Synopsis
Having read Stephen King’s On Writing, he certainly offers a very wide range of advice to writers, and despite his over-qualifying success, I think he does so quite humbly. In his memoir, King writes about so many different aspects from her personal and professional life as a writer, giving context and well-contemplated reasons behind his writing advice. King also seems to truly understand the reality of most writer’s thought processes, in that he really only offers pieces of writing advice that he tries to utilize and follow, himself. He also admits to straying from these rules, as he is only human– a wildly successful human, and arguably the most well-known novelist today, but human nonetheless– and writes about both his successes and his failures alike. One of my personal favorite details that King writes about is how he used to keep each and every rejection letter, and impale them all on a protruding spike in his bedroom. He got to have so many of these rejection letters, that King had to get a longer spike. This fun-fact about Stephen King’s early writing career is one that I feel most writers will be able to relate to, myself included, as we inevitably become incredibly attached to our work, and failure tends to weigh heavily on our minds for this reason.
Personal Comments
As successful a writer as Stephen King is, I expect that there will be much debate over some of his advice. Not to say that just because Stephen King is a successful writer that he cannot be wrong or have his opinions on writing challenged. In fact, I think we should debate over King’s writing advice, as it would probably lead us to a better conclusion. There is also something to be said about individuality. Number fourteen in the article says, “Stick to your own style.” So, perhaps Stephen King is aware that he is not the only successful writer in the world, and understands that each writer must take their own approach to their craft.
Overall, my favorite piece of advice out of the twenty is “Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second to least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”
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