Just Finished Rereading Stephen King's Book On Writing

In the months immediately before and after a distracted van driver struck Stephen King while he was walking on the shoulder of a rural Maine road and nearly killed him in June, 1999, the famed author took a detour of his own from writing fiction and instead composed On Writing, which is part autobiography and part helpful hints for the aspiring writer.  It's a small book by his standards, but packed with interesting and sometimes very helpful information.  Stephen King believes that his advice, properly implemented, cannot make a great writer out of a good one, nor can it make a competent writer out of a poor one...but it can make a good writer out of a competent one.  Well, I see myself as being in the general category of "competent", so I thought that checking out the recommendations of one of the most successful writers of our age couldn't hurt...

First of all, Stephen King's own personal story paints the picture of someone who was into writing and storytelling from a very early age, and his mother strongly encouraged him.  Having support from those close to you has got to be a big plus, but sometimes this is beyond one's control.  Still, King distilled some lessons he learned from his early writings and the many rejections he received from publishers.  One is that the story reigns supreme...you want to develop your characters, descriptive language, and dialogue, but don't let them get in the way of the story.  Two is that it is a very good idea to establish a regular time and place to write...a setting removed from distractions from others, television...even open windows to the outside can present a problem.  The rationale is that, if you train yourself this way, then the creative thoughts will more easily come to you.  Three is that story is not the same as plot, which there is no need to even consider when writing a story.  Thinking in terms of advancing the plot creates awkward writing and implies that the ending has already been mapped out in advance, something that King is usually opposed to doing...this is the one piece of his advice that I am uncertain about.  Four, in the first draft of a story, write, write, write freely to your heart's content...then when you're finished, put it aside for a few weeks.  Then return to it and read what you've written, making technical corrections...and then have a trusted "ideal" reader go over it and give you needed feedback.  And five, there's something in editorial circles called the "10 %" rule, meaning that generally the amount of words in a story can and should be reduced by that amount in order to curtail redundancy and make the text more readable.  There are a few other gems of advice that King dispenses...this is a pretty handy book...

Above everything Stephen King stresses that if anyone wants to be a serious writer, there are two things they have to spend a lot of time doing: reading and writing.  For most of us, the writing part seems obvious, but a lot of reading can help to indicate what works in a good story and what doesn't...and also what's already been done before.  Not that you should read for those reasons alone...no, read for the enjoyment!  After all, that's how you'll want anyone reading your own stories to approach them...