Reading Journal – On Writing

On Writing
Stephen King
Paperback, 2^nd Edition
This text is part autobiography, part instruction manual, and part manifesto. As he does in his fiction, King ties the elements together in an intricate weave. Ultimately, it is a love story. King loves stories, the ones he read as a child too sick to attend school, the ones he imagined and wrote when he was learning how to put words together, and those written by popular authors. King loves the language, the way you can string twenty-five words together and create something profound. King loves his wife, who also loves the language.
Are there universal constants for writers? As with King, my earliest memories is of imagining and I read early and above my age level. The stories we read the most as children influenced what we wrote as adults. We tried to copy good stories. We read a published story and walked away convinced we could write a better one. We encountered the philosophy that writing is equivalent to taking dictation from a higher power and rejected the idea. We blend two or more ideas to form the inspiration of a story. We don't always like our story people but the readers in our lives can persuade us to write the story anyway. We are passionate, obsessive, and a high risk for addiction. We are amateur mentalists, attempting to communicate the vision unfolding in our heads as we write to the reader separated from us by space and time.
King uses the metaphor of a toolbox to describe what a writer needs. His first advice is to bring the whole toolbox, not just the tool you think you will need. King's toolbox has four levels: top shelf – vocabulary and grammar; second level – style and paragraph building; third shelf- write real fiction, one paragraph at a time; and fourth shelf- not described, perhaps customized by individual. King emphasizes two differences between writing fiction and nonfiction. In nonfiction, the most important parts of a sentence should be at the end, but the reverse is true for fiction. In nonfiction, the basic unit of writing is the sentence, but in fiction, the basic unit of writing is the paragraph.
King shares his belief system, as applied to writing. "The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one" (136).
To be a writer, one must read a lot and write a lot. Every book teaches a lesson. This book restated advice I already knew, but with explanations that made sense. This book also provided advice I wish I had known before entering the Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill University because it would have made my life easier. I will apply what I have learned to future work and rewrites of the novel I am writing. At present, I am writing my first draft with the door closed, but I feel like I am on Closed Circuit Television.
My advice: Readers, buy this book and be entertained. Writers, buy this book and learn from a master craftsman, then do the exercise on pages 167-170.