Four Aspects of Stephen King's Writing You Can Use in All Genres

***This was first published in The Writing Cooperative***

As a person who writes nonfiction, aiming to begin a memoir, what is there to learn from a thirty year master of fiction?

Everything!

Stephan King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft wields an honest narrative about the road, the wreckage, the right and the wrong ways to his writing process. His making of the artist and the transformational tips of the habitual writer are cardinal to the esteem of any writer — across the boundaries of genre.

As mirrored in King’s creative process, these four essential skills of writing with honesty, direction, attention, and habit, can be applied to memoir with the same gravitas as fiction.

Writing With Honesty

King handles the feigned “write what you know” in a way that rings true for both fiction and memoir.

“If you’re a plumber, you know plumbing, but that is far from the extent of your knowledge; the heart also knows things, and so does the imagination. Thank God.”

Though the surrounding narrative of a memoir may be, as mentioned above, plumbing, the story is bound to narrate more than how to handle a leak. To polish the “what you know” narrative and create a story it’s important to give the reader access to the truth — the heart and imagination as King says. Give the audience access to the whole of what you see as a writer. Don’t fluff or withhold. With access to the truth, the reader will accept the narrative, however brutal or confrontational, because you were honest. The reader can tell when you’re not and “honesty is indispensable.”

Writing Without a Map

As a man who writes ten pages every morning, even on Christmas and his birthday, King has experience moving things along. His method consists of beginning with the story, the idea, or scene and following — without a road map. He says that to plot is death.

“I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible.”

Where we have little control over changing the details in memoir, we do have full control over how the details unfold. The map or plot of a memoir will be weak if its first draft hinges on a motif. The life lesson or motif should rise like dough the longer the words sit — after they’re written. Don’t lose the reason for picking up the pen — writing a story. The reader wants to be entertained and entertaining takes the spontaneity of real creation as King says.

Spontaneity doesn’t mean selling your life and jet-setting to Bora Bora on an excursion to hunt for exotic fruits. No, creation and a good story is in the power of delivery.

David Sedaris, a master of humor and satire, is known for his witty personal essays that often cover the most mundane parts of life. Everything from visiting a taxidermist looking for a Valentines gift for his husband (ok that’s mildly interesting) to thoughts on his fatty benign tumor (how is that interesting). He’s able to transform the trivial parts of life by focusing on what’s interesting, jumping into the scenes and delivering the best parts. He follows the story rather than drowning the reader in motif.

Davy Roth, creator and editor of Found magazine published his memoir My Heart is an Idiot all about the relationships of his past — been there, but not like Roth has. His essays are a mix of the side effects of a broken heart, the extremes of doing things for love (or getting laid), and his cross-country journey to promote his publication. Because Roth focuses on the stories and doesn’t dwell on the life lessons of a broken heart, the stories are beautifully honest and any moral take away feels like dessert rather than a surprise tax at dinner.

Whatever your memoir tale, make sure to follow what’s interesting. Don’t cloud your inspiration and creativity with baited rhetoric of your imagined motifs.

“…my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of a writer is to give them a place to grow.”

Stop trying to cram ideas into a structure and let the story decide the size, shape, and purpose of the creative box you’re building. All mechanics and and revelations of your words can be polished and highlighted on the second draft.

Writing With Attention

Similar to fiction each aspect of a great memoir story is the product of the well-written elements on the page. Writing well is not a constitution of genius. It’s about understanding the way your story works. What elements can you use as a writer to convey your story? Success is about attention to the mechanics of your story. Two areas of mechanical foe a writer of memoir should pay attention to include dialogue and gesture.

“…one of the cardinal rules of good fiction is never tell us a thing if you can show us instead.”

As in in fiction, memoir relies on dialogue to create a story, however, a memoir writer replays the dialogue of past events, and must be selective to avoid the useless drum of chatter. Dialogue is an extension of delivery, a way to progress a story — a way of showing. If a line of dialogue can be deleted with the story maintaining course, then the line has no place to exist on the page. Don’t be shy to cut the fat for the sake of fluidity.

In Francise Prose book, Reading Like a Writer, she tells the aspiring writer about the magic of gestures — another tool of delivery and moving the story. A tool best used with clarity. Prose warns against filling pages with gestures a reader can already interpret without being told. Describing familiar human reactions is a mark of amateur writing.

“…unless what the character does is unexpected or unusual, or truly important to the narrative, the reader will assume that response without having to be told…If a character is going to light a cigarette, or almost light a cigarette, it should mean something.”

Prose warns against slowing down the narration of a good story with irrelevant gestures specifically in-between dialogue. The reader doesn’t need to know that as you sat in the chair with both feet planted on the ground you turned your body a quarter of an inch to the left to see around the right side of the building that there was someone coming from the second floor to the lobby and your heart beat raced? What an awful sentence without function: too much movement and irrelevant gestures.

As King says,

“Practice the art, always reminding yourself that your job is to say what you see, and then to get on with your story.”

Writing As a Habit

As a man of devotion to the craft, King gives the reader two invaluable pieces of advice: read and write — everyday. Plain and simple make the habit. Unlike other wizards of wielding ordered words, he further mentions the importance of environment.

“…you need the room, you need the door, and you need the determination to shut the door.”

King’s repetition of the “door” is both a physical and mental metaphor. Now, more than in 2000, when the book was published, a conducive writing environment needs a door — a digital one. With the perpetual distractions of social updates, pings, alarms and pop-ups the writer has more excuses than ever to saunter from the pages into the blackhole of YouTube. Without the habit or the conducive space, it’s easy to excuse the role of writing as a profession.

“Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you’re going to be every day from nine ’til noon or seven ’til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he’ll start showing up, chomping his cigar and making his magic.”

Being a writer is a tiring affair — it’s a job — and as any other, the work requires the punch of an in/out clock. We can’t utter our excuses and expect to be a writer if we don’t in fact produce any writing. The routine is important in affirming a commitment to the story and to the role of being its orator. Whether it’s fiction or memoir the words won’t manifest unless they are made to. We need to shut the door and get to work.

As King conquers the world of sci-fi and horror, so too can the aspiring writer of memoir. By writing with honesty and attention, by following the story without a map, and by making writing a habit you can learn the to be a dedicated and successful artists of your craft.

Written By: Rose Hedberg

As a recovering perfectionist, Rose helps others navigate their writing roadblocks to get into more creative joy. Rose is a published co-author of flash fiction, an experienced freelance writer, ghost writer, and grant writer. Rose is a book junkie collecting passport stamps every chance she gets. Based in Cartagena, Colombia she lives for flavor and sunsets plunging into the Caribbean Ocean when out of office.

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