Years ago I bought Stephen King's On Writing and it looks like he echoes a lot of its points here.
Missing is his hatred of adverbs; To King's mind "He screamed angrily" is a terrible sentence because it uses the -ly construction to say what should be clear in context. So with precious few exceptions he scraps all the -ly's and lets his characters' actions do the talking.
That's fairly good default advice I think, but there are adverb-heavy writing styles that also work. For example, Edgar Allan Poe uses a ton of them everywhere.
There are tons of great writers who get away with things which writers aren't supposed to do. You see this with athletes, too--arguably, the difference between greatness and competence is the ability to get away with things you shouldn't be doing.
I've read it from cover to cover many times. When I lived in Barcelona I lent it to this very cool chick from the US with tattoos of Koi fish on her feet. She promised to return it, "don't worry, it's back this week". I never saw her again. I remember his advice about adverbs. He likens them to dandelions if I remember correctly. It was one piece of advice I didn't get. I got that he had seen the adverb abused and as Mr. King is a man of taste he recoiled in horror - I recall he can't bring himself to use the word "zestful" for similar reasons. Adjectival phrases describe nouns, adverbial phrases describe verbs. If you're fine with adjectives then why wouldn't you be fine with adverbs? Honest question. However when I read a -- "what are you doing here", she screamed mightily -- I chuckle and think of Stephen's (may I call you Stephen?) advice.
Regarding talent. In On Writing he preaches Read Lots, Write Lots. He hammers that home. You don't have the time to read? You certainly ain't got the time to write. From the reading list he gives out at the back of the book you can see for yourself his taste in authors and let me tell you it's not Dan Brown territory. When Stephen (okay, King) equates talent to successfully published I think he's telling a little white lie and he knows it. Untalented writers get published all the time. Why? You can work that out for yourself. I think King tells this porky in this article because he is trying to dispel fear. His target audience here are aspiring writers. He thought they'd need to hear this stuff to keep the demons at bay. That was before his horrific accident. After that he wrote On Writing and you don't find that equation in there, let's just imagine that his brush with death allowed him to man up and drop the pretense. Stephen King is talented. Stephen King, last I heard, manages to sell a fair number of copies. But not everyone who sells a fair number of copies is talented. Did I mention Dan Brown? I think you get the point (he said haughtily).
Funny thing is, a lot of _serious_ critics wouldn't rate King at all. He's just a horror story / fantasy story writer they will say dismissively. He's not Proust, he's not Hemmingway. I've grown out of King (sorry, don't hate me) but damn it, that guy can turn a phrase. He writes like you are his companion, like he's taken your arm at the elbow and is walking with you awhile discussing personal matters. He scared the living _shit_ out of me when I was younger, The Shining is a genuinely frightening piece of fiction and boy is it well written. The Stand is an awesome piece of work that held me spellbound. Ditto, It. Long books both but I didn't want them to end. Maybe I have less patience now but it is rare I encounter a long (> 500 pages) book that I'll read with unflagging enthusiasm from cover to cover. I figure, if you've got something to say, say it briefly, winningly and championly or get off my lawn.
Even the successful poor writers usually have something going for them. Dan Brown is successful, I believe, because he uses very simple prose and patronizing monologues masquerading as dialogues to fill in required background material - this expands his market to a lot of people who don't read a lot and have a hard time with more sophisticated styles - and his timing of plot points and chapter pacing is excellent.
It's his pacing that I noticed most: it really is first class. But the actual writing is very uninteresting, reminding one of juvenile books targeted at 10 year olds.
Dan Brown is successful because reading "The DaVinci Code" feels a lot like watching the History Channel, which is to say that it feels very educational and high-brow, but ultimately probably isn't. Fortunately for DB, not many people are discerning enough to play the "Fact or Crap" game well; either that, or not many people care.
Also: his use of cliff-hangers at the end of most chapters provides a decent amount of momentum.
I think Dan Brown is a hack, though less odious of one than Stephanie Meyer, whom I read in hopes of knowing what my freshmen were talking about. Never again.
I thought The DaVinci Code was an execrable book, but I once read slush for a small-press SF/fantasy anthology, and most of the stuff that came over the transom made Dan Brown look like Shakespeare.
> Adjectival phrases describe nouns, adverbial phrases describe verbs. If you're fine with adjectives then why wouldn't you be fine with adverbs? Honest question.
Imho, it's that nouns sometimes require adjectives (or phrases) to characterize them, but if you find your verb requires an adverb/ial phrase to convey your intent, then you may have chosen that verb poorly, and either need to find a more suitably textured verb, or add/change the context. There's generally more flexibility to change a verb than to change a noun.
If only King had applied his own advice to 'On Writing'. The first half of that book is nothing but tales of Uncle Billy Bob and what real men do in Maine. The second half I couldn't tell you.
Excuse me? He mentions his uncle cuz he describes his uncle's toolbox. He describes it real well. He then uses this toolbox as a metaphor. The individual tools a writer has make up a writer's toolbox. Your knowledge of grammar, your vocab, your use of metaphor, your word-choice. And so on. This is your toolkit, your toolbox if you will. He calls writing a craft. Like carpentry. A craft is something you can perfect through practice. So the extended metaphor (yes it was a bit folksy but what do you expect, it's Stephen King, that's how his books sound a lot) works don't you think? A think the writing advice he gives in that book is some of _the best_ advice I have ever read. He presents the advice in his own style but I wouldn't fault him for that because he's hardly going to present it in your somebody else's style.
The second half of his book tells the story of how he was practically killed by a drunk driver of a pickup truck when he was walking along the road minding his own business. He describes the massive injuries. He explains how On Writing is a direct product of that experience. He explains how he bought the pickup from the guy and smashed it to bits with a sledgehammer. Give it another go. It's well worth it.
> He explains how he bought the pickup from the guy and smashed it to bits with a sledgehammer. <
Wikipedia gives a different story:
"King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for $1,500, reportedly to prevent it from appearing on eBay. The van was later crushed at a junkyard, much to King's disappointment, as he dreamed of beating it with a baseball bat. King later mentioned during an interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he wanted to completely destroy the vehicle himself with a pickaxe"
To me it seems you've underlined my point. As someone who is now extolling the virtues of directness, he could have done a lot better than a few folksy metaphors with a book titled 'On Writing'. Contrast it with a real book on writing like Ursula K LeGuin's Steering the Craft (http://www.amazon.com/Steering-Craft-Exercises-Discussions-N...)
Honestly I think the guy writes whatever he pleases because he knows he's got a permanent fan base. But thanks for your note; I will finish reading the second half.
Did you think this article was about directness? He spent the first half telling a story about his first writing gig. I don't think his point was anything like, "don't tell stories."
Being an aspiring novelist, I've read my fair amount of this 'how to write' stuff and invariably find it useless. King is the only person who actually makes it plain and simple and gives no bullshit.
There's little point in trying to be a liked writer, if you never publish anything for anyone to like, and there's even less point if you can't make money off of what you do publish to ever release enough material to get noticed enough to get liked or disliked.
My favorite thing of King's advice, and John Scalzi reiterates it in his own way: just get on with it and do the writing.
Lawrence Block's books on writing, especially Telling Lies for Fun and Profit are at least as good as King's as far as being direct and giving no bullshit.
I re-read it each time before I start a novel (I've finished three, started many more) and I take something new from it each time.
I've always liked Stephen King. One piece of advice, first said by William Strunk and reflected here, has stayed with me: omit needless words. Now I take out all unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, which are most of them. I like to think my writing has improved. A quote cited in his book, On Writing, was also a revelation:
"I made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short."
-- Blaise Pascal
My friend and I used to laugh at this quote because we thought it wasn't true. Now we laugh because we know it is.
Read his early stuff. His early stuff is better. You'll see why he became so popular. You don't even have to buy his stuff, just borrow from someone. His short stories are fantastic if you want easily digestible morsels. They are unforgettable, at least for me. Try Skeleton Crew or Night Shift, both great collections. I haven't read his later stuff so maybe he's gone off the boil.
Yeah, the only works of his that I've read are The Dark Tower series and the Shawshank Redemption; but I definitely found that his shorter works were much better. It seems that as he's gotten older, he's gotten simply too successful for any editor to trim the fat of his weightier novels (I've heard the same said about J K Rowling).
I think The Stand is one of his best novels. It is also one of his longest novels (almost 1,000 pages). It is also one of his earlier novels, so maybe it's missing "the fat."
The original edited version is great. You can't buy it new, just the bloated monstrosity of the "Director's Cut" or whatever it's called. Writers do not outgrow the need for editing but a very few of them get high enough sales that they can turn editing into proof-reading, like Tom Clancy.
The advice looks familiar to W. Zinsser's "On Writing Well", which is the best book on writing I've ever read (even for writing academic papers). http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-25th-Anniversary-Nonficti... I try to recommend it to everyone, especially if they're not a fan of bullshit, since it's a book on writing that's written exceptionally well.
It's also important to point out that successful writing entails writing. As Paul Graham has argued [1]:
People who fail to write novels don't do it by sitting in front of a blank page for days without writing anything. They do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for coffee, checking email. "I don't have time to work," they say. And they don't; they've made sure of that.
"My friend, after six thousand pinks, it's time you tried painting or computer programming."
Interesting to note, he feels a bad writer should become a Hacker or Painter. Paul Graham, surely, would think otherwise? (i.e a good hacker or painter probably makes for a good writer?, so maybe they should try something else - like basketball).
The writing King is talking about is commercial fiction. You can certainly be a good programmer, a good artist, or even a good writer of other stuff and still be hopeless at writing commercial fiction.
I'd generally agree, I was a good reviewer but I'm still having a devil of a time getting a novel written that I'm proud of.
I'm thankful that every query I've sent out, especially for short stories, have come back with constructive criticism explaining why they didn't accept it. This is far better than friends I knew who had simply received constant standard rejections. So I want to take my time and make sure when I'm going for a sale, I want to be selling something I'm truly proud of... I'm sure I wont care after the first advance so it's probably best I do it now when the money isn't important than when the money is important.
1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.
His definition of talent is pretty useful in the context of learning to improve one's writing:
>People who are published steadily and are paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops, but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented.
In this light, however, his sage 1986 advice about agents is not really sound any longer -- there are no longer very many or very lucrative doors open in the publishing world to unrepresented authors, and there are plenty of agents willing to risk the time and effort on someone that is talented. These days, the way to be paid for writing in the traditional sense (a.k.a. demonstrate talent) essentially has to be by getting an agent (though of course there are loopholes, and segments of the industry in which this doesn't so much apply).
But if everyone - or even most everyone - is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.
Reminds me of the mentality of some tech companies who choose to not listen to their customers in order to realize their own vision for their product/service.
If everyone is complaining about a different part of your software, that probably means just nitpicking. If the complaints converge on a feature or two, then you should absolutely listen to what they have to say. King is right on the money on this one.
Missing is his hatred of adverbs; To King's mind "He screamed angrily" is a terrible sentence because it uses the -ly construction to say what should be clear in context. So with precious few exceptions he scraps all the -ly's and lets his characters' actions do the talking.