Stephen King is a true titan of literature. Over his prolific career, King has published over 60 novels and 200 short stories, selling over 350 million copies of his works worldwide. From horror classics like The Shining, The Stand and It to distinctive dramas like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile that were adapted into acclaimed films, King’s output is as diverse as it is extensive. But beyond his staggering success, what’s even more impressive is the quality of the writing tips and advice Stephen King shares with aspiring authors.
In his popular writing manual, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, King distills the lessons and wisdom accrued over decades spent mastering the written word. The book offers an illuminating mix of the practical and the philosophical—essential writing tips and techniques interwoven with Stephen King’s hard-earned insights on the creative process and the writing life. It’s a wellspring of knowledge for writers of all levels.
Writing Tips From Stephen King
While King admits that even he doesn’t always adhere to his own rules, he believes that attempting to follow them is a vital step to becoming a better writer.
Let’s delve into 20 of King’s most compelling and enduring tips:
Write for Yourself First
When starting out on a story, King advises writing for yourself and not concerning yourself with the audience. Focus on telling yourself the story during the first draft. Revising is when you take the audience into account and refine the tale. “Your stuff starts out being just for you, but then it goes out,” he explains. The story begins as a personal exploration before evolving into a public offering.
Avoid the Passive Voice
The passive voice may feel “safe,” but it saps writing of energy and confidence. King gives this humorous example: “Timid writers like passive verbs for the same reason that timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe.” He urges writers to be bold and make active choices. “Throw back your shoulders, stick out your chin, and put that meeting in charge! Write ‘The meeting’s at seven.’ There, by God! Don’t you feel better?”
Limit Your Use of Adverbs
Adverbs, according to King, are often redundant and unnecessarily bloat prose. Take the sentence “He closed the door firmly.” Does “firmly” meaningfully add to the description, or is it superfluous? As King argues, “Isn’t it redundant?” Context and characterization should be carefully constructed to render adverbs largely unnecessary. Trust the reader to infer the action.
Especially Avoid Adverbs After “He Said” and “She Said”
Dialogue attribution is where writers are most tempted to inject adverbs. But a well-written exchange shouldn’t need excess description – the lines themselves should convey the emotion and tone. King puts it pithily: “While to write adverbs is human, to write ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ is divine.”
Don’t Obsess Over Perfect Grammar
The object of fiction, asserts King, “isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story.” He encourages writers to learn the rules but to be willing to break them judiciously in service of the story and reader engagement. “Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes,” he affirms. Communication trumps formality.
Believe In Your Own Magic
King pinpoints fear as the root of most bad writing. He compares it to Dumbo and the magic feather—a crutch the elephant only thought he needed to fly. Writers may cling to passive verbs and adverbs out of insecurity, but they must ultimately trust in their own innate ability. “Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.”
Read Voraciously
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write,” King states unequivocally. Reading widely and analytically is essential to developing your skills and sensibilities as a writer. It’s a process of “constantly refining (and redefining) your own work” in relation to what you read. Immerse yourself in language.
Don’t Try to Please Everyone
Polite society and people-pleasing should be low priorities for serious writers, King asserts. He minces no words: “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.” Expect to ruffle some feathers. The writer’s allegiance is to candor, not popularity.
Limit Distractions
King has little patience for the array of distractions that can waylay writers, especially television in all its forms. “If you feel you must have the news analyst blowhard on CNN while you exercise, or the stock market blowhards on MSNBC, or the sports blowhards on ESPN, it’s time for you to question how serious you really are about becoming a writer.” A devotion to the craft necessitates “turning inward toward the life of the imagination,” not being plugged in to mass media 24/7.
Set a Deadline
Discipline and consistency are key to achieving writing goals. When working on a novel, King advises aiming to finish the first draft within three months. Establishing a firm deadline helps to keep the project on track. “The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season,” he says.
Stay Healthy and Grounded In Reality
When asked for the secret to his prolific success, King sometimes offers this two-fold reply: “I stayed physically healthy, and I stayed married.” Keeping your body sound and your personal life stable creates a solid foundation for the rigors of writing as a vocation. A self-reliant spouse who gives you space to work also helps. King views his writing as both enriching his life and drawing nourishment from its stability.
Take It Word by Word
When an interviewer asked how King writes, he replied simply: “One word at a time.” No matter how epic the scope of the project, the actual work consists of putting down one word after another. It’s an incremental process that requires patience and tenacity. Gargantuan novels are crafted in the same fundamental way as short stories – one focused word at a time.
Eliminate Distractions
To write productively, King stresses the need to cultivate solitude and limit interruptions. His advice: “There should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. If there’s a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall.” Defend your concentration and working time.
Find Your Own Authentic Voice
It’s futile to try to imitate another writer’s voice or genre, no matter how much you admire their work. As King puts it, “You can’t aim a book like a cruise missile.” Authenticity will always trump impersonation. “People who decide to make a fortune writing like John Grisham or Tom Clancy produce nothing but pale imitations, by and large, because vocabulary is not the same thing as feeling and plot is light years from the truth as it is understood by the mind and the heart.” Discover your own truthful style.
Writing Is Excavation
King compares stories to found objects, like fossils in the ground. “Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world,” he explains. “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.” Whether a short story or sprawling novel, the “techniques of excavation remain basically the same.” Writing reveals what’s already there, waiting to be unearthed.
Allow Your First Draft to Rest
After completing your manuscript, set it aside for at least six weeks before attempting revisions, King advises. “If you’ve never done it before, you’ll find reading your book over after a six-week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience.” You’ll see it with fresh eyes and renewed objectivity. “It’s always easier to kill someone else’s darlings that it is to kill your own.” Detachment yields clarity.
Ruthlessly Revise
Speaking of “killing your darlings,” King stresses the need to cut any prose that doesn’t propel the story forward, no matter how fond you are of the lines. He cites Elmore Leonard’s axiom of simply leaving out the “boring parts” to improve pacing. “This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.)” Revision requires tough love.
Don’t Let Research Overwhelm the Story
While research is often necessary, especially for stories exploring unfamiliar topics, King cautions against letting that research dominate the foreground of the story. It belongs in the background, serving the narrative, not competing with it. “You may be entranced with what you’re learning about flesh-eating bacteria, the New York sewer system, or the I.Q. potential of Collie pups, but your readers are probably going to care a lot more about your characters and your story.” Don’t lose sight of what matters most – the human drama at the heart of the tale.
You Learn By Doing
While King offers a wealth of useful advice, he ultimately argues that “You become a writer simply by reading and writing.” No classes, books, or seminars can substitute for the growth that comes through persistently engaging in the work itself. “You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.” Time spent absorbing and practicing language is what counts most in the end.
Write to Enrich Life – Your Own And Others
In a passage that beautifully encapsulates his view of the deeper purpose of writing, King declares: “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink.”
In Conclusion
Stephen King has earned his place in the pantheon of great 20th-century authors not only through the brilliance of classics like The Shining and Carrie, but also through generously sharing his hard-won insights and tips on writing. While Stephen King’s primary tool is terror rather than inspiration, the writing tips explored above—from dedicating regular time to writing, unleashing creativity through organic drafting, using vivid sensory detail, perfecting dialogue, and persevering through rejection—convey universal advice for writers of all genres and skill levels. Though much of King’s advice seems basic rather than revolutionary, his tens of millions of books sold prove these simple methods work when applied diligently over time. For writers who may never attain King’s stratospheric success and notoriety, his tips offer a flexible framework for developing sustainable writing habits and skills.
