Sure, SK’s books are not very good (the endings in particular). That doesn’t mean his advice is bad.
If you look at early drafts from better writers (insofar as you can — most writers dislike showing their working) you see how true it is.
FUN FACT:
P. G. Wodehouse would began each novel with a really rough draft. (Really rough. Often including placeholders, for example. So you might get <FUNNY METAPHOR HERE>, or <JEEVES QUOTES SOME PIECE OF POETRY HERE>.)
Then he would stick all the pages to the walls of his room, low down near the skirting-board.
Then he would start revising them and improving them. As they got better he would move them higher and higher up the wall, until finally all the pages were really high up, and then the book was finished.
>whose endings are almost always shit >(the endings in particular)
The Dark Tower series is not Stephen King's only story, you know.
Not all his endings are bad. I agree the "SK endings are all terrible" is a bit of a meme. But in my experience (I haven't read all his stuff) he's a lot better at creating interesting situations than resolving them. (That's surely a function of his follow-your-nose way of writing.)
Examples of decent (non-Dark-Tower) premises spoiled in the execution, particularly the ending (IMO):
The Stand
Rose Madder
It
Salem’s Lot
Also in Cujo, killing the boy was just wrong. Maybe it's supposed to be a metaphor for the damage she did to her marriage or something? IIRC, SK himself said he thought that was a bad decision. Isn't that the one he can't remember writing because he was on coke all the time?
This example is a bit different from the others, admittedly, because it's not really a matter of "I've written myself into a corner and I can't get out." He didn't HAVE to do it.
>The Dark Tower series is not Stephen King's only story, you know.
the ending to the dark tower is, ironically, perfect, unlike most of his other mid af conclusions
Great advice from a published author who has won various awards for his genre fiction, made over 500 million, and has traditionally published over 50 novels.
How's your novel coming along anon? Self publish it yet?
>Great advice from a published author who has won various awards for his genre fiction, made over 500 million, and has traditionally published over 50 novels.
OOOOOOH i'm so impressed
Sure, SK’s books are not very good (the endings in particular). That doesn’t mean his advice is bad.
If you look at early drafts from better writers (insofar as you can — most writers dislike showing their working) you see how true it is.
FUN FACT:
P. G. Wodehouse would began each novel with a really rough draft. (Really rough. Often including placeholders, for example. So you might get <FUNNY METAPHOR HERE>, or <JEEVES QUOTES SOME PIECE OF POETRY HERE>.)
Then he would stick all the pages to the walls of his room, low down near the skirting-board.
Then he would start revising them and improving them. As they got better he would move them higher and higher up the wall, until finally all the pages were really high up, and then the book was finished.
Almost every early draft I’ve read is bad, which is quite encouraging in a way. If you want to write better, just work harder. Here’s some insight into Cormac’s process:
Sure, SK’s books are not very good (the endings in particular). That doesn’t mean his advice is bad.
If you look at early drafts from better writers (insofar as you can — most writers dislike showing their working) you see how true it is.
FUN FACT:
P. G. Wodehouse would began each novel with a really rough draft. (Really rough. Often including placeholders, for example. So you might get <FUNNY METAPHOR HERE>, or <JEEVES QUOTES SOME PIECE OF POETRY HERE>.)
Then he would stick all the pages to the walls of his room, low down near the skirting-board.
Then he would start revising them and improving them. As they got better he would move them higher and higher up the wall, until finally all the pages were really high up, and then the book was finished.
I offer a sort of indirect counterpoint to doing revisions later >“in her essay “That Crafty Feeling,” Zadie Smith has made a similar observation about the novel-writing process: for her, it is “the first twenty pages” that take longest. The writing of those pages “manifests itself in a compulsive fixation on perspective and voice,” she writes. When Smith finally settles on the tone of the book after rewriting the first twenty pages many times, the rest of the book “travels at a crazy speed.
This was in a passage in a different book dealing with revising translations and how getting the first 10% of the book right sets the voice and tone you use for the rest. A number of writers revise as they write and depend on something in a near final form to guide the rest of the work.
It's not intrinsically different, you're still revising, but when and how you do it changes the results.
If anything, doing it right while writing is what hinders most people from writing (finishing) anything to begin with. It's like defecating; first you must shit, then you must clean.
You only have this luxury when you write high concept
High concept you can just throw stuff at the board and see what sticks and ad-hoc everything together
If you try to write low concept this way you will simply end up having to rewrite everything which is obviously stupid
this is simply not true. not only has king written notable low concept novels, but many authors (known for low concept premise) have discussed their process and work in drafts
Great advice from the author whose endings are almost always shit lmfao, even in his most popular, celebrated, culturally iconic novels
>whose endings are almost always shit
>(the endings in particular)
The Dark Tower series is not Stephen King's only story, you know.
Not all his endings are bad. I agree the "SK endings are all terrible" is a bit of a meme. But in my experience (I haven't read all his stuff) he's a lot better at creating interesting situations than resolving them. (That's surely a function of his follow-your-nose way of writing.)
Examples of decent (non-Dark-Tower) premises spoiled in the execution, particularly the ending (IMO):
The Stand
Rose Madder
It
Salem’s Lot
Also in Cujo, killing the boy was just wrong. Maybe it's supposed to be a metaphor for the damage she did to her marriage or something? IIRC, SK himself said he thought that was a bad decision. Isn't that the one he can't remember writing because he was on coke all the time?
This example is a bit different from the others, admittedly, because it's not really a matter of "I've written myself into a corner and I can't get out." He didn't HAVE to do it.
>The Dark Tower series is not Stephen King's only story, you know.
the ending to the dark tower is, ironically, perfect, unlike most of his other mid af conclusions
Great advice from a published author who has won various awards for his genre fiction, made over 500 million, and has traditionally published over 50 novels.
How's your novel coming along anon? Self publish it yet?
>Great advice from a published author who has won various awards for his genre fiction, made over 500 million, and has traditionally published over 50 novels.
OOOOOOH i'm so impressed
>Muh contrarianism
Again, how is your novel coming along?
Appeal to popularity
And he still sells millions and shits out novels every other week
Evidently he's doing something right.
The trick to modern literary success is to appeal to 90-105 iq women
Always has been
How can an author that always writes shit endings make it big? It's crazy.
That’s good advice in my opinion.
Sure, SK’s books are not very good (the endings in particular). That doesn’t mean his advice is bad.
If you look at early drafts from better writers (insofar as you can — most writers dislike showing their working) you see how true it is.
FUN FACT:
P. G. Wodehouse would began each novel with a really rough draft. (Really rough. Often including placeholders, for example. So you might get <FUNNY METAPHOR HERE>, or <JEEVES QUOTES SOME PIECE OF POETRY HERE>.)
Then he would stick all the pages to the walls of his room, low down near the skirting-board.
Then he would start revising them and improving them. As they got better he would move them higher and higher up the wall, until finally all the pages were really high up, and then the book was finished.
You can see Yeats' rough drafts in a museum in Dublin
>and what wild thing, knowing the hour
>has set out for bethlehem to be born
Almost every early draft I’ve read is bad, which is quite encouraging in a way. If you want to write better, just work harder. Here’s some insight into Cormac’s process:
https://hangingchad.medium.com/cormac-mccarthys-original-drafts-of-blood-meridian-bef09bc382c2
It’s amazing how much difference a small change makes.
FIRST DRAFT:
Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that yet keep wolves.
FINAL VERSION:
Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves.
So much better.
(He wasn’t just polishing the details like this either. The Judge wasn’t in the book in the early drafts, for example.)
I offer a sort of indirect counterpoint to doing revisions later
>“in her essay “That Crafty Feeling,” Zadie Smith has made a similar observation about the novel-writing process: for her, it is “the first twenty pages” that take longest. The writing of those pages “manifests itself in a compulsive fixation on perspective and voice,” she writes. When Smith finally settles on the tone of the book after rewriting the first twenty pages many times, the rest of the book “travels at a crazy speed.
This was in a passage in a different book dealing with revising translations and how getting the first 10% of the book right sets the voice and tone you use for the rest. A number of writers revise as they write and depend on something in a near final form to guide the rest of the work.
It's not intrinsically different, you're still revising, but when and how you do it changes the results.
that is NOT what this means. finding the voice/tone does not mean she's imply even keeping the first pages.
>does not mean she's imply even keeping the first pages
>does not imply she's*
literally just woke up and decided to get triggered
He's right.
If you're in it to make money, productivity is king.
If anything, doing it right while writing is what hinders most people from writing (finishing) anything to begin with. It's like defecating; first you must shit, then you must clean.
It's true. As a great professor once said: Writing is rewriting.
Someone tell Gurm
Didn't Hemingway say the first draft of anything is always shit? That's saying the same thing in fewer words.
>basic definition of a first draft
Wow. Is he a genius?
There are "storytellers" like King and Rowling and even Louis L'Amour but great literature requires something more than just a story.
Why is there so much pedo shit in his books?
He is a crypto israelite
You only have this luxury when you write high concept
High concept you can just throw stuff at the board and see what sticks and ad-hoc everything together
If you try to write low concept this way you will simply end up having to rewrite everything which is obviously stupid
this is simply not true. not only has king written notable low concept novels, but many authors (known for low concept premise) have discussed their process and work in drafts
Imagine taking writing advices from SK.