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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780743455961
ISBN number: 0743455967
Label: Pocket
Manufacturer: Pocket
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: July 01, 2002
Publishing house: Pocket
Sale Popularity Level: 479
Studio: Pocket
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Product Description:
'Long live the King' hailed Entertainment Weekly upon the publication of Stephen King's On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported near-fatal accident in 1999 -- and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it -- fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.
Amazon.com:
Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. 'I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in grey bras who looked like trailer trash.' But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of 'I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber.' As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). 'There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing.'
King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's 'tool kit': a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.
King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo
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Rated by buyers 
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Mr. King's story of his development into a noted and successful writer and his description of the writing craft is only one man's story, but a unique and inspiring one. Think of it as the very first half of his autobiography - may he live long and well! Also, think of it as his tutorial and elucidation on how to write something worth reading. Two tales in one unique book.
King's early life was tumultuous; the reader begins to see how the writer of rather unusual stories was formed. After learning about his extended starving artist time, the reader easily celebrates his well-earned sucess and acclaim. His recovery from the near-fatal attack by a minivan illustrates real grit, and the extremely positive influence of his wife on his life it wonderful. King is almost as interesting a character as he the many he give us in his best books.
The greatest value of the book, however, at least to writers and wanna-be's, is in his candid explanations on how to compose, edit, re-compose, edit, edit again, re-write, proofread, and cut until the manuscript shines. Even for a master and journeyman like Mr. King, writing top-notch fiction requires focus, sweat, and time. It's tiring. I imagine if he could work more than four concentrated hours a day he would. While his description of the author's daily life is not glamorous, it nonetheless is realistic, and illustrates how a true writer can never be satisfied NOT writing.
Whether or not you usually read Mr. King's variety of fiction, if you even dabble a small amount as a writer you can benefit tremendously from what he has included in this wonderful volume.
Rated by buyers -
Until I read On Writing by Stephen King, I had never read any of his books. To be honest, since On Writing, I've only read one other of his books which I didn't like so we've come to an impasse.... however On Writing is one of the best books I've read. The very first half is a memoir of his life where we learn how his early jobs and experiences inspired the ideas for his best sellers. Every thing King sees becomes an obvious cue for him to think "what if". He is a prolific writer and I admire his constant discipline at sitting down and typing his heart out. He finishes a novel and then writes a novella followed by a short story and then he's back to a new novel. The man has ideas a plenty simply by always asking himself "what if" and then writing it down.
The second half of the book is a lesson on how to write. King has much authority on the subject not only due to his global sucess but also because he was an English teacher before the phenomenal sucess of Carrie back in the 70s. He teaches how to pair nouns with verbs so we can make sentences that come alive; for example, Rocks explode, which immediately takes the reader to a place where they can envisage rocks exploding... it's all about showing the story rather than telling the reader a bunch of words.
Stephen King is a master writer and teacher. A great book which even a non-writer will enjoy because King shows the reader, his Constant Reader, just how much fun you can have.
Rated by buyers 
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The postal service lost the product and so we never received it, but amazon quickly refunded the money.
Rated by buyers -
If you're a writer or enjoy reading about Stephen King in depth, this is the book for you. The very first half is his life and writing career and the second half is how he goes about writing. Very Freeing Ideas!!! He shows how to write using your creativity and intuition instead of constricting plotting/outlining techniques. Special book! Wonderful man.
Rated by buyers -
This is a great book. The very first half or so of it is mostly autobiographical and informs the reader how Stephen got into writing. The latter part of the book is more of an actual guide on how to write fiction. The very last part of the book recounts his life-changing accident.
I really like how Stephen writes - throughout the book I had a sense of direct communication with him. He describes writing as telepathy - and his is very effective. His humorous, honest and straightforward voice is constantly present. I also like that he unabashedly describes his particular and peculiar interests and always sticks to his guns regarding what he believes works.
If you're looking to learn how to write good fiction from a bestseller, and want to be entertained and engaged in the process, you ought to read this book.
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