The Writer’s Toolbox
Stephen King’s Tips About Writing Tools
Once you mature as a writer, either fiction or non-fiction; you would have stumbled on this book, nevertheless.
Stephen King On Writing — A Memoir of the Craft
This book — a holy grail for budding writers. The writing tips that would fit every writer are like finding a needle in the haystack. Some ideas will insist on discovery writing and some on outlining. There is no specific ingredient for a perfect writing recipe, and there is no one-size-fits-all for writing. Stephen King’s book instills hope and every emerging writer would benefit from it.
What he really means by writer’s must-have toolbox? What the toolbox actually contains?. There are 3 levels in the writing toolbox.
Level 1
Vocabulary
The basic rule of vocabulary is to use the first word that comes to our mind, if it is fit and appropriate. There is no need to choose a complicated word for a simple one. For example:
“The leathery, undeteriorative, and almost indestructible quality was an inherent attribute of the thing’s form of organization, and pertained to some paleogean cycle of invertebrate evolution utterly beyond our powers of speculation.”
Second,
“Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold.”
Let’s compare the above two sentences. The first is typically writing of a renowned author who has enormous vocabulary skill. When you see the second, there is no word longer than two syllables in the entire sentence. Both are pretty good in their own ways. Yet, the latter is connective to most of the readers.
The vocabulary shall be simple with direct words, and there is no need for those luxury, non-understandable words.
“Put your vocabulary on the top shelf of your toolbox, and don’t make any conscious effort to improve it. One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.”
Grammar
Again Stephen King persists in not worrying about your Grammar. One should just require a rudimentary grasp of school grammar, i.e.,
Nouns and verbs are the two indispensable parts of writing. A sentence, by definition, a group of words containing a subject (noun) and a predicate (verb).
To follow this rule is enough to be a writer. Check out this book ‘The Elements of Style’ by William Strunk, which covers the basic parts of Grammar. In addition, find a copy of Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition to refurbish your grammar.
Level 2
Passive Tense
Every writer’s first mantra is to avoid the passive tense. There is no argument on this point. For example:
“The meeting will be held at seven o’ clock.”
Replace the above sentence with,
“The meeting’s at seven”.
Stephen King says passive tense is weak, circuitous, and frequently tortuous. It is simpler to understand when a sentence is broken into two thoughts rather than cramming on a long passive sentence.
Adverb
An adverb is the worst enemy for a writer. They usually end in -ly. It reflects the pattern of timid writing. We often explore or include words in the fear of not being taken seriously. Consider the sentence,
“He closed the door firmly”
The word firmly has really needed to be there?. How about this sentence?
“He slammed the door”
It is better connected to the readers, more justifying. However, the use of adverbs has a single exception: dialogue attribution.
‘Put it down!’ she shouted.
‘Give it back,’ he pleaded, ‘it’s mine.’
‘Don’t be such a fool, Jekyll,’ Utterson said.
In these sentences, shouted, pleaded, and said are verbs of dialogue attribution.
‘Put it down!’ she shouted menacingly.
‘Give it back,’ he pleaded abjectly, ‘it’s mine.’
‘Don’t be such a fool, Jekyll,’ Utterson said contemptuously.
The three latter sentences are all weaker than the former ones. They are often known as swifties. Before using these adverbs, think twice whether they are necessary. Usually, the best form of dialogue attribution is said, as in he said, she said, Jekyll said.
“While to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.”
Level 3 — Paragraphs
Best books always contain brief paragraphs, including dialogue paragraphs which may be a word or two long. Stephen King says paragraphs are maps of intent. A paragraph contains a topic sentence followed by others which explain or amplify the first. It comes in practice.
Paragraphs are more of a beat than a melody. The process is natural, and it would take its time by exposure to more reading and writing. No need to stress about it.
“The single-sentence paragraph more closely resembles talk than writing, and that’s good. Writing is seduction. Good talk is a part of seduction.”
Regardless of either a fiction or non-fiction writer, these tools aptly fit and there is no second could go waste reading this book. Grab this book, if you’re serious about your writing passion.
