Stephen King's "On Writing"

[jeriendhal]

I've been listening to this the past couple of days at work, and while I'm not a particular fan of King's work beyond the early Dark Tower books, I have to admit I'm amazed by his dedication to his craft and his abilities. He may not be telling a tale I particularly want to hear, but I can't deny that he tells it well. Like Garrison Kiellor telling another tall tale of life in Lake Woebegon, he knows how to spin a yarn, even if the journey doesn't have a well laid out path.

Actually, that's a point that I was immensely pleased to hear King articulate, because when he writes, he writes in a manner he considers a virtue, and not what I previously believed was a weakness. Essentially, while King may have the germ of a situation in his head when he starts writing, he firmly believes in not plotting out his novel when he starts to write, instead relying on the characters to let him know how they'd react in the situation he's set them in, and find they're own solution. He refers to it as an act of arceology, digging up the bones of the story.

I've complained several times here of my own inability to write out a plot, instead setting up characters in a situation and seeing where it goes, plotting on the fly. Turns out I appear to be onto something, even if my level of skill isn't in King's class, and I'm not particularly adept at producing something that would catch the eye of a publisher.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

As I recall, Elmore Leonard also does not plot his books out before writing them and neither did Charles Willeford. Not of all of Leonard's books are any good^H^H^H^H entirely successful but enough are that the method appears to be workable.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

And King actually quoted from Leonard's Be Cool for an example of good dialog. Unfortunately he also quoted from The Color Out of Space and Hart's War for mind-boggling BAD dialog. I'm still trying to find some lead to pour into my ears after listening to those.