On Writing, by Stephen King

The following are excerpts from the book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King.

"This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit." (pg. xvii)


"Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails." (pg. 114)

"Grammar is not just a pain in the ass; it's the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking." (pg. 114)

Unsure writers feel the passive voice somehow lends their work authority. (pg. 116)

"The adverb is not your friend." (pg. 117)

"... the road to hell is paved with adverbs ..." (pg. 118)

"Paragraphs are almost as important for how they look as for what they say; they are maps of intent." (pg. 123)

"Writing is refined thinking." (pg. 125)

"The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story ... to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all." (pg. 128)

"... the paragraph, not the sentence, is the basic unit of writing -- the place where coherence begins and words stand a chance of becoming more than mere words." (pg. 129)

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." (pg. 139)

[On talent and motivation] "If God gives you something you can do, why in God's name wouldn't you do it?" (pg. 147)

"... the work is always accomplished one word at a time." (pg. 151)

"Don't wait for the muse." (pg. 153)

Write about anything you damn well want, as long as you tell the truth. (pg. 153)

"... the assumption that the writer controls the material instead of the other way around." (pg. 155)

"... plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible." (pg. 159)

"... there is a huge difference between story and plot." (pg. 167)

A restraining order is as useful as a parasol in a hurricane. (pg. 168)

"Honesty in storytelling makes up for a great many stylistic faults ... Liars prosper, but only in the grand sweep of things, never down in the jungles of actual composition, where you must take your objective one bloody word at a time."  (pg. 170)

[On description] "It's not just a question of how-to, you see; it's also a question of how much to." (pg. 171)

[On describing a particular element] "... if I describe mine, it freezes out yours, and I lose a little bit of the bond of understanding I want to forge between us ... good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else." (pg. 172)

"... good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing." (pg. 177)

"... your job is to say what you see, and then to get on with your story ... one of the cardinal rules of fiction is never tell us a thing if you can show us, instead ..." (pg. 178)

[On dialogue] "Talk, whether ugly or truthful, is an index of character." (pg. 188)

[On the sudden occurrence of ideas] "At one moment I had none of this; at the next I had all of it." (pg. 204)

Starting with questions and thematic concerns is a recipe for bad fiction. (pg. 208)

"Downloading what's in my head directly to the page, I write as fast as I can and still remain comfortable ... outrun the self-doubt that's always waiting to settle in." (pg. 210)

" ... unreal estate ..." "only God gets it right the first time and only a slob says, 'Oh well, let it go, that's what copyeditors are for ...'" [On the benefit of putting away your writing] "... a strange, often exhilarating experience. It's yours, you'll recognize it as yours ... and yet it will also be like reading the work of someone else, a soul-twin, perhaps. This is the way it should be, the reason you waited. It's always easier to kill someone else's darlings ..." (pg. 213)

"... deleting all the adverbs I can bear to part with (never all of them; never enough) ... Is this story coherent? And if it is, what will turn coherence into a song? ... at the beginning of a story ... I have a tendency to flail." (pg. 215)

Someone wrote that novels are letters aimed at one person ... "every novelist has a single ideal reader ..." (pg. 216)

Most writers are needy, especially between the first and second drafts, "when the study door swings open and the light of the world shines in." (pg. 222)

[On pacing] Elmore Leonard explained it perfectly by saying he left out the boring parts. (pg. 224)

"... every story and novel is collapsible to some degree." (pg. 225)

[On the weight of research] "... remember that you are writing a novel, not a research paper." (pg. 233)

[On the value of writing retreats] "Do you need someone to make you a paper badge with the word WRITER on it before you can believe you are one? God, I hope not." (pg. 238)

[On King's knowledge of craft] "... has more to do with instinct than with anything resembling 'higher thought.' I found the act of articulating those instinctive truths painfully difficult." (pg. 253)

[On King's post-accident, return-to-writing experience] "I stepped from one word to the next like a very old man finding his way across a stream on a zigzag line of wet stones." (pg. 273)

"... the ordinary miracle that comes with any attempt to create something ... that buzz of happiness, that sense of having found the right words and put them in a line." (pg. 274)