King on writing memoir - Notes

We never ask one another where we get our ideas. We know we don't know.

This book is dedicated to Amy Tan.

This is a short book becausse most books about writing are filled with bullshit.

I don't believe writer can be made, either by circumstances or by self-will.

TV really came relatively late to the King household, and I'm glad.

Your isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.

I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his god-given talent.

During the summer of 1969 I got a work-study job in the University of Maine library.

Whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or husband), I smile and think, there's someone who knows.

The most important is that the writer's original perception of a character or a character may be as erronous as the reader's.

Bill Thompson had sent it after trying to call and discovering the Kings no longer had a phone.

The guy who had written The Shining without even realizing that I was writing about myself.

You must not come lightly to the blank page.

The grapes of wrath: The Steinbeck sentence is especially interesting.

One of the really bad things to your wrting is to dress up the vocabulary.

The averb is not your friend.

I insist you use the averb in dialouge attribution only in the rarest and most special of occasions.

I urge you to read a novel by Larry McMurtry "The Shane of dialogue attribution".

Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction.

Above almost all of us are Shakespears, Faulkners, Yeatses and Eudora Weltys.

If you're a bad writer, no one can help you become a good one, or even a competent one.

Traditionally, the muses were women, but mine is a guy.

You must do two things above all others: Read a lot and write a lot.

I take a book everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of oppurtunities to dip in.

Constant reading will put you in a place where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness.

Once I start on a project, I don't stop and slow down unless I absolutely have to.

When I'm writing, it's all the playground, and the worst three hours I ever spent there were still pretty damn good.

I like to get 10 pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words.

The job of fiction is to find the truth inside the story's web of lies, not to commit intellectual dishonesty in the hunt for the buck.

I'g bet my dog and a lot that John Grisham never worked for the mob.

Plumber in space is not such a bad setup for a story.

Stories and novels consist of 3 parts: Narration; Description; Dialogue.

I distrust plot. I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible.

The writer job is to use the tools in his toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.

The situation comes first.

I want to put a group of characters (perhaps even just one) in some sort predicament and then watch them try to work themselves free.

My Job isn't to help them work their way free, or manipulate them but to watch what happens and write it down.

Gerald's Game and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon are two purely situational novels.

A strong enough situation renders the whole questions of plot moot, which is fine with me.

Your job is to write 5 or 6 pages of unplotted narration concerning this fossil.

Good description begins with  clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary.

Dialogue is a skill best learned by people who enjoy talking and listening to others.

What happens to characters as a story progresses depends on what I discover about them as I go along.

I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event. Character-driven.

I tried never to come right out and say "Annie was depressed and possibly suicidal that day" or "Annie seem particularly happy that" If I have to tell you, I lose.

If you do your job, your character will come to life and start doing stuff on their own.

👻👻👻

Good fiction always begins with story and progress to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progress to story.

Big questions:  Is this story coherent? And if is, what will turn conherence into a song? What are the recurring elements?

I think every novelist has a single ideal reader.

If what your hear (from the ideal reader) makes sense, then make the changes.

Each story should be allowed to unfold at its own pace, and that pace is not always double time.

2nd Daft = 1 Draft - 10%. Good luck.

The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn't very interesting.

About Pennsylvania Police Dept: I simply made up all the stuff I didn't know.

Enough details always assuming they are the correct ones can stem the tide of letters from picky-ass readers.

I learned the most valuable part of my life's work while washing motel sheets and restaurant tablecloths in Bangor.

Do you do it for the money, honey? The answer is no. Don't now and never did.

There was no inspiration that afternoon. All my old-tricks seemed to have deserted me.