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On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue)) by [Stephen King]

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Stephen King

On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue)) Kindle Edition

by Stephen King (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Twentieth Anniversary Edition with Contributions from Joe Hill and Owen King

ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S TOP 100 NONFICTION BOOKS OF ALL TIME

Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King’s critically lauded, million-copy bestseller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.

“Long live the King” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it—fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.

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320 pages
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English
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Scribner
Publication date

October 3, 2000
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Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”
Highlighted by 13,397 Kindle readers
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.
Highlighted by 9,042 Kindle readers
“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,” he said. “When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”
Highlighted by 8,501 Kindle readers
It starts with this: 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.
Highlighted by 7,990 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A one-of-a-kind classic."—The Wall Street Journal

"This is a special book, animated by a unique intelligence, and filled with useful truth."—Michael Chabon

"On Writing had more useful and observant things to say about the craft than any book since Strunk and White's The Elements of Style."—Roger Ebert

“The best book on writing. Ever.”—The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Review

" A one-of-a-kind classic. "

-- "Wall Street Journal "

" This is a special book, animated by a unique intelligence, and filled with useful truth. "

-- "Michael Chabon"

"On Writing had more useful and observant things to say about the craft than any book since Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. "

-- "Roger Ebert"

"The best book on writing. Ever. "

-- "Cleveland Plain Dealer"

"Tthis combination of memoir and masterclass by fiction's most successful modern storyteller showcases the blunt, casual brilliance of King at his best. As well as being genuinely useful, it's a fascinating chronicle of literary persistence and of a lifelong love affair with language and narrative."

-- "The Guardian (London)"

"With examples that reach from T. S. Eliot to pulp fiction, there's much trenchant material here on how to construct a story, how to revise, and how to go about building a career...This is unmistakably King: friendly, sharply perceptive, cheerfully vulgar, sometimes adolescent in his humor, sometimes impatient with fools, but always sincere in his love of language and writing. "

-- "Kirkus Reviews" --This text refers to the audioCD edition.

From Publishers Weekly

As his diehard fans know, King is a member of a writers-only rock 'n' roll band (Amy Tan is also a member), and this recording starts off with a sampling of their music. It may sound unsettling to some, but King quickly puts listeners at ease with his confident, candid and breezy tone. Here, King tells the story of his childhood and early influences, describes his development as a writer, offers extensive advice on technique (read: write tight and no bullshit) and finally recounts his well-known experience of being hit by a drunk driver while walking on a country road in 1999 and the role that his work has played in his rehabilitation. While some of his guidance is not exactly revolutionary (he recommends The Elements of Style as a must-have reference), other revelations that vindicate authors of popular fiction, like himself, as writers, such as his preference for stressing character and situation over plot, are engrossing. He also offers plenty of commonsense advice on how to organize a workspace and structure one's day. While King's comical childhood anecdotes and sober reflections on his accident may be appreciated while driving to work or burning calories on a treadmill, the book's main exercise does not work as well in the audio format. King's strongest recommendation, after all, is that writers must be readers, and despite his adept performance, aspiring authors might find that they would absorb more by picking up the book. Based on the Scribner hardcover (Forecasts, July 31, 2000).

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From AudioFile

When Stephen King says "blood" or "lips," his Bangor, Maine, accent drags the "l" into his own dialect. Disguised as a writer's manual, King's latest yarn spills out the story of his life, which happens to revolve around writing. Fans will be eager to hear the master tell where his stories, his dialogue, his characters, and his language began. And, more than in any previous narration, King's energy and emotion radiate around his favorite subject, literature. At the end he relives a recent bone-crushing accident, precipitated by a character right out of one of his own novels. The author/patient recounts his discovery that his passionate mania for writing helps mend both bones and heart. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Amazon.com Review

Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash." But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber." As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing."

King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.

King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-By the time King was 14, the scads of rejection slips he'd accumu-lated grew too heavy for the nail in the wall on which they were mounted. He replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing. This straight-up book inspires without being corny, and teens suspicious of adult rhap-sodies to perseverance will let down their guard and be put at ease by the book's gritty conversational tone. The first 100 pages are pure memoir-paeans to the horror movies and fanzines that captivated King as a child, the expected doses of misadventure (weeks of detention for distributing his own satirical zine at school; building an electromagnet that took out the electricity of half a street), and hard times. King writes just as passion-ately in the second half of the book, where the talk turns to his craft. He provides plenty of samples of awkward or awful writing and contrasts them with polished versions. Hand this title to reluctant readers and reluctant writers, sit back, and watch what happens.-Emily Lloyd, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

From Booklist

King could write a phone book and make it not only a best-seller but also gripping reading. So expect his fiction-writing how-to to be a megahit that reaches plenty of readers besides wanna-be novelists. It is riveting, thanks to King's customary flair for the vernacular and conversational tone, and to the fact that he flanks his advice with two memoirs, the latter recalling his near-fatal 1999 stint as the victim of a bad driver. The first memoir, "C.V.," concentrates on his life as a writer, which began in childhood. It took some time to publish for money, but ever since Carrie garnered $400,000 for paperback rights, he has been the Stephen King. He loves to write, though he emphasizes it is far more work than play. Loving it is essential, though, and having a good "toolbox," full of vocabulary, grammar, and the usage and mechanics prescribed by Strunk and White's perdurable Elements of Style, is next most important. It is invaluable to read a lot, and the key to novel writing is following the story--not a plot that can be charted or outlined, but the developments natural for the characters, given the situation they are in. For himself, King says, good health and a good marriage have been crucial, never more so than during his recovery from the accident. Good advice and a good, ordinary life, relayed in spunky, vivid prose, are the prime ingredients of what must be considered not at all the usual writer's guide. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews

Generous, lucid, and passionate, King (Hearts in Atlantis, 1999, etc.) offers lessons and encouragement to the beginning writer, along with a warts-and-all account of a less-than-carefree life. The composition of this memoir, King's first nonfiction work since Danse Macabre, was interrupted when he was almost killed by a drunk driver in 1999. The first portion of it shares the making of the writer: his impoverished but experientially rich childhood, his first efforts and influences, the threadbare existence he and his wife Tabitha lived until the publication of Carrie, and his remarkable success thereafter. There are some delightful anecdotes here. In a late-night creative frenzy, his wife sleeping in their London hotel room, King asks the concierge for a place to write and is led to Rudyard Kipling's desk. Though intimidated, King proceeds to write the beginnings of Misery, then thanks the concierge, who tells him, "Kipling died there actually. . . . While writing." King discusses his problems with drugs and alcohol and offers an assessment of his own work (he doesn't think much of Insomnia or Rose Madder, but he liked Cujo and regrets that he was too drunk at the time to remember writing any of it). Written largely while recovering from his accident, the rest of the memoir answers the questions King hears from aspiring writers, as well as the questions they should be asking, but don't. With examples that reach from T.S. Eliot to pulp fiction, there's much trenchant material here on how to construct a story, how to revise, and how to go about building a career. King stresses character and situation over plotting, and insists on basics-like Strunk and White and, above all, endless reading and writing. While his proposed output might intimidate some, his enthusiasm wins out.A useful book for any young writer, and a must for fans, this is unmistakably King: friendly, sharply perceptive, cheerfully vulgar, sometimes adolescent in his humor, sometimes impatient with fools, but always sincere in his love of language and writing -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal

In 1981 King penned Danse Macabre, a thoughtful analysis of the horror genre. Now he is treating his vast readership to another glimpse into the intellect that spawns his astoundingly imaginative works. This volume, slim by King standards, manages to cover his life from early childhood through the aftermath of the 1999 accident that nearly killed him. Along the way, King touts the writing philosophies of William Strunk and Ernest Hemingway, advocates a healthy appetite for reading, expounds upon the subject of grammar, critiques a number of popular writers, and offers the reader a chance to try out his theories. But most important, we who climb aboard for this ride with the master spend a few pleasant hours under the impression that we know what it!s like to think like Stephen King. Recommended for anyone who wants to write and everyone who loves to read.
-"Nancy McNicol, Hagaman Memorial Lib., East Haven, CT
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

""On Writing" had more useful and observant things to say about the craft than any book since Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style"."--Roger Ebert

"A one-of-a-kind classic."--"The Wall Street Journal"

"The best book on writing. Ever."--"The Plain Dealer" (Cleveland)

"This is a special book, animated by a unique intelligence, and filled with useful truth."--Michael Chabon --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000FC0SIM
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner; 1st edition (October 3, 2000)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 3, 2000
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 9177 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1982159375

Best Sellers Rank: #20,588 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2 in Fiction Writing Reference (Kindle Store)
- #4 in Words & Language Reference
- #26 in Words, Language & Grammar Reference

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Unsuprisingly a must read for writers and Stephen King fans

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 20, 2023

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I enjoy writing very much and did read it in part because of that. I think it did and will continue to help me become a better writer, although it is more of a hobby for me than anything else. I also read this book because I am a huge Stephen King fan. I have to say, you will not be disappointed either way.

If you are just a fan of his and want to read this and don't care about writing at all, read it. You'll get to know your favorite writer a whole lot better and I believe the writing advice in it will help enrich your reading of his works. If you are a writer and don't really care for Stephen King, you should know that it is autobiographical, but the writing advice dispersed throughout is well worth it. It is also autobiographical for the purpose of explaining how he became the writer he is and he does not drone on about anything.

As a Constant Reader and a human being in general, I was not disappointed in any way, shape or form. I don't think you will be either.

3 people found this helpful

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Trevor J. Riches

IF YOU ARE AN ASPIRING WRITER YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 7, 2023

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I recently came across a YouTube video featuring Stephen King discussing the craft of writing. I enjoyed the video which lead me to his book “Stephen King on Writing:A Memoir of the Craft”. Simply stated, I could not put the book down. Advice on the craft of writing extended to his personal experiences leading to the development and writing of his many books. In my opinion Mr.King’s honesty and willingness to share many faucets of his personal life made this book what it is: one of THE books for the aspiring writer to read.
The book is chocker block full of examples to aid in a clear understanding of what it takes to be a successful writer and to share your work with the world.
It is destined to become a classic on writing advice.

2 people found this helpful

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Tara Purcell

Excellent. Neither a memoir, nor an instruction manual.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 26, 2023

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Every husband should speak of his wife with as much high regard. Not the focal point of the book, by any means, but Tabitha King’s husband knows how to appreciate. (A joke for Tabitha). I was exclaiming in the first pages. After I read this book, I wanted the author of the next book I read to go back and apply it. This book illuminated for me why some books are tedious to read. He is a master, and not just of his genre, apparently.

One person found this helpful

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Linda G. Shelnutt

Riding Right Brain Chaos; Honed, Heavy Horror

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 13, 2005

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Thumbs-In-Vest Earned In Every Effort.

Leave it to Stephen King to write one of the few books I could recommend on writing, without fearing that, in doing so, I would be damning a potentially creative individual. As a bonus, King recommends my standby reference on writing, "Elements of Style," by William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White.

Leave it to King, The Master, to write this semi-autobiographical expose on authorship craft in a more intriguingly unique organizational setup than anyone else could conjure or dare. Leave it to Him to force (or else) a (sort of) "how to" book into mesmerizing entertainment; to step into the job with a horrific grab about a kid suffering ear drum puncture; and to coerce an anomaly of styles and content to coalesce into a gestalt of genius which WORKS, period.

How can a book on writing be riveting?? Read it and see.

King includes only those riveting parts of his personal history which have contributed to his writing career. He includes only the necessary elements to "teach" how to spark and stir creative fires. He includes only the necessary keys to his success (amazingly, he does know what those keys are).

I was impressed with King's exposure of his method of writing from a SITUATION rather than from a precise PLOT outline; I still find myself chewing on that daring technique (though I do still appreciate a strongly plotted story).

I was interested in his examples of bad and good prose, and agree with his praise of other works, though I reserve judgment on a few of his criticisms, and have developed techniques to take breaks whenever I need them without permanently losing a creative flow, which I can renew at almost any point if I can set up the right conditions. (When I break through with as many Number One Best Sellers as Mr. King has, maybe my opinion on writing will be as viable as his.)

King has many times earned the right to have an opinion on writing and to offer it for sale. Yet, he has approached this project with genuine humility, which is, to me, endearing (sorry about the sentimental slip, Oh Master of Horror).

What do I admire most about this author, which is evident in this book? I absolutely enjoy his regenerating honesty, his uncanny originality, and his demand of himself to toss reader boredom into a black hole and perform, within his printed words, 24/7 without fail. Also love the way he sincerely and humbly exposes his respect for his wife.
Given what this man has endured and accomplished in his life, he's earned the best type of REST available to a human being, and I don't mean the big "D." He deserves to be quite proud of himself. He deserves to have his thumbs permanently posed in the sides of a vest, to sit back and smile at his trail of effort and result.

What a gift that he would attempt in earnest to share his secrets of writing success. And his uncanny self-awareness allowed him to share clearly what those secrets are, in this valuable gift for the youngest as well as the most seasoned of writers. This I say as a 2 decades professional writer and previous English and creative writing teacher who has published various articles and finished and polished 8 fiction manuscripts and has another 8 + book-length works in progress. I'm not EVEN near King's level in the marketplace (yet), but I am a highly productive creative spirit who knows how to maintain, ride, and design the flow.

There's always more than one way to approach any creative endeavor, and my approach to writing is similar to King's in some ways, somewhat different in other ways (I can only compare, of course, to the content offered in this book). This insight to King's techniques exposes what works for him and what could work for other, though of course not all creative spirits. Young writers should allow themselves leeway in deciding how to tap and work with their talents. Creativity should be allowed to flourish, even when establishing a personal method on how to use that force, and sometimes it's necessary to forge a unique path diverging from even the greatest masters. When I was teaching creative writing in the public school systems, I asked my students to at least try some of the established methods of writing prior to setting any of them aside to break away from them.

Another great book which exposes a writer's path and techniques (through a novel rather than through a unique how to book) is THE NOVEL by James A. Michener. See my review.

What I believe On Writing has exposed better than many writing "how to" books is tapping into the Right Brain. As I've observed the styles of many authors of novels, they each seem to be almost "designed" by DNA to work in different precise balances of Right/Left Brain. The Left Brain wants steps, plots, outlines, plans and structure to be elaborately perfect prior to that leap into the ozone. The pure Right Brain wants only the chaos of riding a storm of the absolute unknown, describing it as it explodes into the presence of present time, constantly changing, churning.

Bottom line, though, telling a fledgling writer how to do it is, for me, a frightening extension of my uniqueness, because I would not ever want to hamper the growth of a maverick creative source needing by its design to walk a path not taught by any master before him. Possibly every "how to" book should carry a warning.

This one enters the effort in fairness, with humility and honesty, and does not say or imply, "This is THE only way to write."

Thank you, Stephen, for sharing your personal and professional views on writing, which expose your adept use of both sides of the brain, highlighting your ability to slip into the quirks of the Right side in intriguingly clear ways. Not all writers can explain how that slip into the ozone happens. Great books have been produced with various balances of Left & Right. I love riding the Right, but every time I get totally off the Left it scares the shzzt out of me.

With Sincere Respect,
Linda G. Shelnutt

19 people found this helpful

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Drake Eastburn

A must have for any writer

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 27, 2023

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I don't know if Steven King has written more books than anyone, but he certainly has sold the most. Who better to get advice about writing from, than a master craftsman. I see this book more as a journey than a step by step how to. It is loaded with good advice while taking you down the path of the life of a journeyman's experience. As I write about in my own book, every writer should have books about writing on their shelf, but if you only could have one such book, this is the one. If you want to be a better writer, why not learn from the best.
Review by Drake Eastburn, author of Activate Your Muse (Writing From Your Subconscious Mind), and others.

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Top reviews from other countries

Will Price

Excellent

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on March 5, 2022

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Everyone should buy and read it

MrOrange

Happy customer

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on July 21, 2020

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Got is as a present, recipient loved it

Rob

A must for writers

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on March 8, 2019

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Fascinating and informative book. If you like Stephen King or want to be a writer, it should be compulsory reading.

One person found this helpful

A Moore

Great read for aspiring writers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 24, 2015

Verified Purchase

I bought this book for my partner’s dad last Christmas to encourage him to write, and he also bought it for my partner (apparently it makes a great gift!) so I’ve snuck in there and read it first.

It took me a while to get into this book, and I think that’s because I was desperate to get to the writing advice bit. I was often tempted to just skip forward, but I persevered with the initial chapters (they’re not boring by any means, I just wanted the writing advice!)

The first part of the book is a kind of memoir, as King recounts different events in his life that relate to his writing style and the genre he writes in too. It’s well written and enjoyable throughout, but I particularly like the later stages. I think everyone loves a good struggle-to-success story, and King’s is a great one. You can’t help but feel for him as he works hard to support his family and still manages to fit his writing in on the side. Just reading it made me want to write more and made me realise that excuses just don’t cut it – we’re all tired and busy, but if you really want to do something then you just get on and do it.

And then we get to the part where he sells Carrie and I actually had tears in my eyes. When he’s told the amount of money he’s getting for it, and looks around and the tiny, terrible houses he’s living in, and knows his life is going to change – I think it’s every writer’s dream. I adore success stories like this.

The actual writing advice is all very solid. Some of it is worded in a brilliant way that might cause a little revelation in you, but other bits are pretty standard advice that you’ll hear from all kinds of writers and editors. As always, there’s no magic formula for becoming a great writer or writing an amazing story – and anyone who tells you otherwise is not to be trusted – but there are certain skills you can develop and hone. I think the charm here is King’s bluntness and simple way of putting things – there’s no fluff here, no false hope, just a lot of great advice.

I’d definitely recommend this book, for any King fans who want to know more about him and how he writes his books, and for aspiring writer’s who want some straightforward advice. It doesn’t promise to make you a better writer, but with this advice, it can’t make you any worse.

46 people found this helpful

Sonny Greenwich Jr

Steven King's take on How To Write

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 30, 2023

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It is almost an autobiography before it hits the writing tips. The tips are great, real working writer's knowledge. This, the Strunk & White and you're off to writing your first novel!

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On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue)) Kindle Edition

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On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue))

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Stephen King

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