lots in their genres and are just churning out more of the same. The structure is now ingrained and formulaic.
Around the 7 minute mark, you said "There are people who read a lot, and they can't write. And there are also people who write a lot, and they also are writing bad" (paraphrasing) but I started laughing because my brain like auto-predicted what you were going to say as "they write a lot, and they can't read." Totally irrelevant, I know. Great video!
I said that exact thing on the first take 😅 - Tim
Didn't really watch the video yet, but maybe the fact that he is a pantser is a factor too, lol...pantsers don't tend to finish as easily as plotters (not sure what the opposite is called anymore), he is an exception, and perhaps he excepts other people to be able to do that too...
Writing well, in my opinion that is; keep READING, watch and observe everything, stop doubting.
I've been trying to make sense of On Writing for a decade, reconciling it with King's own work and mine as I've written a bunch of novels. I do credit this book with getting me to start and finish a novel (I even got an agent), but a lot of it doesn't make sense, especially what he says about plot. I make sense of his plot remarks by noting that he doesn't write heavily-plotted books. Maybe 11/22/63 is plot-ish, but most of his novels are just long short stories. They are events. They dont involve huge casts of competing interested parties. They are just weird stuff happening (for the most part). This is in line with the Poe-Lovecraft tradition and it obviously works well for him. It doesn't work for me. I like plots.
So your three criticisms are actually covered in a lot of his talks and public speaking events. I even think the first one and last one is even mentioned in the book. But we’ll take em one by one. 1. Stephen King has said countless amount of times that he doesn’t believe writing can be taught. It can be learned, but not taught. The distinction being in that every writer has their own process. 2. Everybody knows how to write consistently. And it’s not true that he knows how to write consistently well. He’s a self admitted gardener-type writer. Meaning he doesn’t know where stories go when he begins them so sometimes they don’t end up going anywhere and get scrapped. Most writers I meet that never publish or go anywhere with their work are in that position because they don’t write consistently. Which can be solved by following what every author tells them to do: just write. 3. His writing skills are intuitive. Very true. From reading, a lot. Which he says in the book. To be a writer you need to read. There’s no two ways about it. And it’s true.
I think the problem is you think systems work for everyone while Stephen is suggesting people learn through what works and interests them. If you read a lot and write a lot, you’ll intuitively be searching for things that will help you improve. You’re not doing it blindly.
Stephen King has become the villain of the writing community that still has values and logic.
He’s also wrong that wholesomeness is boring. Many a work has become widely beloved because they are so delightfully wholesome.
King, like a great deal of writers, doesn't give great writing instruction. He knows what works for him and teaches that as if it can apply to a broad swath of the aspiring writers out there. The "read and write a lot" advice, for example, is arbitrary. If a person has an insufficient baseline of literary comprehension, they'll marginally improve as writers simply by reading and writing. The read/write advice only applies if the person has the capability to discern the methods and mechanisms of "good" writing, as well as "bad" writing. Otherwise, they can't consistently learn from whatever material they're reading from. As for writing alone to improve writing skill, if you do something the "wrong way" a million times, you're doing it wrong a million times. You're not going to improve unless you actually understand that you're doing it wrongly.
🙌🏻 - Tim