Mikeshea.net
Everything You Need
to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes, by Stephen
King
Mike Shea, 4
February 2005
"Everything You Need
to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes"
by Stephen King (reprinted in Sylvia K. Burack, ed. The Writer's
Handbook. Boston, MA: Writer, Inc., 1988: 3-9)
I. The First Introduction
THAT'S RIGHT. I know it sounds like an ad for some sleazy
writers' school, but I really am going to tell you everything you
need to pursue a successful and financially rewarding career
writing fiction, and I really am going to do it in ten minutes,
which is exactly how long it took me to learn. It will actually
take you twenty minutes or so to read this essay, however, because
I have to tell you a story, and then I have to write a second
introduction. But these, I argue, should not count in the ten
minutes.
II. The Story, or, How Stephen King Learned to Write
When I was a sophomore in high school, I did a sophomoric thing
which got me in a pot of fairly hot water, as sophomoric didoes
often do. I wrote and published a small satiric newspaper called
The Village Vomit. In this little paper I lampooned a number of
teachers at Lisbon (Maine) High School, where I was under
instruction. These were not very gentle lampoons; they ranged from
the scatological to the downright cruel.
Eventually, a copy of this little newspaper found its way into
the hands of a faculty member, and since I had been unwise enough
to put my name on it (a fault, some critics argue, of which I have
still not been entirely cured), I was brought into the office. The
sophisticated satirist had by that time reverted to what he really
was: a fourteen-year-old kid who was shaking in his boots and
wondering if he was going to get a suspension ... what we called "a
three-day vacation" in those dim days of 1964.
I wasn't suspended. I was forced to make a number of apologies -
they were warranted, but they still tasted like dog-dirt in my
mouth - and spent a week in detention hall. And the guidance
counselor arranged what he no doubt thought of as a more
constructive channel for my talents. This was a job - contingent
upon the editor's approval - writing sports for the Lisbon
Enterprise, a twelve-page weekly of the sort with which any
small-town resident will be familiar. This editor was the man who
taught me everything I know about writing in ten minutes. His name
was John Gould - not the famed New England humorist or the novelist
who wrote The Greenleaf Fires, but a relative of both, I
believe.
He told me he needed a sports writer and we could "try each
other out" if I wanted.
I told him I knew more about advanced algebra than I did
sports.
Gould nodded and said, "You'll learn."
I said I would at least try to learn. Gould gave me a huge roll
of yellow paper and promised me a wage of 1/2ยข per word. The first
two pieces I wrote had to do with a high school basketball game in
which a member of my school team broke the Lisbon High scoring
record. One of these pieces was straight reportage. The second was
a feature article.
I brought them to Gould the day after the game, so he'd have
them for the paper, which came out Fridays. He read the straight
piece, made two minor corrections, and spiked it. Then he started
in on the feature piece with a large black pen and taught me all I
ever needed to know about my craft. I wish I still had the piece -
it deserves to be framed, editorial corrections and all - but I can
remember pretty well how it looked when he had finished with it.
Here's an example:
(note: this is before the edit marks indicated on King's
original copy)
Last night, in the well-loved gymnasium of Lisbon High School, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom, known as "Bullet" Bob for both his size and accuracy, scored thirty-seven points. He did it with grace and speed ... and he did it with an odd courtesy as well, committing only two personal fouls in his knight-like quest for a record which has eluded Lisbon thinclads since 1953....
(after edit marks)
Last night, in the Lisbon High School gymnasium, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom scored thirty-seven points. He did it with grace and speed ... and he did it with an odd courtesy as well, committing only two personal fouls in his quest for a record which has eluded Lisbon's basketball team since 1953....
When Gould finished marking up my copy in the manner I have
indicated above, he looked up and must have seen something on my
face. I think he must have thought it was horror, but it was not:
it was revelation.
"I only took out the bad parts, you know," he said. "Most of
it's pretty good."
"I know," I said, meaning both things: yes, most of it was good,
and yes, he had only taken out the bad parts. "I won't do it
again."
"If that's true," he said, "you'll never have to work again. You
can do this for a living." Then he threw back his head and
laughed.
And he was right; I am doing this for a living, and as long as I
can keep on, I don't expect ever to have to work again.
III. The Second Introduction
All of what follows has been said before. If you are interested
enough in writing to be a purchaser of this magazine, you will have
either heard or read all (or almost all) of it before. Thousands of
writing courses are taught across the United States each year;
seminars are convened; guest lecturers talk, then answer questions,
then drink as many gin and tonics as their expense-fees will allow,
and it all boils down to what follows.
I am going to tell you these things again because often people
will only listen - really listen - to someone who makes a lot of
money doing the thing he's talking about. This is sad but true. And
I told you the story above not to make myself sound like a
character out of a Horatio Alger novel but to make a point: I saw,
I listened, and I learned. Until that day in John Gould's little
office, I had been writing first drafts of stories which might run
2,500 words. The second drafts were apt to run 3,300 words.
Following that day, my 2,500-word first drafts became 2,200-word
second drafts. And two years after that, I sold the first one.
So here it is, with all the bark stripped off. It'll take ten
minutes to read, and you can apply it right away ... if you
listen.
IV. Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully
-
Be talented
This, of course, is the killer. What is talent? I can hear
someone shouting, and here we are, ready to get into a discussion
right up there with "what is the meaning of life?" for weighty
pronouncements and total uselessness. For the purposes of the
beginning writer, talent may as well be defined as eventual success
- publication and money. If you wrote something for which someone
sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and
if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you
talented.
Now some of you are really hollering. Some of you are calling me
one crass money-fixated creep. And some of you are calling me bad
names. Are you calling Harold Robbins talented? someone in one of
the Great English Departments of America is screeching. V.C.
Andrews? Theodore Dreiser? Or what about you, you dyslexic
moron?
Nonsense. Worse than nonsense, off the subject. We're not
talking about good or bad here. I'm interested in telling you how
to get your stuff published, not in critical judgments of who's
good or bad. As a rule the critical judgments come after the
check's been spent, anyway. I have my own opinions, but most times
I keep them to myself. People who are published steadily and are
paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops,
but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what
they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented.
The biggest part of writing successfully is being talented, and in
the context of marketing, the only bad writer is one who doesn't
get paid. If you're not talented, you won't succeed. And if you're
not succeeding, you should know when to quit.
When is that? I don't know. It's different for each writer. Not
after six rejection slips, certainly, nor after sixty. But after
six hundred? Maybe. After six thousand? My friend, after six
thousand pinks, it's time you tried painting or computer
programming.
Further, almost every aspiring writer knows when he is getting
warmer - you start getting little jotted notes on your rejection
slips, or personal letters . . . maybe a commiserating phone call.
It's lonely out there in the cold, but there are encouraging voices
... unless there is nothing in your words which warrants
encouragement. I think you owe it to yourself to skip as much of
the self-illusion as possible. If your eyes are open, you'll know
which way to go ... or when to turn back.
-
Be neat
Type. Double-space. Use a nice heavy white paper, never that
erasable onion-skin stuff. If you've marked up your manuscript a
lot, do another draft.
-
Be self-critical
If you haven't marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy
job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don't be a
slob.
-
Remove every extraneous word
You want to get up on a soapbox and preach? Fine. Get one and
try your local park. You want to write for money? Get to the point.
And if you remove all the excess garbage and discover you can't
find the point, tear up what you wrote and start all over again . .
. or try something new.
-
Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft
You want to write a story? Fine. Put away your dictionary, your
encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet,
throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier
than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too
lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you
have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no
exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a
word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the
dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right - and breaking
your train of thought and the writer's trance in the bargain - or
just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you
think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the
largest city in Brazil and you find you don't have it in your head,
why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it ... but
later. When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else
except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot
be put off.
-
Know the markets
Only a dimwit would send a story about giant vampire bats
surrounding a high school to McCall's. Only a dimwit would send a
tender story about a mother and daughter making up their
differences on Christmas Eve to Playboy ... but people do it all
the time. I'm not exaggerating; I have seen such stories in the
slush piles of the actual magazines. If you write a good story, why
send it out in an ignorant fashion? Would you send your kid out in
a snowstorm dressed in Bermuda shorts and a tank top? If you like
science fiction, read the magazines. If you want to write
confession stories, read the magazines. And so on. It isn't just a
matter of knowing what's right for the present story; you can begin
to catch on, after awhile, to overall rhythms, editorial likes and
dislikes, a magazine's entire slant. Sometimes your reading can
influence the next story, and create a sale.
-
Write to entertain
Does this mean you can't write "serious fiction"? It does not.
Somewhere along the line pernicious critics have invested the
American reading and writing public with the idea that entertaining
fiction and serious ideas do not overlap. This would have surprised
Charles Dickens, not to mention Jane Austen, John Steinbeck,
William Faulkner, Bernard Malamud, and hundreds of others. But your
serious ideas must always serve your story, not the other way
around. I repeat: if you want to preach, get a soapbox.
-
Ask yourself frequently, "Am I having fun?"
The answer needn't always be yes. But if it's always no, it's
time for a new project or a new career.
-
How to evaluate criticism
Show your piece to a number of people - ten, let us say. Listen
carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review
what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you
the same thing about some facet of your story - a plot twist that
doesn't work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or
half a dozen other possibles - change that facet. It doesn't matter
if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of
people are telling you something is wrong with you piece, it is. If
seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I'd still
suggest changing it. But if everyone - or even most everyone - is
criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all
of them say.
-
Observe all rules for proper submission
Return postage, self-addressed envelope, all of that.
-
An agent? Forget it. For now
Agents get 10% of monies earned by their clients. 10% of nothing
is nothing. Agents also have to pay the rent. Beginning writers do
not contribute to that or any other necessity of life. Flog your
stories around yourself. If you've done a novel, send around query
letters to publishers, one by one, and follow up with sample
chapters and/or the manuscript complete. And remember Stephen
King's First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal
experience: You don't need one until you're making enough for
someone to steal ... and if you're making that much, you'll be able
to take your pick of good agents.
-
If it's bad, kill it
When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When
it comes to fiction, it is the law.
That's everything you need to know. And if you listened, you can
write everything and anything you want. Now I believe I will wish
you a pleasant day and sign off.
My ten minutes are up.
(The above article is copyright Stephen King, 1988)
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