Kim is the Young Adult Librarian at the library I work for when I am home. We have similar tastes in books and music, and would rather write books than shelf them.Kim badgered me to read On Writing: a memoir of the craft, by Stephen King, while I was home during the summer, but I never got around to it. Her goal was to finish writing a novel by the time she had children. Little Bobby is a adorable and I knew after he arrived that I should give On Writing my attention.
On Writing mixes life story with teaching. Biographies usually don’t have a goal, but King display how his life and writing are intertwined. His stories are twisted and graphic because, well, his life was very graphic and twisted. No idea for a story is truly original; they were all inspired by something. The point of it all is that stories are all “fossils” of reality. King’s approach to grammar is thus- “The road to hell is paved with adverbs”. A “he said” says the same action as a “he swiftly stated”. If you write well, you can say it how it is without over using adjectives and adverbs. The superfluous of his mother’s varicose leg veins still makes me cringe.
Stephen King is spared from my harsh opinion of proliferate writers. He definitely has a formula, but there just exist a humor in his writing that makes me want to give him more of a chance than Grisham, Grafton, Patterson and Macomber. Carrie is good and Under the Dome I am trudging my way through (still enjoyable). The first between is his first novel and his most recent novel are evident, but both are very King.
All in all, when your librarian tells you to read a book- read it.
Thumbs: 2 out of 2
