Before I start I should say that this is not a
sponsored post and nobody has paid me to write this review. I have just finished
reading this book and I thought it would be good to write a review for the
blog.
I haven’t read anything of Stephen King’s for some
time, years in fact. I appear to have left Misery and The Shining, and other
great reads, in my teenage years.
Over the years I have heard many great things about
his book On Writing but never got round to reading it until one of my students
this summer mentioned how good it was.
The first half of the book was autobiographical and I
was a bit surprised at this as it wasn’t what I was expecting. But this is not
a negative remark. I like finding out about people I admire and find it
interesting to discover their background and a bit about their lives. King’s dad walked out on him, his brother and
mother when he was two. He talks a bit about his mother’s struggle to bring
them up with little money.
The autobiographical takes you through to recent times
(well recent to 2000 when the book was written) and gives you an insight into
the man itself, but for the writer the most interesting part is the second part
of the book which is full of interesting advice on writing, in particular on
constructing plots and storylines. He gives good examples, and then compares it
to something which doesn’t read quite so well so that you can see for yourself
what he means. King is very good at demonstrating what he means and explaining
his point well.
For any writing student, certainly for any writer, I think
this book is a must have. He doesn’t give writing exercises as such but from
reading his advice it would be easy to set yourself exercises based on what he
writes.
Stephen King On Writing: A memoir of the Craft is
available for £6.99 from Amazon, £5.99 for the Kindle edition.
Sounds like a book I could do with, I always struggle with plot planning.
ReplyDeleteYes, it really is worth it - a great read.
ReplyDelete