I've been asked on multiple occasions if I’ve ever read
Stephen King’s On Writing, and have
always answered that no, I haven’t, only to be told that it's excellent and
that I ought to read it.
But you see, I feel that if one is going to
read something on how to write, it should be by a writer one admires and would
like to write like—in which category Stephen King does not, for me, fall. He’s prolific and has things he does very well, but I don’t
like his genre and his prose doesn’t speak to me. Quite simply, he’s not a writer I’d like to
emulate, and so taking his advice on writing would be at best unhelpful and at
worst harmful.
What about authors whose writing I do admire? Diana Wynne Jones, Jonathan Stroud, Dan
Wells, Alastair MacLean, Garth Nix, Timothy Zahn, and others?
Would it benefit me to read a book one of them wrote on writing? And would there be any downsides?
Here’s the thing: everyone writes in different ways. I once heard that Stephen King writes 2000
words a day, every day, no matter what.
Now, I’ve done that several times (excluding Sundays), and it’s brutal. After six weeks I’m exhausted, my brain is
dried out, my creative juices have evaporated, and it takes me months to
recover any ability to come up with something new. And that’s
if I'm really, really ready to write for that long—if I already knew exactly
where I was going. If I didn’t already
know, then I end up having to toss every word I wrote.
So clearly, the Stephen King permanent marathon isn’t for me. I don’t write every day; I don’t have
to. I finish novels while not working
every day—and sometimes, when exhausted from excessive writing or excessive editing, I don’t write anything but the occasional short story for months. This gives my brain time to refresh and
(importantly) helps me recognize the problems with my novels. Then, when I’m ready, I’ll slowly pick up
speed, writing a couple of thousand words a week and, finally, a day. If writing were a sport, I’d be a sprinter.
You
have to decide for yourself what works best for you. In the end, there are only a few absolutes that I’d advise
for all writers. They are:
1. Read more than you write.
Preferably, read a variety of books, both fiction and nonfiction; don’t
just stick to your favorite genre.
2. Write in such a way that you finish projects within a
reasonable time frame.
3. Do your homework.
You’ll look really stupid if you don’t.*
4. Get two critiquers you trust and respect and listen to all their
advice, then use your own judgment on what to change or not change.
5. Get a great copy-editor and listen to all his or her
advice, then take most but not all of it.
6. Get a great proofreader and take all of his or her advice
unless you’re really, really sure there’s a mistake, in which case check a
style guide to make absolutely sure.**
If you really feel you need advice on, say, how to stage and
pace an action sequence, don’t go to a book on writing. Instead, read. Which authors write the best action
sequences? Go find one of their books
and read a sequence, making notes if necessary on how the author achieves
such great action. Synthesize the
information for yourself and choose which data you want synthesized—and if something
doesn’t work, reject it (something that’s far easier to recognize when reading
a novel than when reading writing advice).
--
*Over and over again, I encounter the poison curare used
incorrectly in books and other media. I
don’t know what it is about that poison that people like using it without
researching it. For the record, curare
is completely harmless when ingested; it’s only deadly when administered
directly into the bloodstream. It kills
because it paralyzes you, including your diaphragm, causing suffocation. One of the first things paralyzed is the
mouth, which means no talking.
**I have more than once had clients undo my edits to make punctuation or grammar incorrect. I even had a client who wouldn't believe I was correct when I showed him the Chicago Manual of Style; I had to convince him by sending him a link to the Wikipedia page. Don't be that person.
