Books on Writing

 I Was Lied To About 'On Writing' by Stephen King is another testament to that book on writing. As I have written before on here, I was told around the turn of the century to read it, but I did not, and when I did my first reaction was that I had been a damn fool for waiting too long. 

I would say at it’s core, the two messages that are strongest in this book are that of honesty and Joy. Stephen king talks a lot about how the only way to write things organically and convincingly, whether it be characters or dialogue or your writers voice, Is to be honest with yourself, and to put that honesty on the page. I think confirmation of this was present throughout the entire book, and I can say with little doubt that Stephen King is genuinely himself.

His next message however, is about joy, and how joy is both the motivation for writing, and the point of writing. This is evident from his constant life stories about his family, his wife, and his children. It even includes his story of being hit by a car (sorry for leaving that out).

I think to show you the essence of this message, I will leave you with one final quotes of “ON Writing”:

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay?”

The best book on writing I’ve ever read - by Mason Currey is about a book directed more to essayists, but I found it applied to me.

In the book, Gornick provides an insightful and convincing answer to a question that has always nagged at me, namely: Why do certain pieces of writing “work” while others emphatically do not, despite the author’s best intentions and maximum effort?

Gornick begins with a simple observation about selves: that all of us contain a variety of them. One person might be, for instance, “a daughter, a lover, a bird-watcher, a New Yorker,” among many other things. And a piece of writing succeeds when the writer invokes the best self to tell the particular story at hand.

 ***

Gornick argues that every work of literature has a situation—“the context or circumstances, sometimes the plot”—and a story—“the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say.” The persona is like the bridge between these two: the vehicle for transforming a situation into a story. At the same time: By telling the story, the persona comes into focus and this is the story as much as what is told.

This last version of “Agnes” is on my mind. I sent it off to KH with plenty of questions. But the biggest question is why it takes me so long to see how to tell a story best. I still think it comes down to me not seeing the forest for the trees, that obsessing over composition obscures the composition. I take it as a sign that I still do not know what I am doing, and what I am doing then I am not doing a good job.

Speaking of which, I devoured this, running a checklist of what I do: Don't over-engineer how the reader "hears" your words (Nathan Bransford)

sch