On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King

I’ve never really taken the time to read books by Stephen King. I think it stems from the time my mom freaked out when my reading teacher wanted me to read The Firm in 7^th grade because it was the only thing she could find in my reading level. The ferocity of my hatred for the Accelerated Reader Program is another post all in itself. Regardless, I had only read a short article by him regarding violence on TV and film before picking up On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

This book was recommended to me by a few of the teachers at the school where I was student teaching. I was placed in an English classroom with a History degree, so, needless to say, no matter how much time I spent editing in the writing center at my college, I needed some help when it came to putting terms to the writing rules I follow naturally. This book surprised me. It offers anecdotes from King’s life, instances that shaped him into the writer he has become. Although the brief biographical section was not the focus of the book, reading it has cemented my decision to pick up the autobiography of Stephen King, if he ever writes one (I hope he does)!

The meat of the book is, as suggested by the title, on writing. He describes common faux pas in the literary world and reveals his bitter distaste for adverbs. Essentially, this volume is a pseudo-writing guide that is both short and to the point. He covers active vs. passive tense verbs, plot, theme, how to begin writing, and how to be proud of your written work. All interspersed with King’s wit, the book was a quick read and quite informative.

As I have mentioned in my “About Me” section of the page, I love reading non-fiction. I think part of the draw of this book was its similarities to The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past by John Lewis Gaddis. Gaddis is one of my favorite historical authors for a couple reasons:

1. His work is thorough and written in a way meant to illicit reader comprehension, unlike Peter Novick who personally made my junior year of college a miserable endeavor. I love books and would never dream of harming them in any way, but his books… I think I burned them. We had ourselves a regular little Fahrenheit 451 party.
2. He alludes to The Simpsons and Star Wars. You can’t get much better than that.

The Landscape of History was written to explain how history should be written by historians, what we call historiography. Likewise, King’s book On Writing, was written to explain how writers should write.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book, although, I do pose one warning: he uses plenty of foul language. At the high school I worked at, it has been decided that this book will be the summer reading for sophomore Honors English. While the language is an issue to some parents, I am not a fan of censoring books or music. Instead, I think they should have ratings. Content-wise, I would give this a PG-13, though the “F-word” is used semi-frequently. I think the benefits of reading the book far outshines the fact that it contains foul language and I don’t think it would be as believable if King were required to censor himself. This is his experience with writing and should be told from his character.