Everything Writers Need To Know In 10 Minutes: Stephen King's Tips

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Reading Stephen King's books, you cannot say that he is one of those writers who love brevity. However, in an article dating back to 1986, King discussed what every writer needs to know to be successful. Who else to listen to such advice from if not from one of the best writers of our time?

My acquaintance with King's work did not start with books. I first learned about it after watching the movie "", which amazed me with absolutely everything: the plot, characters, disaster and, of course, the ending. Be sure to check it out if you like science fiction or thrillers.

But most of all I was hooked by the plot. After watching it, I began to search the Internet for everything that can be found about this film, and learned that the script was created based on the book by Stephen King "". Then I, like many others, heard about King, but did not seriously think about reading books written in the horror genre. However, the film caught on, and I decided that I could not be disappointed in the work of this man. And so it happened.

King has become one of my favorite writers. Accidentally stumbling upon his article, in which he talks about what writers need, I realized that as many people as possible should learn about it.

Introduction

Yes, I know the title of an article is a bit like the promotional material for failed authors, but I will really cover the things that anyone looking to write for a living needs to know.

The story of how Stephen King learned to write

When I was in high school, I got into an unpleasant story, as is often the case with high school students. I wrote and published a small satirical article in which I ridiculed several teachers from my school. The ridicule was not very good-natured, but rather dirty and cruel.

A copy of the newspaper fell into the hands of the school staff, and since I was smart enough to leave my last name under the article, I was invited to the principal. By that time, the satirical writer in me had evaporated, giving up his place to a 14-year-old teenager who was trembling with fear in anticipation of punishment.

I was not punished, but they made me apologize and work for a week in a correctional center. There I was forced to write a column on sports in a small magazine. The editor was a man who taught me everything a writer needs to know. His name was John Gould.

He told me he needed a columnist for a sports column and offered to look at each other. I said that I know nothing about sports and even know more about algebra. He replied: "You will learn."

I agreed, deciding to give it a try. Gould gave me a stack of yellow paper and said he would pay half a cent per word. The first two articles I wrote were about the high school basketball team. I brought them to Gould for a look. He read them, took a black pen and taught me everything a writer needs to know.

Here's what part of the draft was before the fixes:

Last night at the gym at Lisbon High School, fans and fans of the team were amazed at a sporting performance that will surely go down in school history: Bob Ransom, better known as Bullet Bob for his volume and accuracy, scored 37 points. He did so with speed, grace … and even odd politeness, earning only two fouls in his knightly trial, breaking the previous 1953 record.

After editing:

Last night at Lisbon High School, fans and fans of the team were amazed at a sporting performance that will surely go down in school history: Bob Ransome scored 37 points. He did it with speed, grace … and even odd politeness, earning only two fouls and breaking the previous record for the 1953 high school basketball team.

When Gould finished editing the article in the same manner, he looked at me and said, “I only threw out the bad parts. In general, the article is good."

Another introduction

Thousands of courses for writers are held annually in the United States: seminars, guest presentations, lectures, answers to questions that end with drinking gin. I will remove all unnecessary nonsense from the advice, leaving only the important.

What you need to know to be a successful writer

1. Be talented. What is talent? I can already hear someone shouting to prove their opinion on this matter. To a writer, talent means two things: publications and money. If you wrote something and received a check for it, you cashed it and got real money, I think you are talented. How do you know that writing is not yours? Do not know. Certainly not after six bad stories. And not after 60. After 600? Perhaps. After 6,000? If you have not succeeded after 6,000 stories, then it is better to try your hand at programming.
2. Be careful. Errors, double spaces, spelling - watch out for this. If you bring a draft to a publisher, make sure it is printed on neat white paper. If the draft contains many corrections, reprint it.
3. Criticize yourself. If you haven't crossed out half of the draft, you are lazy. Only God does everything perfectly the first time.
4. Remove every unnecessary word. If you want to write, get down to business. Remove all verbal junk, rewrite and try to shorten the work as much as possible.
5. Don't look at reference books when you first draft. Throw dictionaries and encyclopedias in the trash can. Made a mistake in the word? You have two options: start looking for it in the dictionary and interrupt your thoughts, or write something and fix it later.
6. Know your audience. Only an idiot would submit a story about a mother and daughter talking about religion to Playboy. But people do it all the time. If you like science fiction read science journals. If you like poetry, read famous authors and submit your poetry to the right places.
7. Write to entertain. Does this mean that you cannot write "serious literature"? No. But your serious ideas should support an interesting story, not the other way around.
8. Ask yourself, "Am I enjoying myself?" The answer doesn't always have to be yes. But if it's always negative, then you need to take on a new project. Or a new career.
9. How to deal with criticism. Show your draft to a few people. For example, ten. Listen carefully to what they have to say. Smile and nod. Then go through all the items they went through. If seven out of ten agree that the character is uninteresting or that the plot is trivial, then it is so. If everyone said something different, you can safely ignore it.
10. Agent? Forget about it. Bye. The agent takes 10%. And 10% of nothing is nothing. As long as you have nothing, the agent has nothing to take from you. Once you need it, you can easily find it.
11. If it doesn't work out well, start over. In a civilized society, mercy killing is against the law. Writing is different.

That's all you need to know. If you read carefully, now you can write whatever you want.

My 10 minutes have come to an end.

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