I was tidying up my writing desk and found notes from when I did a deep dive on the non-fiction book On Writing by Stephen King. If you want some good advice about writing (especially fiction), Stephen King should be at the top of the list. Here is a summary of my notes and hopefully there will be one or two points that speak to where you are in your own writing journey.
Good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere. Two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to create these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.
When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.
The writer’s original perception of a character may be as erroneous as the reader’s.
Put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.
The basic rule of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to your mind if it is appropriate and colorful.
Use the adverb in dialogue attribution in only the rarest and most special occasions and not even then if you can avoid it.
Fear is at the root of most bad writing.
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. Writing is seduction. The paragraph, not the sentence, is the basic unit of writing.
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.
The first draft of a book–even a long one–should take no more than three months. 10 pages/day = 2,000 words = 180,000 words for three months.
For any writer, but for the beginning writer in particular, it’s wise to eliminate every possible distraction. When you’re writing, you’re creating your own worlds.
People love to read about work.
There’s a difference between lecturing about what you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not.
Stories and novels consist of three parts
1. Narration - moves the story from A to B
2. Description - creates a sensory reality
3. Dialogue - brings characters to life
Plot is a good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored. The situation comes first. The characters–always flat and unfeatured, to begin with–come next. Once these things are fixed in my mind, I begin to narrate.
The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a what-if question.
Good description is a learned skill. It’s not just a question of how-to, it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. Description begins with visualization of what it is you want the reader to experience. It ends with your translating what you see in your mind into words on a page. It’s also important to know what to describe and what can be left alone while you get on with your main job, which is telling a story. Description begins in the writer’s mind but should finish in the reader’s.
When it comes to scene-setting and all sorts of description, a meal is as good as a feast.
One of the cardinal rules of good fiction is never tell us a thing if you can show us.
The best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.
Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story.
Once you finish the book, let it rest for a minimum of six weeks. You’re not ready to go back to the old project until you’ve gotten so involved in a new one (or re-involved in your day-to-day life) that you’ve almost forgotten about it. It will be like reading the work of someone else. It’s always easier to kill someone else’s darlings than it is to kill your own. With six weeks time you’ll also be able to see any glaring holes in the plot or character development.
The most glaring errors I find on the re-read have to do with character motivation.
During the re-read: knocking out pronouns with unclear antecedents, adding clarifying phrases where they seem necessary, and deleting all the adverbs I can bear to part with.
The BIG questions:
Is the story coherent?
What will turn coherence into a song?
What are the recurring elements?
Do they entwine and make a theme?
Does it resonate?
If you’re writing primarily for one person besides yourself, I’d advise you to pay very close attention to that person’s opinion. Call that one person you write for Ideal Reader. Having an Ideal Reader will help you get outside yourself a little, to actually read your work in progress as an audience would while you’re still working. This is perhaps the best way of all to make sure you stick to story, a way of playing to the audience even while there’s no audience there and you’re totally in charge. Ideal Reader is also the best way for you to gauge whether or not your story is paced correctly and if you’ve handled the back story in a satisfactory fashion.
The 2nd draft is the 1st draft - 10%
Back story is all the stuff that happened before your tale began but which has an impact on the front story. It helps define character and establish motivation. As a reader, I’m a lot more interested in what’s going to happen than what already did. The most important things to remember about back story are that a) everyone has a history and b) most of it isn’t very interesting. That’s where research belongs: as far in the background and the back story as you can get.
It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster’s shell that makes the pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters.
Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life as well.