May 21, 2006 01:46 PM
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(Updated May 21, 2006 01:46 PM)
There have been very few books on writing, or for wannabe writers, as a lot of people belive that writers (i mean good writes) are born and not made. In search of some good books on writing I got my hand on SK On Writing by Stephen King. No, he is not talking about how to write horror/suspense stories. He goes into the finer details of writing.
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.– Stephen King
The book is divided into two parts, the first part makes a very interesting read, as Stephen King tells us about his growing up years and his journey to a bestseller writer. And the second part deals in some good advices on how to become a good writer. Though many might doubt over his credentials to write about writing as he himself has restricted himself to one genre and has never been among those whose works the literary critics rave. But, he knows what he is writing whether he is writing a bestseller horror/suspense thriller or writing a book on How to Write.
The second parts gives some effective and practical guidance ( belive me there are not many books on writings which are straightforward for writers) for budding writers. He provides input on both front how to generate content and how to present. The book is full of examples and anecdotes from many authors and books.
The commonest of all, the bread of writing, is vocabulary. In this case, you can happily pack what you have without the slightest bit of guilt and inferiority. As the wh*re said to the bashful sailor, “It ain’t how much you’ve got, honey, it’s how you use it.” From S.K. On Writing.
Have a look at the following paragraphs from the books.
Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic. That goes for reading and writing as well as for playing a musical instrument, hitting a baseball, or running the four-forty. The sort of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate — four to six hours a day, every day — will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things and have an aptitude for them; in fact, you may be following such a program already. If you feel you need permission to do all the reading and writing your little heart desires, however, consider it hereby granted by yours truly.
I would argue that the paragraph, not the sentence, is the basic unit of writing — the place where coherence begins and words stand a chance of becoming more than mere words. If the moment of quickening is to come, it comes at the level of the paragraph..
3.No matter how good you are, no matter how much experience you have, it’s probably impossible to get the entire fossil out of the ground without a few breaks and losses. To get even most of it, the shovel must give way to more delicate tools: airhose, palm-pick, perhaps even a toothbrush. Plot is a far bigger tool, the writer’s jackhammer. You can liberate a fossil from hard ground with a jackhammer, no argument there, but you know as well as I do that the jackhammer is going to break almost as much stuff as it liberates. It’s clumsy, mechanical, anticreative. Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored.
He explains the art of writing and how to improve writings skills with the help of some age old suggestions like ''reading a lot'' to some really interesting one ''The adverb is not your friend.'' Overall the book is really an interesting read like his novels, yet full of practical advices and great insight into art of writing, I think this book is one of the very few books which really helpful for those who want to improve their writing.
