Masters Of Their Craft: Stephen King
We all have our ways of doing things. It’s one of the many things that makes each of us unique. How we do anything is how we do everything and is often how we can stand out from a crowd. If we all did things the same way, the world would be an incredibly boring place. But no matter what we do, when we first start out we do them terribly and inefficiently—it’s all part of learning. We do things, we reflect, adapt, and try again… hopefully with better results next time around. However, while it is commendable to jump into the deep end of things straight away and hope we can learn to swim before things go horribly wrong, it always helps to do a bit of homework beforehand. Look at how others have done things and take inspiration from that. Stephen King is a good author to start with.
With that idea, we can look at the masters of writing and how they approach what they do, to see what lessons we can take from them and apply to our own writing. Now, this isn’t to say you’ll become bestselling authors overnight, but there are methods and philosophies from these people that can help us not only be more productive in our studies and work but also improve their quality.
The Self-Proclaimed ‘Pantser’
King doesn’t plan his books. He’s what’s known as a ‘pantser’ or ‘discovery writer’. He essentially just thinks up a situation and then allows that to develop with his writing. He doesn’t come up with an outline or plot beforehand, he just dives right in…flying by the seat of his pants as it were. This is the way he likes it because his characters can surprise him. Once the first draft is done, he shuts it away for a while, then comes back to it and goes to work filling in plot holes and adding that polish.
For King, while his actual method is rather anxiety-inducing for a lot of authors, his perceived lack of planning isn’t quite all it seems. He does in fact do some homework beforehand, just not for his novel. In order to set the scene for a productive writing run, King has his own loose set of rules to live by:
Read and write. As much as you can. In his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, King claims one of the most important things you can do as a writer is read. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot”. He even goes on to claim that if you don’t have time to read, well, you don’t have time to write. He’s got a point too. The more you read, the greater your vocabulary becomes. Not only that but all the contrasting styles and genres all help feed your own voice when it comes to forging whatever it is you’re aiming to write. This applies to things outside fiction, too.
Applying King’s Process
It’s important to write every day to build it into a routine. King does it for the most part. It’s like exercise, you keep using those writing ‘muscles’ and they’ll get more adept with each passing use. Now, every day might be a bit of a stretch, but developing some form of routine is a great way to build up that wordcount.
On top of that, avoid distraction when you do. For King, writing is a retreat from the world, and something to immerse yourself in. So remove your phone, turn away those screens, and put on some music if you need to drown out the world. You might even go as far as using the old school method of a pen and paper to remove the temptation of the internet.
Writing without a rigid plan in mind can be quite liberating, allowing you to follow the story or both sides of an argument without feeling constrained by what must come next. Instead of fussing over the details, you’re free to explore the topic from a number of angles and even experiment with the structure and style. For those writing critically, you could even find opportunities to bring in more controversial points of view. You may find yourself naturally coming to your own conclusion over the course of writing.
Then, leave it alone for a bit. Come back to it later with a fresh editorial eye. The problems will jump out at you and you’ll be able to run through your piece to refine your wording better or correct any factual or punctuation errors. This will turn your rough draft into something that will really grab your audience’s attention.
If you’re interested in learning more about the way King does it, check out his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. In it he talks in length about his process, as well as a few anecdotal bits too. It’s part writing help, part autobiography.
In you are interested in studying English or English Literature, Oxford Home Schooling offer the chance to do so at several levels, listed below. You can also Contact Us.
Dan Grabowski is an Amazon best-selling author and has taught in the classroom at primary level previously.
