| |  | Books : On Writing |  | | | | | | | | | |
Our Price: $7.99
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Availability:Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780743455961
ISBN: 0743455967
Label: Pocket
Manufacturer: Pocket
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: July 01, 2002
Publisher: Pocket
Sales Rank: 530
Studio: Pocket
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
'Long live the King' hailed Entertainment Weekly upon the publication of Stephen King's On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported near-fatal accident in 1999 -- and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it -- fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.
Amazon.com:
Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee.'I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash.' But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of 'I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber.' As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). 'There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing.'
King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's 'tool kit': a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.
King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo
Customer Reviews Average Rating: 
Rating:  - 1/2 Memoir, 1/2 how to...
An easy read. Though I skimmed much of the 1st 1/2 which is mainly memoir and a bit dull at times. Though I thoroughly enjoyed reading about King's alcohol and drug problems.
In the 2nd 1/2 King talks about writing and publishing. He explains how he works (he doesn't believe in days off) and how one might go about getting published. The actual writing advice itself is not new--leave out adverbs--don't say in 3 words what you can say with 1, etc.
I think it's a great book ... Read More
Rating:  - A Writer's Story; A Writer's Craft
Mr. King's story of his development into a noted and successful writer and his description of the writing craft is only one man's story, but a unique and inspiring one.Think of it as the first half of his autobiography - may he live long and well!Also, think of it as his tutorial and elucidation on how to write something worth reading.Two tales in one unique book.
King's early life was tumultuous; the reader begins to see how the writer of rather unusual stories was formed.After ... Read More
Rating: - This is how it's done!
Until I read On Writing by Stephen King, I had never read any of his books. To be honest, since On Writing, I've only read one other of his books which I didn't like so we've come to an impasse.... however On Writing is one of the best books I've read.The first half is a memoir of his life where we learn how his early jobs and experiences inspired the ideas for his best sellers.Every thing King sees becomes an obvious cue for him to think "what if".He is a prolific writer and I admire his constant ... Read More
Rating:  - Order #3b
The postal service lost the product and so we never received it, but amazon quickly refunded the money.
Rating: - Great Ideas
If you're a writer or enjoy reading about Stephen King in depth, this is the book for you. The first half is his life and writing career and the second half is how he goes about writing. Very Freeing Ideas!!! He shows how to write using your creativity and intuition instead of constricting plotting/outlining techniques. Special book! Wonderful man.
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