“Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no idea dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but recognize them when they show up.”
- Stephen King
This is a great way to explain inspiration. Watching Q&As with authors always sees people ask the authors where they get their ideas. It always sounds so desperate. People are looking for the secret garden where ideas are plucked from the vine. Truth is, you have to work at being inspired. The same is true in any artform. When you work at it, the Muses will gift you inspiration. You will not receive anything from the Muses if you wait for them to act first. You have to prove to the Muses that you are worthy.
I recently finished On Writing by Stephen King, his book of his best advice to aspiring authors. It taught me a lot and reaffirmed other long held beliefs. This blog post serves as both a summary of the notes I took AND as something for others to refer to. My notes do not in any way replace Stephen King’s book, so up top let me HIGHLY recommend On Writing for all aspiring writers, fans of King and anyone else who wants a great read. It's part memoir and part instruction.
“When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story.” He said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”
This was advice given to a teenage Stephen King from John Gould, the editor for his high school newspaper. He said it was one of the many pieces of advice that changed how he approached writing. From a rejected submission, King was given similar advice as a formula. 2nd Draft = 1st Draft - 10%.
King got his teacher certification from the College of Education at the University of Maine at Orono. Afterwards, King says he felt like a retriever emerging from the lake with a dead duck. He described the feeling of teaching during the day as having jumper cables clamped to his brain, and the feeling of going home was like having the energy of a boa constrictor that swallowed a goat. He also goes on to say:
“I think we had a lot of happiness in those days, but we were scared a lot, too. We weren't much more than kids ourselves (as the saying goes), and being friendly helped keep the mean reds away.”
It's still the same, Mr. King.
“…put [your desk] in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.”
I interpret this to mean that all art requires a studio, and that studio looks however you need it to look such that you can succeed in your craft while there. But there is an amount of discipline the writing craft requires too.
“You must not come lightly to the blank page.”
I think this is meant to make the reader consider the reason they want to write and take notice of the sizable undertaking of writing. Writing is more than words on paper. Its more than just snarky words in a blog. It takes skill and practice to be good.
King describes advice from his Uncle Oren when doing house work.
“I didn't know what else I might find to do once I got out here, did I? It's best to have your tools with you. If you don't, you're apt to find something you didn't expect and get discouraged.”
King uses this to explain that each writer needs to be prepared with tools. He goes on to explain the best tools to have are vocabulary and grammar.
He offers up a few smaller tools too. Avoid passive tense. Adverbs are not your friend. Names like Thomas that are possessive always use the grammar Thomas’s. Don’t end verbs like jumpin’ with the apostrophe; don’t use the apostrophe at all.
Next is style. The flow of paragraphs and breaks. Knowing when to break and start a new paragraph does a lot for the experience of reading the text. The purpose of writing is to make the reader forget they are reading a story at all. King says writing is an art of seduction, so you have to be tactful and strategic when you come to the blank page.
“If you don't have time to read, you don't have time or the tools to write. Simple as that.”
“Write 4-6 hours a day.”
Leave about 6 weeks between finishing the first draft and starting the rewrite. This way you have time to think about other stuff before coming back to critique your own work. It will be both familiar and foreign; perfect for fixing without judging yourself.
Write what you know. Not just as a human encyclopedia but in imagination and heart.
First create a situation, then the characters that would be interesting for that situation. Then narrate what they do. Consider yourself the observer, watching these characters make decisions. Let the story unfold naturally, and be open to what would be natural for the kind of character. Don’t decide for them.
Dialogue is art and craft. You must speak, read and listen to people. Develop and ear for hearing people in the real world and imagine what that would look like written out in dialogue. You also want to use dialogue to clue readers into things about your characters. That is the Show part of SHOW, DON’T TELL. And let dialogue be natural.
Your book should reflect the truth. Realistic decisions and realistic dialogue are the foundation to that. Use their voice. Use their thoughts. How they talk. What they talk about.
“Theme is more than chrome on the grille.” Theme is meant to provide a focusing device for you as you write and the reader as they discover the story. It creates a more unified piece of work. When you rewrite, you should be looking for your theme and ways to enhance it. If you read your work and see more opportunities for theme, include it. If not, don’t force it.
“Write with the door closed. Rewrite with the door open.” This means get your words and ideas onto paper first. Write for yourself and the imaginary IDEAL READER that will love every part of the story. Then in the rewrite, fix everything and accept feedback. Even the feedback you don’t like. ESPECIALLY the feedback you don't like.
Feedback from peers is always mixed so you have to take the average of it all. And ties go to the writer. When feedback includes fixing a factual error, consider it a problem and a solution at no expense to you.
A really compelling idea I read in the last few pages of the book when King is giving an example of a story being edited. He states that in a certain section of his first draft, he is “doing a lot of the reader’s thinking for [them] here. Since most readers can think for themselves, I felt free to cut this from five lines to just two.”
I think this is its own great piece of advice. Just like a few points above, the reader has to know when not to include certain things in the text. Don’t do all the thinking for the reader, but don’t leave them out to dry either. Provide just enough information to allow the reader the chance to fill in the gaps, even if the gaps can be filled in with what you consider obvious (and you think it's obvious because you wrote the story).
This same principle is used in teaching; a student will retain information better if they think of it themselves instead of being told the information. Similar things happen with jokes. My favorite joke uses this idea to get the listener to tell themselves the punchline by filling in a gap. Maybe its a form of manipulation, but it works many different fields of work that involve speaking to people.
The joke?
What’s the difference between a garbanzo bean and a chick pea? I’ve never paid money to have a garbanzo bean on my face.
Recommended Reading
On Writing by Stephen King (2000)
See above.
The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. (1918)
King refers to this book in On Writing. I found a version without the E. B. White expansion, but from what I understand, that version is considered definitive. The book explains a lot of simple rules for how English structures sentences and connects thoughts to ways to express them in language. The book is intended to be a companion to an English course so keep that in mind. Its only 45 pages, but its dry. Much like On Writing, it gives lots of small examples and pieces of advice.
Some of it is dated though. For example, the last page states you need to write to-day instead of today.