On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

by Stephen King

‘When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story,’ he said. ‘When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.’

The most important is that the writer’s original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader’s. Running a close second was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.

Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colorful.

When I do it, it’s usually for the same reason any writer does it: because I am afraid the reader won’t understand me if I don’t.

You probably do know what you’re talking about, and can safely energize your prose with active verbs. And you probably have told your story well enough to believe that when you use he said, the reader will know how he said it – fast or slowly, happily or sadly.

Writing is refined thinking.

The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story

Nor do I think that physical description should be a shortcut to character.