Opening the Writer’s Desk: Writing Tips from Stephen King
Today, we are taking writing tips straight from the desk of Stephen King. You may have heard of him.
When people ask me what it takes to write a book and get it published, I often point them to Stephen King.
Why? Because he's clearly a talented writer or at least knows how to write books that millions of people read, and it took him four novels before he actually got one published. You've probably heard of Carrie.
If you're having trouble, it's not for lack of talent. He's a great example of that. So let's dive into some strategies that King himself uses to help him write well, and consistently.
Tip #1: Learn from your failures and keep pushing
The first tip is to learn from your failures and keep pushing.
Before he was the best selling author, Stephen King was a teacher struggling to make ends meet, and he used the payment from some of his early stories to pay a fine for stealing traffic cones. I'm not kidding about that part.
As I mentioned, he had written three novels prior to Carrie, the first one to be published. Even before that, he had a nail in his wall where he would stick every rejection letter he ever got. After a while, he had to replace the nail with a spike because the nail couldn't support the weight of the letters anymore.
We all face failure. We're not going to go through life with everything always going our way. But the upside is you can learn from it and recognize that every time you fail you are one step closer to succeeding.
It took me six years to get my novel published, and I had to query the agent I wanted three times before she signed me. It's not easy, but you can get there.
Tip #2: Write from your own voice
Tip two from Stephen King is to write from your own voice.
King says, "One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words, because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of the short ones. It's like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed, and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed."
It's easy to think that because a lot of the literary greats wrote in flowery language that we should be writing that way.
Sure, that's one way you could tell your story, but ultimately the way you want to tell your story should be the way you want to tell it, which is often pretty close to the way you talk.
So if you want to keep things short and scant like Hemingway, go for it. If you want to tell your story through the voice of an awkward, quirky narrator like Gale Honeyman does in her amazing novel Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, do that.
But tell your story how you want to tell it, not how you think you should because you think that's how good writers write.
Tip #3: Let yourself discover your story
The third tip from Stephen King is to let yourself discover your story.
All right, sure, if you need an outline, you can outline. But I have found in my experience that giving myself the freedom to let my story take me to surprising places helps me uncover a more compelling story.
I'm not restricted to this rigid set of events that I decided at the beginning.
When Stephen King says "Stories are like relics, part of an undiscovered preexisting world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible." Like an archeologist. I love that.
Tip #4: If you want to be a writer, you have to read
Tip number four from Stephen King is that if you want to be a better writer, you’ve got to read.
He says, "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."
There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of. No shortcut.
When you're not writing, it's important to keep reading because not only will you keep up with what others are doing, but you'll keep yourself inspired and open yourself up to new ways to tell your own stories.
Tip #5: If you don’t have time to write, you have to make time
Last but not least, tip number five from Stephen King is that if you don't have time to write, you have to make time to write.
Stephen King says that he writes about 2000 words every day, which is a lot. I mean, he's also a professional author who makes his sole living off of writing.
So if you work a full-time job or are raising a family, it's okay if you're not writing this much or writing every day.
The point is that even if you don't have the time, you have to make the time.
So when are you at your best creatively? Maybe making time means waking up an hour earlier when your house is still quiet and getting out 500 words.
Or maybe it means typing a few paragraphs while you're on the bus on the way to work, or in the car waiting to pick up your kid from soccer practice, which is how one of the writers in my program wrote her first book, waiting in the carpool line. She finished an entire novel draft in the carpool line.
However you choose, make that time sacred and give yourself the gift of the space to write. Even if it's in small chunks.
By the way, I teach as I do, which is writing the first draft by hand. The nice thing about writing the first draft by hand in a notebook is that you can take a notebook with you anywhere.
That's how that writer managed to write the first draft of her novel in her van, in the carpool line.
Ready to write your book?
Maybe you're thinking, listen, I would love to make the time, but I don't know how, or maybe you are worried because you haven't written a creative word in years.
Maybe you're the opposite, you have an MFA in creative writing, but it sucked all the fun out of it, and now you're stuck working on your book.
Well, as a three time published novelist and writing coach, I've put together a free training for you on how to write your dream book while holding down a full-time job.
In this training, I teach you the exact process I use to write my books by hand, exactly how I use my four notebooks, and how I then turn those into a typewritten draft.
All you have to do to get this free training is apply, and be accepted, to my program, the Book Incubator. It's a two question application and takes under five minutes.
There's no obligation to join the program, but if you're admitted, I'll send you this free training right away.
You have nothing to lose here, except for maybe more years of your life, dreaming of writing this book burning inside you that you haven't actually written.
Click below to apply and, if accepted, get my free training to watch right away. It will be worth your time. I promise!
