Wisdom from Stephen King's On Writing
So I tested out my new eReader with Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, and one day and 18 Google Doc pages of quotes later, I found it quite interesting and motivating. These quotes resonated with me most:
I was built with a love of the night and the unquiet coffin, that’s all. If you disapprove, I can only shrug my shoulders. It’s what I have.
Write what you love! Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames immediately comes to mind. I could tell Eames had so much fun writing the book, and it made the whole reading experience that much better. (Highly recommend if you like your fantasy with some blunt, laugh-out-loud humor.)
…let me reiterate that it’s all on the table, all up for grabs. Isn’t that an intoxicating thought? I think it is. Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn’t, toss it. Toss it even if you love it. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch once said, “Murder your darlings,” and he was right.
Don't restrict yourself before you've even begun. I need to remember this more often. "But the audience—" "But the plot—" Write for you. Experiment! Especially in your first draft. Even if it doesn't work out, that's wisdom you can take with you.
You can’t please all of the readers all of the time; you can’t please even some of the readers all of the time, but you really ought to try to please at least some of the readers some of the time.
Something else I like to hear. I tend to put wine glasses in my audience's hands and raise their noses, telling myself they would disapprove if I did it like this, the way I want. But there's also a whole world of others that might just enjoy the same things as me, and maybe I can focus a little more on them. (Key: still keeping some semblance of an audience in mind.)
You must tell the truth if your dialogue is to have the resonance and realism that Hart’s War, good story though it is, so sadly lacks—and that holds true all the way down to what folks say when they hit their thumb with the hammer. If you substitute “Oh sugar!” for “Oh shit!” because you’re thinking about the Legion of Decency, you are breaking the unspoken contract that exists between writer and reader— your promise to express the truth of how people act and talk through the medium of a made-up story.
...
The point is to let each character speak freely, without regard to what the Legion of Decency or the Christian Ladies’ Reading Circle may approve of. To do otherwise would be cowardly as well as dishonest, and believe me, writing fiction in America as we enter the twenty-first century is no job for intellectual cowards.
King repeats the importance of honesty in writing, and how it invests readers with a layer of life and meaning. This is something I strive for.
My first-draft characters tend to curse more than they probably should—even the ones supposedly known for being more wholesome—but I should strike a four-letter-word for being out of character rather than for worrying what my parents might think when their unvulgar daughter relinquishes one of her chapters to them.
The book gave me a lot to think about, especially where my process differed with King's, but it was also just neat to hear his story. I need to find some more memoirs to read.
