Title: On Writing
Author: Stephen King
Type: Non-Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 368
Rating: 5*/5
Stephen King – On Writing
I’ve been a fan of Stephen King for the best part of ten years now, and while I’ve known about this book for a while I’ve been putting it off. I think it’s because it seems like such an obvious choice for me to read that the fact that I hadn’t was somehow offputting and I just left it until the problem got worse and worse and eventually I could no longer ignore it.
I ahouldn’t have waited so long. This book is weird but in a good way, a fascinating cross between a how-to book on the subject of writing from the master himself and a memoir that details how many of his most well-known books came about. In many ways, I’m glad that I waited a while to read it because it meant that I’d read a lot of the books that he talks about writing, and that made this one feel much more exciting and engaging.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is only of interest to those who have an interest in both writing and the work of Stephen King, though. You could pick this up as your first book of his and still enjoy it whether you’re a writer or not, but you’re going to enjoy it so much more if you’re a writer or even if you just have a passion for the English language. In fact, it could even work well if you’re a film maker or in some other related art. Anything to do with telling a story.
All in all then, I still can’t believe that I waited so long to read this but I’m happy that I finally got to it. I had a kind of fear that I’d read this and it would so fundamentally change my approach to writing that it would make everything I’ve done in the past irrelevant. It didn’t do that, which is good, but it has given me plenty of ideas that I’m looking forward to putting it into practice. I feel like the stuff on agents is less relevant now, though.
Stephen King
