Neil Fein's Blog

On Writing
by Stephen King

"Omit needless words."
William Strunk Jr, The Elements of Style

The cover of my copy of this short book shows a window, with the lights inside the house on and the shades down. Underneath it, a door leads down to the basement. This cover simultaneously invites the reader to the book while putting up a "caution" sign. ^[1]

This small book^[2] simply and effectively conveys a writer's opinions and prejudices on how to write well. The usual advice applies: There are no shortcuts; learn to write by writing an awful lot; don't wait for inspiration; and so on. But Mr. King has made this potentially yawnable material exciting and fun to read.^[3]

I approached this book asking, how can I apply this book to lyric writing? Some of the advice in here is pretty useless to me -- dialog construction, for example.

But writing is writing, no matter if you're producing lyric sheets or thousand-page novels or auto manuals. If your goal is clear, simple writing^[4], this book is a treasure trove. Recommended to any writer serious about writing well.

^[1] The cover of the paperback edition shows a pike of rejection slips impaled on a metal spike.

^[2] It's hardly as slim as The Elements of Style, which weighs in at eighty-something pages of text. On Writing is just under 300 pages in hardback.

^[3] The original Strunk & White volume is nearly as fun to read, and any writer of fiction or non-fiction should read it every year or so. But the end chapter of On Writing--sort of a confessional and writing demo--details Mr. King's recent road accident, and it scared the crap out of me.

^[4] This isn't always the case, despite Mr. King's insistences.