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On Writing
Stephen King
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What is On Writing about?
On Writing is Stephen King's guide to becoming a writer, explaining why you need to learn and practice principles such as simplicity, consistency, editing, and enthusiasm if you want to engage your readers and make a difference in their lives.
Key ideas of On Writing
Craft Over Inspiration
King argues that writing well depends on daily practice and concrete skills like cutting adverbs and avoiding passive voice, not on waiting for inspiration.
Stories Are Found, Not Invented
King sees stories as pre-existing fossils to be excavated, and trusts situation and character over plot to drive the work forward.
Writing as a Way of Living
After a near-fatal accident in 1999, King returned to the desk in pain because writing is what made him feel like himself, not a career move.
Read an excerpt from the summary
The Question Nobody Asks
Somewhere in the mid-nineteen-nineties, in a Chinese restaurant in Miami Beach before a Rock Bottom Remainders gig, Stephen King turned to Amy Tan and asked her the question every novelist eventually asks another novelist. What's the one question you never get asked? Tan thought about it for a beat and said: nobody ever asks about the language. That answer is the secret hinge of this entire book. King had been carrying around the idea of a craft book for about a year, and he kept stalling because he didn't want to come off, as he puts it, like a literary gas-bag or a transcendental asshole. Selling a lot of fried chicken, he reminds himself, doesn't mean you have anything useful to say about how to fry chicken. But Tan's answer cracked it open. If nobody asks about the language, then somebody should talk about the language. So he did, and the dedication on the front page reads simply: This book is dedicated to Amy Tan.
He opens with two ground rules that double as warnings about what kind of book this won't be. First: most books about writing are stuffed with bullshit, so this one will be short. Second: the editor is always right, even though no writer takes all editorial advice, because to write is human and to edit is divine. He cites Strunk and White's The Elements of Style as one of the few craft books without detectable bullshit, eighty-five pages of plain marching orders, and he pledges allegiance to Rule Seventeen: omit needless words. That pledge sets the tone for everything that follows. If a sentence can be cut, cut it. If a word is showing off, replace it. If a paragraph is dressed up like a household pet in evening clothes, strip it back down to skin.
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Continue in the appWho is it for?
- Anyone who wants honest, no-nonsense advice on how to actually improve their prose.
- Anyone who is stuck between a vague writing dream and the daily habit that would make it real.
- Anyone who has ever wondered whether talent or hard work matters more in becoming a writer.
- Anyone who wants a memoir that doubles as a master class in storytelling craft.
About the author: Stephen King
Stephen King is one of the best-selling fiction writers of all time, the author of more than sixty novels including Carrie, The Shining, Misery, and It. He has sold hundreds of millions of books worldwide across horror, suspense, and literary fiction.
King began publishing short stories in his teens and sold his first novel, Carrie, in 1973 after his wife retrieved the discarded manuscript from the trash. On Writing, published in 2000, draws on four decades of daily writing and is widely regarded as one of the most useful and honest books about the craft ever written.
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