cj Sez: The following
eight writing strategies (quoted from the source cited below) are some that I’ve
pretty much adopted. I say “pretty much” because I don’t read “a lot.” Not
because I don’t want to, but because it is not a habit I ever acquired.
Plus, about
twenty minutes after I start a book, I usually go to sleep. Is that the book’s fault?
Only some of the time. If the book is really interesting, I'll read through the night. And I am working to change that faulty habit and apply his #5 strategy by reading in small sips at a time.
Some of these strategies are basically universal among
successful writers. So here’s King’s eight writing strategies that have helped
him sell 350 million books:
1. Tell the truth.
“Now comes the big question: What are you going to write
about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want. Anything at
all... as long as you tell the truth... Write what you like, then imbue it with
life and make it unique by blending in your own personal knowledge of life,
friendship, relationships, sex, and work... What you know makes you unique in
some other way. Be brave.”
2. Don’t use big words when small ones work.
“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is
to dress up the vocabulary, looking
for long words because you’re maybe a
little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up your household
pet in evening clothes.”
3. Use single-sentence paragraphs.
“The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to
make the reader welcome and then tell a story... to make him/her forget,
whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.
The single-sentence paragraph more closely resembles talk
than writing, and that’s good. Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of
seduction. If not so, why do so many couples who start the evening at dinner
wind up in bed?”
4. Write for your Ideal Reader.
“Someone—I can’t remember who, for the life of me— once
wrote that all novels are really letters aimed at one person. As it happens, I
believe this.
I think that every novelist has a single ideal reader; that
at various points during the composition of a story, the writer is thinking, ‘I
wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?’ For me that first
reader is my wife, Tabitha... Call that one person you write for Ideal Reader.”
5. Read a lot.
“Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life. I take a
book with me everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to
dip in. The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long
swallows. Waiting rooms were made for books—of course! But so are theater
lobbies before the show, long and boring checkout lines, and everyone’s
favorite, the john.”
6. Write one word at a time.
“In an early interview (this was to promote Carrie, I
think), a radio talk-show host asked me how I wrote. My reply—‘one word at a
time’—seemingly left him without a reply. I think he was trying to decide
whether or not I was joking. I wasn’t. In the end, it’s always that simple.”
7. Write every day.
“The truth is that when I’m writing, I write every day,
workaholic dweeb or not. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday
(at my age you try to ignore your goddam birthday anyway)... When I’m
writing, it’s all the playground, and the worst three hours I ever spent there
were still pretty damned good.”
8. Write for the joy of it.
“Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I
never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it...
Maybe it paid off the mortgage on the house and got the kids through college,
but those things were on the side -- I did it for the buzz. I did it for the
pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”
Quoted from:
Okay, now you have Stephen King’s basics. What are you going
to do about it?
I’d wish you a Happy Tax Day, but that’s an oxymoron, so I’ll
wish you a hopefully Not-Too-Painful Tax Day. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll
try to do the same.
cj
(PS: The toons are from Facebook pages.)
cjpetterson@gmail.com
Deadly Star -- Kindle / Nook
/ Kobo
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