Ten Things I Learned from On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

 “The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.” — Stephen King

I first read Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft when it was released in 2000. At the time I found the memoir part of the book more interesting than the writing advice. A few years ago, I became more serious about writing regularly so I read it again. During my second read I devoured the writing advice. I highlighted passages and took notes. 

I started this blog shortly after rereading the book. I kept meaning to write a blog post about it but never got around to it until now. So here are ten things I learned from Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

One: “Don’t wait for the muse.”

This is such an important point. I think a lot of us beginners want to wait for motivation to kick in. But if you wait for the muse, that story or book that you want to write probably isn’t going to get written. It’s something that I have to remind myself of regularly. 

If you want to finish something, you have to find a way to write regularly whether you feel motivated or not. This can be challenging though. Life gets in the way. But King has this to say: 

“But you need the room, you need the door, and you need the determination to shut the door. You need a concrete goal as well.” 

Determination and a concrete goal. That requires discipline.

Two: Writing a story is like excavating a relic.

King says, “...stories are found things, like fossils in the ground.” He also says, “Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.” 

King adds, “The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground as possible.”

I found this idea eye-opening and helpful. I’ve never come up with a story idea fully formed and complete. I'm not aware of anyone who has. When I have a story idea it’s rough and unfinished. Writing it down and seeing where it goes is like excavating. By writing it down you uncover hidden layers that can’t be found by just thinking about it.

Finally, he says, “No matter how good you are, no matter how much experience you have, it’s probably impossible to get the entire fossil out of the ground without a few breaks and losses.” 

I found this helpful as well as it’s stopped me from moving forward before. I would give up on stories because what I was putting down on paper wasn't matching the ideas in my head. But you can’t be afraid that your idea may not turn out the way you first thought it would. It’s okay. You have to trust in the process.

Three: You learn by finishing things.

When King first started writing Carrie he gave up. His wife found the manuscript, read it, and urged him to continue writing. It became his first published novel. He has this to say:

“I had written three other novels before Carrie… But none of them taught me the things I learned from Carrie White. The most important is that the writer’s original perception of a character may be as erroneous as the reader’s. Running a close second was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea.”

He learned so much from Carrie, a novel he almost gave up on and did not finish, and he had to finish three novels before that to get there.

You learn by finishing things. 

Four: Write quickly.

King explains that writing quickly allows him to keep up his original enthusiasm and at the same time allows him to “outrun the self-doubt that’s always waiting to settle in.”

As someone who tends to overthink things when I write slowly, I found this really helpful. You’ve got to get it out first. Sometimes when I lose enthusiasm and feel self-doubt creeping in, I use a timer to keep myself from overthinking and to keep myself writing.

This is important because getting the story down is just the first step. 

Five: Revise for length.

When Stephen King was just starting out and getting rejection slips for his short stories, he received this advice with one of his rejections: 

“Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft - 10%. Good luck.” 

He explains that applying that feedback helped him immediately. Based on the length of a lot of his novels I wonder if he follows that advice any more though!

In any case it shows that second drafts are important. 

Six: The importance of second drafts.

King shares the advice that newspaper editor John Gould gave him:

“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story”, he said, “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the parts that are not the story.” 

As someone who was struggling to finish things because I was trying to edit as I was writing, I found this very helpful. Write your first draft as quickly as possible and don’t worry about editing. Save that for the second draft. 

Something else I’ve struggled with is figuring out the themes and meanings of the stories I’m trying to write before I write them. Once again, I found King’s advice eye-opening and helpful:

“Two examples of the sort of work second drafts were made for are symbolism and theme.” 

“Most of all, I’m looking for what I meant because in the second draft I’ll want to add scenes and incidents that reinforce that meaning.” 

“I’ll also want to delete stuff that goes in other directions. There’s apt to be a lot of that stuff, especially near the beginning of a story, when I have a tendency to flail.”

None of this is possible without finishing that first draft. 

Seven: The importance of paragraphs.

King talks about the difference between what he calls easy and hard books:

“You can tell without even reading if the book you’ve chosen is apt to be easy or hard, right? Easy books contain lots of short paragraphs — including dialogue paragraphs which may only be a word or two long — and lots of white space. Hard books, one full of ideas, narration, or description, have a stouter look. A packed look.” 

He adds, “Paragraphs are almost as important for how they look as for what they say, they are maps of intent.” 

I have to agree. It made me realize that the books of a lot of my favorite authors have short paragraphs and short chapters. It’s not true for every author I like but, in most cases, the longer the paragraph and the longer the narration, the harder it is to keep the reader's attention. 

Eight: Stories and novels consist of three parts.

King explains that he believes stories and novels consist of three parts. While these were familiar to me it was helpful to be reminded of their purposes:

“In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.”

Spend too much time on any of these and chances are the reader will lose interest. A good story or novel has a balance between these things. 

Nine: Try anything but toss what doesn’t work. 

King advises trying anything at all when writing but adds that you still need to look at what you’ve written with a critical eye.

“My take on all these things is pretty simple. It’s all on the table, every bit of it, and you should use anything that improves the quality of your writing and doesn’t get in the way of your story. But no matter how you do it, there comes a point when you must judge what you’ve written and how well you wrote it.”  

He adds, “If it works fine. If it doesn’t, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.” 

Ten: “The most valuable lessons are the ones you teach yourself.”

“You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself. These lessons almost always occur with the study door closed.” 

A good reminder that the best way to learn is by practicing. I have no problem with reading a lot, but I'm still working on writing a lot. Ever forward.