dr_mabeuse
seduce the mind
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2002
- Posts
- 11,528
I owe an apology and a thankyou to Earl and Tatelou and everyone else who suiggested Stephen King's book, On Writing. It's a charming and inspirational book, and a shameless ego boost as well, because just about everything he mentions in there are things I already do.
I was especially surprised at what he says about plot, and how he doesn't care about it when he writes. He doesn’t plot his books and doesn’t make outlines. Here's what he says:
"Plot is, I think, a good writer's last resort and a dullard's first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artifical and labored.
"I lean more heavily on intuition and have been able to do that because my books tend to be based on situations rather than story [my bolds]. Some of the ideas which have produced these books are more complex than others, but the majority start out with the stark simplicity of a department store window display or waxworks tabelau. I want to put a group of characters (perhaps a pair; maybe just one) in some sort of predicament and then watch them work themselves free. My job isn't to help them work their way free, or manipulate them to safety—those are jobs that require the noisy jackhammers of plot—but to watch what happens and then write it down.
"The situation comes first. The characters—always flat and unfeatured to begin with—come next…"
This is almost exactly how I work. I start with a scene or a situation in mind, and I start writing my way towards it. By the time I get there, my characters have usually produced some interesting complications or nuances, and they tend to work out the ending for themselves. (Doesn't always work though. Sometimes they won't get off their asses.)
He also said something about one of his books which gave me another huge ego boost. I haven’t read much of his, but I did read The Stand, and as I was reading it, I said to myself, this isn't one story. It's two stories jammed together to make one book: there's the story of a plague that wipes out most of the people on earth, and then there's some silliness about people with atomic bombs threatening to wipe out the survivors.
Sure enough, King says that he wrote the first 500 pages about the plague and then got stuck, and for months and months he didn’t know what to do with it. He thought he might just have to abandon the book. Then he hit on the idea of the atomic bombs, and that gave him his ending. So it was two books jammed together. I almost broke my arm slapping myself on the back.
Anyhow, it's worth the read. You might not agree with all his working habits and opinions, but he makes it all seem like such an adventure again.
And hearing about his getting $400,000 for the paperback rights to his first published book isn't bad either. And that was in like 1974.
I was especially surprised at what he says about plot, and how he doesn't care about it when he writes. He doesn’t plot his books and doesn’t make outlines. Here's what he says:
"Plot is, I think, a good writer's last resort and a dullard's first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artifical and labored.
"I lean more heavily on intuition and have been able to do that because my books tend to be based on situations rather than story [my bolds]. Some of the ideas which have produced these books are more complex than others, but the majority start out with the stark simplicity of a department store window display or waxworks tabelau. I want to put a group of characters (perhaps a pair; maybe just one) in some sort of predicament and then watch them work themselves free. My job isn't to help them work their way free, or manipulate them to safety—those are jobs that require the noisy jackhammers of plot—but to watch what happens and then write it down.
"The situation comes first. The characters—always flat and unfeatured to begin with—come next…"
This is almost exactly how I work. I start with a scene or a situation in mind, and I start writing my way towards it. By the time I get there, my characters have usually produced some interesting complications or nuances, and they tend to work out the ending for themselves. (Doesn't always work though. Sometimes they won't get off their asses.)
He also said something about one of his books which gave me another huge ego boost. I haven’t read much of his, but I did read The Stand, and as I was reading it, I said to myself, this isn't one story. It's two stories jammed together to make one book: there's the story of a plague that wipes out most of the people on earth, and then there's some silliness about people with atomic bombs threatening to wipe out the survivors.
Sure enough, King says that he wrote the first 500 pages about the plague and then got stuck, and for months and months he didn’t know what to do with it. He thought he might just have to abandon the book. Then he hit on the idea of the atomic bombs, and that gave him his ending. So it was two books jammed together. I almost broke my arm slapping myself on the back.
Anyhow, it's worth the read. You might not agree with all his working habits and opinions, but he makes it all seem like such an adventure again.
And hearing about his getting $400,000 for the paperback rights to his first published book isn't bad either. And that was in like 1974.
Glad you finally read King's book! 
