RonGreen

Writing On is definitely worth reading. I liked his advice. I have used it in my writing. It has worked. A lot of the methods he presented I have actually already practiced beforehand. It was just like getting confirmation then.

jamesdemann

Am currently reading On Writing... and discovered it to be very good indeed. He mentions at the start if you are looking for a how to book then it isn't for you. But as an autobiography it is fantasic, and the tips he does give are light hearted and very well written.

enron1982

Yeah, i actually beleive a good story isn't plotted from the beginning. It develops through characters and their conflicts. You def. have to have something in mind after a short period of time after you begin, but def. not right away. You let the story write itself; this is the most natural way you can possibly write. With this advice that King gave, he was just handing down information passed on directly from Ray Bradbury. I dare you to call Bradbury a shitty writer, or anything short of genius at that.

ClancyBoy

I've changed my opinion a bit since I posted that. I agree with King (and Bradbury) that the concept and characters are best when they're "discovered," not plotted.

At some point however I think plot has to take over. The "natural" way for things to conclude is not necessarily the best way. That's why King's endings are often criticized as weak.

Once you've "discovered" to a certain point, you can go back and see what the structure and dynamics of what you've written are. There will be structure to it, even if you developed it subconsciously. At that point I think it's a good idea to think about the best way for the book to reach its climax and conclusion, which may not necessarily be the most natural way.

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jamesdemann

i never plot my characters...i find it much more realistic to let them go with the flow as you would life. Whent hey find themselves in a situation, I don't look down at my manuel of life and go, right that is how they are supposed to act. I don't ask them 1001 questions either. I plot out basic history...mother father siblings, and a fear or love, and that is far as I go. I don't plot what they do on a weekday, where they like to go shopping, what their fave meal is, for me I think it is a waste of time.
We don't have a manuel for life, we are not told what we should do in a certain situation, and I don't give that burden to my characters, that way I am also suprised by what they do and where they end up. Makes for a much better story in my opinon.

Kimberly Dawn

Then let me be the first. Nanowrimo had quite a few writers who thought the book was crap. This the "all" has fallen to some, and some isn't as sturdy as "all". I'll tell you solid reasons why I don't think highly of his advice--though like anything good or bad I say read it anyhow.

What Steven King has is the idea of what mass market publishing is like. But I don't think him a godsend in writing advice--if you want writing advice Holly Lisle (which I happened to read *after* a truckload of how-to and my writing life books is the best of the lot). This is the primary reason I read his book. And I didn't buy it. I read through it cover to cover.

His relating that Carrie was written in a day distressed me. Because it means he didn't actually talk about editing said book and doesn't consider editing part of the writing process. (And you can see where I'm going with this) He likes to boast that one--I read an interview in an old Rolling Stone Magazine, I believe that he pounded it out in a day and was proud of himself. I can't imagine much quality coming from that. Especially when he talks about how he sent it out to his agent, but not the editing and work that goes in between. And nope, no research talk, nothing like that...And from this even though I read the book before, you can probably guess what I thought of it after this--and of him.

The book read more like he wanted to write a memoir than share techniques of the craft, his internal process for writing, and *specific* parts of his techniques were not things I hadn't heard a thousand times before. In a way the way he wrote it could easily defeat the new writer. I wrote X number of books so do it my way...

I have to admit I read Orsen Scott Card and Terry Brooks in the same book store. Out of the three that I read through, Terry Brooks struck up with the most useful advice of the three. He actually told how signings work! This is something I couldn't get from my yearly subscription of Writer's Digest (That lasted three years).

Out of Orsen Scott Card I was horrified to find that he'd taken some of his student's ideas they had in a brainstorming session for a book of his and didn't give name credit to that student! He's free to explain that part to me, and I've asked a few of his students to ask him politely what that was about, since I dislike understandings. (Nanowrimo boards). I read that section over three times and showed it to someone else--and someone else also found that part disturbing... His anti-agent attitude is a tad disturbing because he tends to write that section as if the agents want a part of the cut and are greedy bastards out to take all of his money. That part I would think to ignore. Less and less publishers will take a no-name author without an agent first.

Terry Brooks I was surprised to find him the most pleasant of the three men. I don't particularly like his works either--they can be like cardboard, but he has sold well, so I need to know why. And since he told about signings, that actually pleased me. I have gotten it confirmed by reading other works.

Overall though if you want to know writing techniques, how publishing works, how agents work, signings work, and the struggles of your average writer that hasn't made it mainstream, but isn't going around talking about solely how they broke a leg and relating their memoir in the shape of a writing book, I would say Holly Lisle, Mugging the Muse, which is a free book online, tops my list. After cleaning out Writer's Digest, the majority of their books, reading most of the Writing books section, I find hers to be the best.

But don't let my reviews stop you-- I would say read the book. Take it out from the library if need be. Read as many as you get, and you'll find the writer that clicks the most with you. And don't stop with one--read them ALL. And I'm quite serious about this. If you want a running list I can give you a head start and tell you exactly what they teach.

Mike C

But Kimmy, you didn't. You criticised the memoir, but didn't give one single 'solid reason' about the advice. What, of his advice (of which there is actually very little) did you find inaccurate or flawed?

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Truth-Teller

Are you deaf? I told you. The no-plotting method.

Yet, here you are trying to defend King, when in another thread you were verbally castigating those who refused to plot, or called plotting asinine.

Mike C

Are you stupid? All your posts indicate that you are. Those that plot, plot. Those that don't, don't. I've never criticised anyone for taking one path or the other. You, however, like to massage your ego by criticising everyone for everything.

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Dawnstorm

I'm not Kimbery, but there's a "Dawn" in my name, so...

No.

A verb can be in the passive voice, active voice, or in neither (in the case of linking verbs, and depending on your grammar theory, intransitive verbs).

Easy, considering there is no such thing.

True enough. It's silly advise there, too. But at least they get their grammar right.

So, in a nutshell: If you hide behind the passive voice, you're timid. If you hide behind the meeting you're not.

Two active voice versions of the original sentence:

I will hold the meeting at seven o'clock. (And you suckers will be there, because I'm The Man!)

Or:

We will hold the meeting at seven o'clock. (That's what we said, isn't it? You remember, don't you? Don't you?)

The entire timidity hypothesis isn't convincing me in the first place, but the example here is entirely off. (And "'s" is not an active verb, anyway, it's merely a linking verb.)

I suspect King doesn't like formal language and wouldn't like distant bosses. Notice how "seven o'clock" turned into "seven" in the more active version? All the opinionated authors of style manuals do that (and especially Strunk/White King's so fond of): replace a sentence they doesn't like (and made up to look bad, btw) with one they're fond of. They then make sure that the element they're talking about is in there. They make all sorts of other changes, too, but they claim the thing that made the difference is the one change they foreground.

Strunk & White are somewhat decent at the game of dazzling students, King not so much:

How many people would write that? I'm guessing that you have to put effort into coming up with something that bad. I certainly don't see it on boards. It's like arguing against nose piercings by driving a rusty nail through your nostrils.

He does master the game at other places, though:

A standard move against adverbs. Place the adverb where it is most conspicious - as a tag on phrase. Very few adverbs in fiction take that place (the exception being dialogue tags, which is a matter of debate). In fiction, I'd usually find:

He firmly closed the door.

Or, to seperate the manner from the verb:

Firmly he closed the door.

You may still dislike the adverb (I bet King would), and if you're dead set against adverbs you'll probably not notice that both these versions flow better than the original. (Although context might still favour the original.)

(Btw, later King thinks that "closing a door firmly" is the same thing as "slamming a door". This, I think, tells us more about King's sublety than about the phrase.)

Next: On "my angry lesbian breasts"

So a competent writer is one who's ignorant of metonymy (synechdoche)?

There is a reason why lesbians talk about "angry lesbian breasts", and not "angry lesbian ear lobes", or "angry lesbian pinky fingers".

*********

I honestly think his advice, where he's trying to be specific, is bad. But that doesn't make the book bad. The specific advice is kept to a mininum, and it's quite enough to show me where he's coming from (I have a better idea now, why I never liked his prose much - with the exception of some of his short fiction and everyday scenes in novels.)

It's "A Memoir of the Craft", and even his advice tells us more about himself than about the craft. But that's what makes this book special (I found the sample pages with editorial comments in the appendix very interesting.)

What I took from "On Writing" is that King learned writing from journalism, where saving space is more important than style. I think that's the key to his style (and would explain a lot of the silly prejudices against grammatical structures, too, if it wasn't for Strunk, who said pretty much the same thing but was a teacher, not a journalist.)

The book's great, but the advice is weak in the specifics about the craft.

Non Serviam

King's craft is writing mass market fiction that sells, and he's proved it works.

It may not be right for your craft, but let's respect him for what he is: one of the few wildly successful commercial genre fiction writers who've shared their thoughts on how to write.

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Dawnstorm

Certainly. And he did the right thing personalising the book instead of making it a this-is-what-you-do. It's a case study, not a how-to book.

Or differently put: that your writing works, doesn't mean that your theory about writing works. (And vice versa.)

Truth-Teller

Plotting is the same as outline.

So, in essence, King is saying--write without an outline--when he, himself, outlines. So I suggest you take his no plotting method with a grain of salt. You will circle around in your own feces.

DavidGil

I believe the key words in that book was he tries to do as little outlining and plotting as possible.

Edit: Page 163. I won't try to convince you that I've never plotted anymore than try to convince you I've never told a lie, but I do both as infrequently as possible.

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Non Serviam

No it isn't.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle The ways of the world are twisty and unknowable, the only way to be sure you are not caught out in something you regret is not to do things you may regret.