Sundays with Stephen King’s “On Writing”
A series featuring reflections on writing from the famed author’s memoir.
A series featuring reflections on writing from the famed author’s memoir.
I had not read Stephen King’s memoir On Writing for several years when it occurred to me to do so again. While at it, why not share reflections from the renowned writer in a weekly Sunday series at Go Into The Story?
King is a prolific author. Fair to say that is an understatement. One need only glance at a roster of his written works to determine that. If any contemporary writer has earned the right to reflect on the craft, it would be King. However, that is not the motivation he had in writing his memoir. This excerpt from the ‘First Foreword’ of On Writing explains the genesis of the book, a fateful exchange with Amy Tan, fellow writer and member of an authors’ charity rock music group The Remainders.
One night while we were eating Chinese before a gig in Miami Beach, I asked Amy if there was any one question she was never asked during the Q-and-A that follows almost every writer’s talk — that question you never get to answer when you’re standing in front of a group of author-struck fans and pretending you don’t put your pants on one leg at a time like everyone else. Amy paused, thinking it over very carefully, and miss said: “No one ever asks about the language.”
I owe an immediate debt of gratitude to her for saying that. I had been playing with the idea of writing a little book about writing for a year or more at that time, but had held back because I didn’t trust my own motivations — why did I want to write about writing? What made me think I had anything worth saying?
The easy answer is that someone who has sold as many books of fiction as I have must have something worthwhile to say about writing it, but the easy answer isn’t always the truth. Colonel Sanders sold a hell of a lot of fried chicken, but I’m not sure anyone wants to know how he made it. If I was going to be presumptuous enough to tell people how to write, I felt there had to be a better reason than my popular success. Put another way, I didn’t want to write a book, even a short one like this, that would leave me feeling like a literary gasbag or a transcendental asshole. There are enough of those books — and those writers — on the market already, thanks.
But Amy was right: nobody ever asks about the language. They ask the DeLillos and the Updikes and the Styrons, but they don’t ask popular novelists. Yet many of us proles also care about the language, in our humble way, and care passionately about the art and craft of telling stories on paper. What follows is an attempt to put down, briefly and simply, how I came to the craft, what I know about it now, and how it’s done. It’s about the day job; it’s about the language.
My intention is similar to the Sundays with Ray Bradbury series: Each week as I re-read King’s memoir, print notable excerpts at Go Into The Story to inspire our creativity and conversation about the craft.
Today: From the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of On Writing, excerpts from pp. 163–165:
In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.
You may wonder where plot is in all this. The answer — my answer, anyway — is nowhere. I won't try to convince you that I've never plotted any more than I try to convince you that I've never told a lie, but I do both as infrequently as possible. I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible. It's best that I be as clear about this as I can — I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make them selves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course). If you can see things this way (or at least try to), we can work together comfortably. If, on the other hand, you decide I'm crazy, that's fine. You won't be the first.
— —
I lean more heavily on intuition, and have been able to do that because my books tend to be based on situation rather than story. Some of the ideas which have produced those books are more complex than others, but the majority start out with the stark simplicity of a department store window display or a waxwork tableau. I want to put a group of characters (perhaps a pair; perhaps even just one) in some sort of predicament and then watch them try to work themselves free. My job isn't to help them work their way free, or manipulate them to safety … but to watch what happens and then write it down.
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. I often have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way. In some instances, the outcome is what I visualized. In most, however, it's something I never expected. For a suspense novelist, this is a great thing. I am, after all, not just the novel’s creator but its first reader. And I’m not able to guess with any accuracy how the damn thing is going to turn out, even with my inside knowledge of coming events, I can be pretty sure of keeping the reader in a state of page-turning anxiety. And why worry about the ending anyway? Why be such a control freak? Sooner or later every story comes out somewhere.
These excerpts are taken from Part 5 of the memoir’s On Writing section (pp. 163–173) and is, I think, the book’s most important set of pages. Of course in doing this series, I have already said that about previous pages and doubtless will say it again going forward through the rest of the book. But as I sit here reflecting on King’s observations — in this moment — my gut is saying, “This is it. This is what we, as writers, need to (at the very least) consider in how we approach writing a story.”
Is it because of King’s recollection how the story for what became Misery began as a dream on a trans-Atlantic flight, followed by a late night longhand writing session in a London hotel, sitting at what was once Rudyard Kipling’s desk? Indeed, this is a delightful tale which provides insight into the author’s creative process.
Is it because King suggests in these pages that “The most interesting situations can be usually expressed by a What-if question?” That resonates with me.
Is it because King provides an exercise for the reader to write “five to six pages of unplotted narration” to demonstrate that “all this talk about situation replacing plot is [not] such wooly-headed bullshit.” I tried it and found that this writing workout aligns quite nicely with other brainstorming and character development exercises I teach to my students.
But really why I think — or perhaps more accurately why I feel this part of the book is so valuable — is this: It speaks to the spirit of character-driven writing.
Consider how King describes the very foundation of his process of writing a story:
- The situation comes first. Note how he describes such a situation: “I want to put a group of characters … in some sort of predicament.” There is a predicament, but even at this nascent stage, it is a situation inhabited by characters.
- The characters come next. They may begin “flat and unfeatured,” but as he works with the characters (“I begin to narrate”), they come to life. He sees them. He hears them. [Read the Misery anecdote and you will see what I mean].
- I want them to do things their way. The “them” is the characters, of course. “My job isn’t to help them work their way free, or manipulate them to safety … but to watch what happens and then write it down.” In other words, allow the characters to drive where the story goes.
King definitely has strong feelings about plot. In Part 5, he writes, “Please remember, however, that there is a huge difference between story and plot. Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.” I am not a novelist, but I suspect this attitude — restraining plot — may work best for those who write novels. Writing movies and television is a different reality.
If, for example, you are on staff writing a broadcast network TV series and each episode has five commercial breaks, it is essential when you break story to zero in on five cliffhangers toward which you can build each act end. Similarly, if you have landed a studio assignment to write a feature film, you can rest assure you will have many story note meetings in which the discussion revolves around inciting incidents, act breaks, subplots, all is lost, and all the rest of Hollywood buzzwords which have been part of the screenwriting glossary for decades.
But even with narrative platforms like episodic television or feature films, where plot is not considered to be put under “house arrest,” how a writer gets to plot is critical. If that’s where you start the process, in effect, reducing story to plot, that is the path which leads to stale, stilted, formulaic writing. If, on the other hand, you begin with a situation … characters in a predicament … and embrace the attitude that it’s the characters who drive the narrative … then they will lead you into and through the plotting process. “Watch what happens [with the characters] and write it down.”
Think of all the complex and compelling characters King has written over the years. Andy Dufresne in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Chris Cooper in Stand By Me. John Coffey in The Green Mile. Jack Torrance in The Shining. Carrie White in Carrie. Pennywise in It. Of course, Annie Wilkes in the aforementioned Misery. And dozens more.
According to King, each emerged as he wrote about, for, and with them, and the story emerged from who they were, how they acted, and what they did.
Character. Driven. Storytelling.
I am reminded of a quote from another writer who had a similar approach to the craft: Ray Bradbury:
“Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”
Come back next week and many weeks thereafter for more in the Sundays with Stephen King’s “On Writing” series.
Twitter: @StephenKing