Guest Author - Susan Alison
If you have any aspirations to becoming a writer, or if you just enjoy reading Stephen King’s fiction, or if you enjoy reading any fiction at all, this book is a must-read, both as an excellent blueprint to the writing life and as an insightful series of anecdotes that illuminate Stephen King himself.
The writing style is the same as it is in his novels – that is, he sometimes seems to wander off into an anecdote about a smaller character or incident that rambles away, but then, suddenly, illumination dawns and you feel richer and more understanding because of having read it.
You will come away from this book with a much better idea as to what being a writer is about, the highs and the lows, how a writer develops and either sticks with it, or doesn’t; how a writer is influenced by his or her life experiences and either uses them to grow, or uses them to decide writing isn’t for them after all. Both are valuable choices. We don’t all have a novel within us that anyone else might be interested to read…
Stephen King’s chronicling of his early years and writing struggles are encouraging because it reminds us that he wasn’t always this mega-famous, mega-rich novelist whose books are always bestsellers. There’s hope for us yet, then.
Much of the book is about the accident he was in and how it changed him and his life. This is not surprising given how seriously traumatic it was and how it affected every part of his life. However, odd though it seems, the insights presented by this part of the book do have a lot of bearing on the way we write and how we might develop as writers, and they certainly help to fill out the picture the author is giving us of himself.
Importantly, we are left with the message that writing is about how we live and that we have to have lived to write fully rounded prose that will be of interest to others. There’s no doubt but that Stephen King has lived enough to interest us with his writings!
The actual writing advice is fairly standard in the way of how-to writing books, but delivered in his particular style they come across as being much more lively and pertinent, and therefore much more likely to be noted.
All in all, this book is biography, how-to-write manual, entertainment and a great motivational tool rolled into one!
