King's Wisdom

Stephen King's book, ON WRITING, is a fantastic reference book for writers. The best I've found. Who better to take publishing advice from than someone who has successfully sold his imagination and ideas and turned himself into a household name. And of all the people on this earth, he's number two on my "must meet" list, second only to my husband.



Excerpts from ON WRITING :



"The adverb is NOT your friend."

"To write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine"

"Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace up shoes. The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story...to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all. The single sentence paragraph more closely resembles talk than writing, and that's good. Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction."

"You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you."

"Read GRAPES OF WRATH. It's an excellent read." *Best advice in the book*

"Plot is, I think, the good writers last resort and the dullards first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored."

"FORMULA: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft - 10%"

"Someone once wrote that all novels are really letters aimed at one person. I think that every novelist has a single ideal reader: that at various points during the composition of a story, the writer is thinking "I wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?"

ON WRITING is a must have for all aspiring writers.