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On Writing
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Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art.
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On Writing
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When I was in eighth grade, American History was one of my favorite subjects. It wasn’t because I was particularly fond of history, but more because my teacher – Mr. Boreri – approached his classes in a unique way. Most of the time, our course of learning would go on as normal: lectures, book reading, notes, notes, notes. But once a class, he would break the monotony, telling us to put down our pencils: we were going to hear a story.
Mr. Boreri’s stories added depth to his subject, helped us put the nation’s sprawling history into some frame of context. In Stephen King’s book On Writing, he employs the same tactic. This slim book is offered up as sort of a continuation of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, a course on how to write, what to write, and the tools with which you need to do it. That’s the bones. The meat is in King’s personal reflection – how he came to be the writer he is, how he works, day by day, and what writing has come to mean to him. Stephen King is playing the role of the mentor, the teacher … but he’s not making you take the journey alone.
The first section of this book, “C.V.,” is probably the closest we’ll ever get to a straight autobiography of Stephen King. Beginning at King’s earliest memory (imagining he is the strong man at a Ringling Brothers circus) and continuing up through the paperback sale of Carrie, King’s first novel, this section details his daily struggles of a talented young writer who has yet to make the Big Time. King assumes you haven’t heard the legends: the story of King buying a hair dryer for his wife after hearing the staggering amount he would be paid for the paperback rights for Carrie is recounted in loving, first-person detail. Other aspects of his personal life, such as King’s addictions, and the story of his mother’s death, have been hinted at before. Here, King is honest and open, divulging far more about his private life than one would have guessed. But fair warning: this is not a tell-all confessional-type book. Everything King shares holds a purpose, every anecdote a connective strand to other parts of King’s rich life story. And almost everything has to do with writing.
“Toolbox,” the second section, and “On Writing,” the third section, get down to the business at hand: how King writes (and reads), and how he assumes it will work for you. Even those who have no interest in writing themselves may find the way King goes about it intriguing. He’s death on adverbs, writing workshops, and, oddly, plot – seemingly strange for someone who has built his life on stories, but his explanations are fascinating. As if a teacher for a half-semester Accelerated Writing class, he assumes you know the basics and speeds you through the course. Each sub-section builds on the last: after you work out your writing environment, you can attempt description; after that, dialogue, and so on until King brings you to the subject of agents and cover letters. Peppered throughout this lecture are quite a few stories, relating incidences from his own life in the book trade. He’s surprisingly frank about what he thinks works in his novels and what doesn’t (at one point, he divulges that he things merely having a plot hurt both Insomnia and Rose Madder.) By the end of the “On Writing” section, King’s lesson is complete, but he has one last story to recount.
In “On Living: A Postscript,” King talks about the accident that nearly killed him in the summer of 1999. He doesn’t spare any of the details: remember, this is a man who has made a living at least partially on fictional blood and guts. But here, we know, the tale King is telling is not a fiction, and his long, painful recovery is not a vicarious thrill. King’s wife, Tabitha, who helped change their lives over two decades before by fishing the discarded first pages of Carrie out of the trash, was instrumental in getting King back on track this time, too. When he suggested he might be ready to start writing again, she didn’t hesitate, building him a miniature writing studio at the end of a hall in their home.
King doesn’t see his first, fitful attempt at writing after the accident miraculous, but on this point, I disagree. Beyond a mere manual of writing technique, On Writing is a testament to the power of the written word. Sentences, paragraphs, books: all imbued with the force to change lives and shape lives. As King demonstrates more than once in this little volume, writing may actually have the power to save lives, as well.