Stephen King on Writing

Writing advice from Stephen King made the Internet rounds recently, and I think it's worth passing along to my readers. In "Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes", King introduces his topic twice. (To see why he does this, you'll have to follow the link.) His second introduction ends as follows:

I am going to tell you these things again because often people will only listen -- really listen -- to someone who makes a lot of money doing the thing he's talking about. This is sad but true. And I told you the story above not to make myself sound like a character out of a Horatio Alger novel but to make a point: I saw, I listened, and I learned. Until that day in John Gould's little office, I had been writing first drafts of stories which might run 2,500 words. The second drafts were apt to run 3,300 words. Following that day, my 2,500-word first drafts became 2,200-word second drafts. And two years after that, I sold the first one.

So here it is, with all the bark stripped off. It'll take ten minutes to read, and you can apply it right away ... if you listen.

King goes on to elaborate on the twelve points listed below:

1. Be talented.
2. Be neat.
3. Be self-critical.
4. Remove every extraneous word.
5. Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft.
6. Write to entertain.
7. Ask yourself frequently, "Am I having fun?"
8. How to Evaluate Criticism
9. Observe all rules for proper submission.
10. An agent? Forget it. For now.
11. If it's bad, kill it.

As King indicates, much of this is common advice, although his advice on not consulting references bears special consideration in this day and age, when most of us write with the Internet a click or a glance away. (He wrote this in the late 1980s.) In addition, think his advice on knowing markets is particularly relevant to anyone who blogs, and might be used to a self-selecting readership.

-- CAV