Sundays with Stephen King’s “On Writing”
A series featuring reflections on writing from the famed writer.
A series featuring reflections on writing from the famed writer.
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, pp. 18–19.
My earliest memory is of imagining I was someone else — imagining that I was, in fact, the Ringling Brothers Circus Strong Boy. This was at my Aunt Ethelyn and Uncle Oren’s house in Durham, Maine. My aunt remembers this quite clearly, and says I was two and a half or maybe three years old.
I had found cement cinderblock in a corner of the garage and had managed to pick it up. I carried it slowly across the garage’s smooth cement floor, except in my mind I was dressed in an animal skin singlet (probably a leopard skin) and carrying this cinderblock across the center ring. The vast crowd was silent. A brilliant blue–white spotlight marked my remarkable progress. Their wondering faces told a story: never had to such an incredibly strong kid. “And he’s only two!” someone muttered in disbelief.
Unbeknownst to me, wasps had constructed a small nest in the lower half of the cinderblock. One of them, perhaps pissed off at being relocated, flew out and stung me on the ear. The pain was brilliant, like a poisonous inspiration. It was the worst pain I have ever suffered in my short life, but it only held the top spot for a few seconds. When I dropped the cinderblock on one bare foot, mashing all five toes, I forgot all about the wasp. I can't remember if I was taken to the doctor, and neither can my Aunt Ethelyn (Uncle Oren, to whom the Evil Cinderblock surely belonged, is almost twenty years dead), but she remembers the sting, the mashed toes, and my reaction. “How you howled, Stephen!” she said. “You were certainly in fine voice that day.”
Oh, goodness. I could spend hours writing about this tiny episode in the author’s personal history and how it speaks to our writer’s life. Here are a few highlights:
- My earliest memory is of imagining I was someone else: There you go. The roots of everything related to being a writer — the ability to imagine being someone else. That is one of a writer’s superpowers, conjuring up a character, then inhabiting their life experience, drawing upon that knowledge to bring the character to life on the page.
- …imagining that I was, in fact, the Ringling Brothers Circus Strong Boy: This suggests that Stephen had seen the Ringling Brothers… which suggests that he was drawing upon his own life experience to create fiction. Here, he is only perhaps three years old. What about you? Twenty, thirty, forty years or more on this Earth? Consider how much more you have experienced compared to a toddler… and how any and all of that “stuff” could be the source of one or more stories.
- I had found cement cinderblock in a corner of the garage: Use what you have! Whatever memories, associations, or subconscious images which emerge in your dreams or daydreams, that is all raw material you can employ in the service of writing your stories. Even the most mundane memories may spark a story or at the least, a scene or moment in a scene.
- A brilliant blue–white spotlight marked my remarkable progress: Be especially cognizant of the Protagonists in your personal history. Which individuals you have intersected with would seem to deserve a “blue-white spotlight” to highlight their notable role? If you surface them in your reflections, they may very well be the center of a story, a Protagonist taking a journey.
- A cinderblock: As you ponder your own life, be particularly mindful of objects. This is especially true if you write movies or television, which are primary a visual medium. Physical objects may carry much more dramatic weight than one or more lines of dialogue. See: Talismans.
- Unbeknownst to me, wasps had constructed a small nest in the lower half of the cinderblock: We need to break this one down. (1) Unbeknownst = Surprise. Always be on the lookout for moments which cannot be expected, events to shock the audience. (2) Wasps = Nemesis. There is no drama without conflict and the best way to generate conflict is a Protagonist-Nemesis relationship. (3) Anticipation = Emotional engagement. We know wasps. They sting. Their sting hurts. They are a threat. Look for ways to introduce danger into your stories, especially something which is emotionally relatable to the reader. (4) Stakes = Drama. If we get stung by a wasp, that is going to hurt… a lot. If a character is allergic to their stings, that could be lethal. Stephen didn’t confront ants or beetles or cockroaches in his interface with a cinderblock. No, he faced down wasps. A reminder to up the stakes for your story’s characters.
- It was the worst pain I have ever suffered in my short life, but it only held the top spot for a few seconds. When I dropped the cinderblock on one bare foot, mashing all five toes, I forgot all about the wasp: Double down on the Protagonist’s trauma. Wasp sting? Ouch. Dropping cinderblock on toes. Major ouch! Whenever you can, up the ante on the Protagonist. If it’s a surprise, even better. Keep pushing the Protagonist to the extremes of their ability to respond.
- “How you howled, Stephen!”: Stories are fundamentally about an emotional experience. Young Stephen reacted to (A) a wasp sting and (B) a cinderblock mashing toes with a relatable emotional reaction: THIS FUCKING HURTS! We’ve all been there. When we relate to the emotional experience of the Protagonist, it shrinks the psychological distance between us and the printed page.
But what jumps out at me most from Stephen’s writing in these pages is this: The pain was brilliant, like a poisonous inspiration. Right there, perhaps the seeds of this brilliant writer’s affinity for the horror genre.
Think about your life. You may not have had a “poisonous inspiration.” It may have been a “comedic inspiration.” Or a “thrilling inspiration.” Perhaps a “fantastical inspiration.” Whatever the inspiration is, remember it. Feel it. Draw from it. Embrace it. That may very well be the touchstone for your creative wellspring from which your storytelling emerges.
As the late great Nora Ephron wrote: “Everything is copy.” The entirety of your life experience is potential fodder for stories.
Or if you’re short of inspiration, maybe just drop a cinderblock on your foot!
Come back next week and many weeks thereafter for more in the Sundays with Stephen King’s “On Writing” series.