If you’d like to learn more about why I’m writing a few book reviews and what my hopes are for the reviews, check out my explanation!

Book: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Scribner
Publishing Year: 2000

Summary:

I’ll be honest and say that I was initially confused as to why Stephen King would combine his memoir with his suggestions for writers. But in doing so, he allows the reader to see how his life experience shapes his knowledge of writing. King shares snippets of his life in bite-sized pieces. In doing so, he reveals some lessons learned in his writing. In the second half of his book, he continues his bite-sized vignettes with advice for writing based on his wealth of experience. His advice covers things like creating characters and plot, editing, and when cursing is acceptable in writing (to King, it was acceptable a fair number of times in this book). Using examples from some of his many stories, King was able to show and tell (even though King says that one of the cardinal rules of good fiction is never tell us a thing if you can show us…” [p. 180]). Though I don’t aspire to be a fiction writer anytime soon, I do enjoy learning and thinking about creativity, so I found this to be an excellent book.

Three Main Takeaways:

1. The first time you write a story, you should be writing the story for yourself. This allows the story to just flow from you, rather than having to avoid the obstacles that you won’t want in your final product.
2. Wait 6 weeks between drafts (which was way longer than I anticipated).
3. Have an Ideal Reader in mind when you go through the editing process. How will they perceive the book? What will they enjoy? When will they get bored?

Three Quotes:

1. “Boredom can be a very good thing for someone in a creative jam.” (p. 203)
2. “And whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There’s someone who knows. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.” (p. 74)
3. “If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.” (p. 50)

What “hole” the book fills on the shelf of literature:

An enjoyable masterclass in writing from one of the best-known modern authors.

Review:

For a book on how to write well, I couldn’t have asked for a more enjoyable book! King tells his own story and his writing advice with both a homey how-it-is-ness and stylistic flair. Keeping stories and advice to bite-sized vignettes helped move the stories and advice along, making this a quick read for me. King’s experience as a writer shines through in a very confident way and he shares both his preferences and the “rules” of writing, helping to distinguish between the two. As an aspiring writer, I found this book to be very helpful and encouraging, with my only complaint being that I don’t prefer books with as many expletives as this one had.

Three types of people that might enjoy the book:

1. Aspiring writers, particularly writers of fiction
2. Stephen King fans
3. Those who want to hone their creative craft

Interested in reading On Writing by Stephen King? You can find it on Amazon here.

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I’ve written another book review! To check it out, click the link below:
Book Review: “Humble” by Daryl van Tongeren