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On Writing [Paperback]

Stephen King (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (272 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Publication Date: 11 Oct 2012

Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in the vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999 - and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery.

There is a reason why Stephen King is one of the bestselling writers in the world, ever. Described in the Guardian as 'the most remarkable storyteller in modern American literature', Stephen King writes books that draw you in and are impossible to put down.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (11 Oct 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1444723251
  • ISBN-13: 978-1444723250
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (272 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,577 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon Review

Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You are right there with the young author as he is tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing baby-sitters, uptight schoolmarms and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash". But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber". As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a caretaker cleaning a high-school girls' locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolised his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing".

King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph and literary models. He shows what you can learn from HP Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Kellerman's Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote. King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Absolutely fascinating . . . basic instructions . . . sensible advice (The Sunday Times)

The childhood memoir is a triumphant display of wit, story-telling and guts. His advice to writers is hard-nosed, practical and level-headed in the classic journalistic Orwell-Hemingway tradition (Evening Standard)

This is the written equivalent of Delia Smith's How To Cook. And, like British home cooking, the world of popular fiction will be better off for it (The Times)

Stephen King is a genius . . . In this book he tells us what first made him a horror writer . . . I find King fascinating because he writes in the least florid way possible, yet his very direct approach to getting his awesome imagination onto a blank page works. (Jeremy Vine in We Love This Book)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
160 of 167 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Marvelous 3 Mar 2006
By Joseph Haschka HALL OF FAME TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
ON WRITING is better than I thought it would be. It's marvelous. I finished it in less than two days.

In the First Forward, Stephen King observes that popular novelists are never "asked about the language" when queried by admiring fans. Thus, he states:

"What follows is an attempt to put down , briefly and simply, how I came to the craft (of telling stories on paper), what I know about it now, and how it's done. It's about the day job; it's about the language."

In the first hundred or so pages, King shares his experiences growing up in Maine and Connecticut, his marriage, his struggles as a novice writer, and his drug and alcohol problems. King intends this section not as an autobiography, but as a curriculum vitae. It ends with the assignment of the paperback rights to CARRIE, his first novel.

In the next 150 pages, the author describes how he performs his craft. He explains the "tools" of writing (vocabulary and grammar), the creative environment (the room, the door, the determination to close the door, and the music - Hard Rock in King's case), style and formatting (paragraphing, narration, description, and dialogue), and the final stretch to a finished piece (drafts, editing, and proofreading by a trusted friend - wife/author Tabitha in King's case).

The final few pages, in a way, are the most interesting. It's Stephen's account of the road accident in 1999 that inflicted multiple fractures to his ribs and lower body, and the effect the mishap had on his writing. Ironically enough, he'd half completed this book at the time of the incident, and he had to struggle to come back and finish.

Though King was once a high school English teacher, ON WRITING is in no way pedantic, but chatty and informal. Read more ›
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66 of 70 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterclass in the writing life 30 Jun 2005
By Budge Burgess
Format:Hardcover
This is two books in one, yet it isn't. The autobiographical section is not so much a potted history of King's life as a description of his writing apprenticeship - the experiences and emotions, from the stimulants of his childhood imagination to the abuse of stimulants, from the experience of rejection to the experience of survival after being hit by a van.
Writing, King makes clear, isn't simply the ability to do joined up words or type at a keyboard. Writing is about pain and experience, knowledge and emotion, understanding and questioning. Writing is about life ... and if you want to be a good writer, then you must live to write. In the process you may have to fight to survive alcohol and drugs and poverty and loneliness ... and the dangers round that next bend. Even when you've sold your first story, you're never comfortable, never sure it wasn't a fluke and that the next one won't be hurled back in your face.
It's a fascinating insight into King's psyche, one which prepares you for the guidance he offers writers. He puts together a toolkit of advice to motivate and encourage you to write. Much of the toolkit, of course, can be described as words and sweat. If you write, language is your medium. If you want to write well, you have to work at it.
There's a strong motivational element to King's book. He pulls no punches. Not everyone can be a great writer. Everyone might have a novel in them, but not many people have a novel anyone else would want to read. Be realistic about your talent. Appreciate you can improve, can refine your skills and techniques. But, it'll take work, lots of hard work, and you may still never write a masterpiece.
But writing is a process of self-belief and self-fulfilment and self-discovery. It is, only incidentally, a commercial activity. Read more ›
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A good kick start 13 Aug 2001
By Theo
Format:Hardcover
I never thought I would sit chuckling over a Stephen King book, but the first half was very funny. Then I found the writing end was inspirational. It made you WANT to read and write and described the writing state of mind so well.
I was talking about the plot free approach to some friends, in a car full of silent kids. They all suddenly started talking at once, when I paraphrased SK's approach to the restraints of plot. They have all felt repressed by the heavy planned out plot system, set out by teachers. I think they will start writing with fresh hope, as I know I will.
This book has made me feel more positive and excited about writing than the 6 others I have read over the last 15 years. There might be a few missing elements, but the germ of inspiration overrules that. That is priceless.
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting autobiography mixed with basic writing advice 9 Sep 2000
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
"On Writing" Stephen King calls it, but it should read "King's Autobiography Linked to Strunk and White's Rules of Writing." He writes of his early life, an odd herky-jerky experience, he calls it. It is revealing and entertaining, and his hungry fans should adore it. He includes his recent experiences with a car accident that could have proven fatal. Also, his use and abuse of alcohol and drugs.
He shares with us his extraordinary success with Carrie, and it is infectious. We almost cheer when he learns of his huge royalties.
Included is his advice (but hardly a thesis as he calls it) that good writing consists of mastering vocabularly, grammar, and the elements of style. If you are a bad writer, he says, no one can help. If you are competent, it will be a tough road to become good -- but it is possible.
Write a lot, and read a lot is his bottom line -- but scarcely original -- advice to would-be writers.
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