Diary of a Mad Editor

When I was an undergraduate majoring in English, I took a class with Dr. Richard Mitchell called Advanced Classical Literature. It was clear from the first that he had no love for any book written after The Aeneid. The class was supposed to be a study of the works of Sophocles and the like, but Mitchell spent most of class time condemning contemporary art and language. On one occasion, he spent an entire class period trashing Stephen King. Several times during the class, he referred to King as “that despicable man,” even though, by his own admission, he had never met the author nor read so much as a word King had written. My own interest in Stephen King’s writing was on the wane at the time, but I was offended by Mitchell’s remarks, nonetheless. It’s true King is not a great stylist, and for one who has spent his career exploring good and evil, his vision of both is more than a little naive. Still, even as a lowly English student, I understood that Stephen King knew as much about the craft of storytelling as Homer on his best day. Afterall, I don’t recall staying up until four a.m. hyped on Dr. Pepper and caffeine pills reading The Iliad.
Stephen King’s On Writing is not really a “how-to” book so much as it is a “how-I-did-it” book. As such, the book is more interesting than it is useful. I was surprised by how much of his life I recognized from his fiction. I can certainly identify with some of his experiences. If I were seventeen and still slugging it out in the dreary stacks of the high school library, I might even find this volume inspirational. At thirty-six, my outlook is a bit more jaded, so I require more from a book on writing than this volume offers.
As a memoir, I like this book. King’s rags-to-riches story of a sickly, lonely boy who wrote his way to great fortune and happiness is compelling stuff. Certainly, it is not the story of a “despicable man.”
I am less pleased with it as a book on writing craft. If you’ve read his addresses to his “constant readers,”in other books, then you can easily recognize the section “What Writing Is” as little more than a wink to his fans and a teaser for his next novel.
King’s “Toolbox” is a nifty metaphor for writing craft. He presents his views in a clear and logical fashion as well as providing good examples from novels he admires to illustrate his points. I think, where I part ways with King, is when he states that “most bad writing comes from fear.” I don’t necessarily agree with that. Some bad writing probably does come from a fear of failing. I’m sure this is why some writers rely on the passive instead of the active voice. But this kind of bad writing is usually curable. The greater truth can perhaps be found earlier in the book, when he cautions writers not to “come lightly to the blank” page. It’s been my experience that the worst writing comes from writers who do come lightly to the blank page. They don’t have enough fear.