On Writing by Stephen King

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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Finished: 2025-07-23
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Thoughts: Good writing advice sprinkled among anecdotes, some more interesting than others.

• Kill all adverbs
• First draft "with the door closed" for yourself
• Second draft for the hypothetical Ideal Reader
• Second draft should be shorter than the first. He aims for 10% reduction

Highlighted

I believe large numbers of people have at least some talent as writers and storytellers, and that those talents can be strengthened and sharpened.

"When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story."

What you need to remember is that there’s a difference between lecturing about what you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not.

The situation comes first. The characters—always flat and unfeatured, to begin with—come next. Once these things are fixed in my mind, I begin to narrate.

A strong enough situation renders the whole question of plot moot, which is fine with me.

Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.

When it comes to scene-setting and all sorts of description, a meal is as good as a feast

In a very real sense, every life is in medias res.

The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting. Stick to the parts that are, and don’t get carried away with the rest.