On Writing Review

We haven't seen a book about writing in a while on here, so this week's book is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.

The first half of the book is, indeed, a memoir of Stephen King's life as it relates to the writer he became.  It's interesting and his anecdotes are sometimes funny, but the kicker is that he's showing how he got to where he is, because that's what he knows how to explain.  How you get there may be different.  The second half is what he calls "a toolbox" of writing.  It goes from nuts and bolts like vocabulary, grammar, and a hatred for adverbs to theme and symbolism to process.  

The way it's presented works well because not only is each piece of advice put in an anecdote, but the whole thing is couched in this idea from the introduction of "where do I get off talking about writing?"  He admits that even though he hates adverbs, they still crop up in his work and he shows that successful, beloved writers hit a lot of his pet peeves that he just said to never do, and yet they are still successful, beloved authors.  It worked for me because I got it that this is what works for him, and I can take it or leave it.  I feel assured that I'm not going to be forever judged by Stephen King for not doing things his way.  And why would I even care about that?  I shouldn't care about that.  Good thing this bypassed the irrationally defensive and easily bruised part of my brain. 

His big take away is to be a writer you have to read a lot and write a lot.  "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write."  You may notice, I completely embrace this idea.  I learn what I like, what I don't like, and what I need to stop doing by reading, by observing the language and thinking critically.  So, yes, I am 100% on board with this.  In fact, I think I'm going to change the tag since I've pretty much settled on only talking about books and not movies and TV shows and comics.

The other key point that stuck out to me was about the first draft, the second draft, and moving from one to the next.  This is probably because I just finished the first draft of the Firebird story and I've just started the long process of editing it.  I tried Anne Lamont's idea and wrote the most terrible first draft in existence.  I'm going to clean it up, remold it, and the second (or third) draft will be ready for a few readers and some good, hard outside criticism.  Then another draft before I even start thinking about it being good to go.

King says a lot of things that almost match up with this.  He says you should write your first draft with the door shut.   That means you don't think about what everyone will say, or whether your research is accurate.  You close the door, download your story from your brain onto paper, and make yourself a first draft.  He talks a lot during this about "uncovering the fossil" of the story, or finding it as you go, meaning he's of the school of thought that you never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip.  He also says you shouldn't tell anyone about your story during this time, because you don't need anyone else's opinion.

This sounds a lot like Lamont's shitty first draft.  Don't worry about it, just get it down.  However, King then says that when you're done with that draft, it's time to open the door and let a few select readers have a go at it.  And that's where the methods differ, because there's no way I'd let someone read this terrible draft until I've gone through it.  My door is still shut, thanks.  And that's the real difference here.  It sounds like King only writes two or three drafts, so his process is condensed.  But, if I adjust this advice in my head, I can replace "third draft" every time he says "second draft" and it works for me.

Aside from the input of readers and whatever research needs to be done, King also gives the advice that the second draft should be 10% shorter than the first.  When you're writing the second draft, you can really hone in on the story and remove all the excess flailing in the beginning that he wrote not knowing where the story was headed.  (I did this decimation with my dragon book.  It worked.)  He also says that when you read through your first draft, themes will start popping out.  The second draft is for leaning into those themes and making them clearer.  He advises not to write your first draft with those themes in mind, but rather to write and then see what comes out.  That's some quality advice.  I have a list on the back of the first page on my first draft with a list of things that need to come through more.  When I heard this explanation, I thought, "Oh.  That's what I'm doing."

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Next week: The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black