{"id":15400,"date":"2011-10-28T10:29:20","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T15:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=15400"},"modified":"2011-10-28T10:30:29","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T15:30:29","slug":"stephen-king-on-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/10\/stephen-king-on-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen King on Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A few years ago, my student Nick Martinez recommended Stephen King\u2019s book On Writing<\/em>\u00a0to our legal writing class. I read the book cover to cover in almost one sitting, and since then I have read passages out loud to anyone who will listen. Nick and I discuss here what we learned about writing from the master of horror.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NM: Stephen King wrote On Writing<\/em> as a tool for budding writers to use in their exploits in constructing fiction, but the book\u2019s wisdom translates to all forms of writing. I first read this book for fun, hoping just a little that it would also bolster my creative talents.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until I was fully immersed in the world of legal writing that I discovered myself using the very same fiction writing tricks set forth by King. King takes time to describe the most common and fundamental ingredients in all types of writing, such as proper word choice and sentence structure. By mixing in the anecdotal flavor of his own life, King succeeds in conveying these techniques in a clear and practical manner rarely seen in writing guides. King shares an entire \u201ctoolbox\u201d of useful tricks.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

MLG: My favorite trick from King\u2019s toolbox is \u201cThe adverb is not your friend<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

[T]hey\u2019re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day . . . fifty the day after that . . . and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely,<\/strong> and profligately<\/strong> covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it\u2019s\u2014GASP!!<\/em>\u2014too late.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NM: One of the things I learned over the course of my first year of law school is that good legal writers are also good storytellers: a writer must know how to organize a complex series of facts to illustrate a particular event for a particular audience. I also discovered that success as a storyteller flows out of the ability to filter through an overabundance of information and pinpoint the most significant facts.<\/p>\n

MLG: I always wondered about what goes on in Stephen King\u2019s brain when he writes. This book gave me those insights, and one is about how King\u2019s characters develop. Here\u2019s a snippet of King\u2019s thoughts on his characters: \u201cFor me, what happens to characters as a story progresses depends solely on what I discover about them as I go along\u2014how they grow, in other words. Sometimes they grow a little. If they grow a lot, they begin to influence the course of the story instead of the other way around.\u201d Take Annie Wilkes:<\/p>\n

Annie Wilkes, the nurse who holds Paul Sheldon prisoner in Misery<\/em>, may seem psychopathic to us, but it\u2019s important to remember that she seems perfectly sane and reasonable to herself . . . . If I have to tell you [that], I lose. If, on the other hand, I can show you a silent, dirty-haired woman who compulsively gobbles cake and candy, then have you draw the conclusion that Annie is in the depressive part of a manic-depressive cycle, I win. And if I am able, even briefly, to give you a Wilkes\u2019-eye-view of the world . . . [s]he\u2019s more frightening than ever, because she\u2019s close to real.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NM: I remember very clearly that the first draft of legal writing I ever completed for law school was almost twice the acceptable page limit. Twelve pages instead of six; talk about too much information. At first, I had no idea how I was going to cut anything out.<\/p>\n

Stephen King confronts this challenge constantly. He calls it \u201cdiarrhea of the pen.\u201d He chalks it up to an overactive imagination. But knowing this unavoidable truth about himself, he developed a very simple, creation\/revision process centering on these words: \u201cWhen you write a story, you\u2019re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

MLG: I like King\u2019s formula for revising. His formula is from a message handwritten on one of his rejection notes. He taped the formula up on the wall next to his typewriter. The note said \u201cNot bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft=1st Draft-10%. Good luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

NM: King\u2019s one thousand page tome, The Stand<\/em>, was originally an extra five hundred pages. But after his first draft, Stephen King didn\u2019t fret because he had a system to follow.<\/p>\n

And I didn\u2019t fret over my double-the-length draft, because I was lucky enough to have read On Writing<\/em>. Instead of getting overwhelmed, I remembered King\u2019s words and realized that even though I needed twice as many pages to understand for myself the true extent of the issue at hand, my audience did not. And so, I had immediate direction to begin filtering out all the unnecessary information.<\/p>\n

MLG: As King says, \u201cIf you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There\u2019s no way around these two things that I\u2019m aware of, no shortcut.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, my student Nick Martinez recommended Stephen King\u2019s book On Writing\u00a0to our legal writing class. I read the book cover to cover in almost one sitting, and since then I have read passages out loud to anyone who will listen. Nick and I discuss here what we learned about writing from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-writing","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}