On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft

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On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft:
$12.18

On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft Product Features

Product Specifications

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Scribner; 10 Anv edition (July 6, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1439156816
ISBN-13: 978-1439156810
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces

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Product Description Review Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King\'s On Writing reallycontains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lessonfor aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description ofhow a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You\'re right there with the youngauthor as he\'s tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptightschoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London\'s. It\'s a ripping yarnthat casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug YvetteVickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. \"I wanted monstersthat ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and atesurfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash.\" But massivereading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon Kingwas the published author of \"I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber.\" As a young adultraising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as ajanitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but hiswriter wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girlmilieu 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 andwork. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in TheTommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shiningsymbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife\'sintervention, which he describes). \"There\'s one novel, Cujo, that I barelyremember writing.\" King also evokes his college days and his recovery from thevan crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all meansto 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 dollarsand cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, andliterary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft\'s arcanevocabulary, Hemingway\'s leanness, Grisham\'s authenticity, Richard Dooling\'sartful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman\'s sentence fragments. He explains whyHart\'s War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how ElmoreLeonard\'s Be Cool could be the antidote. King isn\'t just a writer, he\'s a trueteacher. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to the School & Library Bindingedition. Read more From Publishers Weekly As his diehard fans know, King is amember of a writers-only rock \'n\' roll band (Amy Tan is also a member), andthis recording starts off with a sampling of their music. It may soundunsettling to some, but King quickly puts listeners at ease with hisconfident, candid and breezy tone. Here, King tells the story of his childhoodand early influences, describes his development as a writer, offers extensiveadvice on technique (read: write tight and no bullshit) and finally recountshis well-known experience of being hit by a drunk driver while walking on acountry road in 1999 and the role that his work has played in hisrehabilitation. While some of his guidance is not exactly revolutionary (herecommends The Elements of Style as a must-have reference), other revelationsthat vindicate authors of popular fiction, like himself, as writers, such ashis preference for stressing character and situation over plot, areengrossing. He also offers plenty of commonsense advice on how to organize aworkspace and structure one\'s day. While King\'s comical childhood anecdotesand sober reflections on his accident may be appreciated while driving to workor burning calories on a treadmill, the book\'s main exercise does not work aswell in the audio format. King\'s strongest recommendation, after all, is thatwriters must be readers, and despite his adept performance, aspiring authorsmight find that they would absorb more by picking up the book. Based on theScribner hardcover (Forecasts, July 31, 2000). Copyright 2001 Cahners BusinessInformation, Inc. --This text refers to the School & Library Binding edition.Read more See all Editorial Reviews

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