This week’s blog post posed a bit of a challenge for me. Stuck between what I’d even like to write about and a tad sad about this being the last one I’ll ever write (I know a tragedy) makes me want to choose my words a little more carefully. But, in following the teachings of ENG 2020, I think I’ll write a shitty first draft. I’ll focus this week’s post exclusively on Lauren Passell’s “Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers” …mainly because I find it funny that most of the article is just quotes from Stephen King and somehow Passell still gets credited with writing an article. Plus, it’s vague enough that I can use this as an excuse to talk about writing in general (checkmate Professor Friend).
Stephen King’s article (whoops Passell’s) is a compilation of general writing tips that you can follow if you feel like it – King doesn’t sometimes. He seems to have a thing against adverbs. Slowly, I read over rules three, four, and five to make sure I wasn’t missing out on a joke. I thought to myself impatiently, “Don’t tell me what to do”. The rest of the list can be paraphrased into “live, laugh, love” which is disappointing because it seems to be missing that quintessential Stephen King “vibe” which makes me think that maybe Lauren Passell did write this article after all. From simple platitudes like “Don’t worry about making other people happy” to “Writing is about getting happy”, I found myself somewhat underwhelmed but not surprised. The entire list boiled down to don’t stress and just run with what you know for the most part. I guess there’s wisdom in the simple reminders sometimes.
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