Stephen King, of horror writing fame, released an excellent memoir of his craft in 1999. The book, “On Writing“, is the most readable and applicable writing advice I’ve read since Strunk & White’s “Elements of Style”. The book inspired six revelations in me – read and learn my new tricks.
1. Tell the truth.
Show readers the unique way you see the world. Imbue your work with life by filling it with your own personal knowledge of the world, friendships, relationships and, especially, work. This makes your writing more original and more human, since people will recognize themselves in your writing – and, once they see their own problems mirrored in your characters’ lives, eventually connect and become deeply involved with your story.
2. Read a lot
Good writers must read a lot - both good and bad prose. Bad prose teaches you what not to do,whilst good prose shows you beautiful examples of what is possible , as well as inspiring you to try that bit harder to reach said mastery. By reading, you gain a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, and of whats trite and what’s fresh, potentially saving you a lot of embarrassment.
3. Avoid adverbs
Remove as many adverbs from your writing as you can, replacing them instead with strong verbs. For example, ‘he closed the door firmly’, can be turned into the more powerful ‘he slammed the door’. A related no in King’s book is the use of adverbs in attributing dialogue -phrases like “she shouted gleefully” or “she whispered gently” make even King’s skin crawl. Use a stronger verb next time, or, better yet, just use the verb “said” and rely on context and content to inform readers how any particular line was said.
4. Use fresh imagery
Metaphor and simile are used to show a connection between two seemingly unrelated ideas. Fresh imagery, powered by metaphor, is a powerful literary tool and it’s use is a priority to you as a writer. By contrast, cliched simile must be avoided – the point of imagery is to evoke fresh images and in using hackneyed cliches you evoke stale powerless imagery, which makes you appear naive or limited. Stephen King is not the first to ring on this point - George Orwell’s writing advice, explained in his essay “Politics and the English Language“, also emphasizes this point.
5. A book/article is a letter
Think of your book as a letter to someone you know, or know but don’t know. Write at their level of knowledge, explaining that which is new to them, and leaving out what they know. By putting this person in mind, you start thinking about your readability. Will they have the tools they need to understand this? Would they find this section boring? Will this help them in any way to understand themselves?
6. Be concise
King said he learned the most about writing from the editor of His college newspaper. Printed on one page is s a photo of his first edited piece, where we see the original piece overlaid by extended pen lines through the text, with a sparse few words scribbled above the line in their place. By reducing your word count, you avoid a great deal of stylistic errors often caused by excessive wordiness, such as the dreaded passive tense, boring scenes, excessive description. Conciseness nudges you to focus on communicating your story rather than wasting it elsewhere.
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