Product Description

"Long live the King" hailed Entertainment Weekly upon the publication of Stephen King's On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported near-fatal accident in 1999 -- and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it -- fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1845 in Books
• Published on: 2002-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.com Review
Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash." But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber." As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing."

King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.

King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly
As his diehard fans know, King is a member of a writers-only rock 'n' roll band (Amy Tan is also a member), and this recording starts off with a sampling of their music. It may sound unsettling to some, but King quickly puts listeners at ease with his confident, candid and breezy tone. Here, King tells the story of his childhood and early influences, describes his development as a writer, offers extensive advice on technique (read: write tight and no bullshit) and finally recounts his well-known experience of being hit by a drunk driver while walking on a country road in 1999 and the role that his work has played in his rehabilitation. While some of his guidance is not exactly revolutionary (he recommends The Elements of Style as a must-have reference), other revelations that vindicate authors of popular fiction, like himself, as writers, such as his preference for stressing character and situation over plot, are engrossing. He also offers plenty of commonsense advice on how to organize a workspace and structure one's day. While King's comical childhood anecdotes and sober reflections on his accident may be appreciated while driving to work or burning calories on a treadmill, the book's main exercise does not work as well in the audio format. King's strongest recommendation, after all, is that writers must be readers, and despite his adept performance, aspiring authors might find that they would absorb more by picking up the book. Based on the Scribner hardcover (Forecasts, July 31, 2000).

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-By the time King was 14, the scads of rejection slips he'd accumu-lated grew too heavy for the nail in the wall on which they were mounted. He replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing. This straight-up book inspires without being corny, and teens suspicious of adult rhap-sodies to perseverance will let down their guard and be put at ease by the book's gritty conversational tone. The first 100 pages are pure memoir-paeans to the horror movies and fanzines that captivated King as a child, the expected doses of misadventure (weeks of detention for distributing his own satirical zine at school; building an electromagnet that took out the electricity of half a street), and hard times. King writes just as passion-ately in the second half of the book, where the talk turns to his craft. He provides plenty of samples of awkward or awful writing and contrasts them with polished versions. Hand this title to reluctant readers and reluctant writers, sit back, and watch what happens.-Emily Lloyd, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

On Writing - by Stephen King
Stephen King's On Writing covers inspiration, writing, editing and storytelling from the perspective of arguably the World's greatest living writer.

He provides examples of how a piece can be written and then illustrates the language which makes it come alive. Also provided are tips, tricks and techniques which will improve any writer's approach to the craft.

King stresses the need to read if you want to write and he provides his favoured reading list as one starting point. He cites examples of the differing styles of some of these writers helping the reader appreciate the subtleties that may have escaped notice in the past.

The book will challenge the writer who approaches novel writing from a process viewpoint and instead shows how storytelling, the Stephen King way, is accomplished and why the level of suspense remains high in his books.

On Writing opens the mind to the possible and shows how it can be done.

Inspirational book for writers and readers alike!
I found King's memoir on the craft of writing On Writing more inspirational than instructional (a good thing) though he does spend quite a bit of time addressing the deadly overuse of the adverb (ah, there's one now) in beginning writer's work. Reading about King's struggles to write and to publish amidst his struggles to live serve to remind writers that we can overcome the challenges we face in life and use them to inform our writing. King fans interested in how writers work, find motivation, and especially in King's life will find On Writing interesting. King doesn't try to pretend his life - the good and the bad - is anything other than what it is. His honesty is disarming. Enough so it may capture some new fans for King's fiction. Writers and readers a lot can get something from On Writing.

Excellent
This book is a combination of autobiography and instructions on writing. Mr. King selects incidents from his youth that led him to become a writer, and illuminates us on his progress. Should be a delightful book for anyone who wishes to become a popular writer, and appreciates this man's books. I find it helpful and fun to read.