On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Stephen King. 2000.
Memoir. Fiction writing craft.
King combines stories from his life with a practical master class on the art of writing. The result is a list of recommendations of what writers should and should not do, based on his own preferences and experiences.
Craft is not really the focus here, as King freely admits. His real goal is to describe to his readers the outlines of life as a writer of fiction. Through this perspective, fans get a sense of what he went through in order to become a full time writer. And they get another sense of how that success transformed the life of a struggling artist.
On Writing is King’s only significant contribution to the craft of fiction writing. And while he is certainly the world’s leading expert on how to write like Stephen King, he left the high school classroom in 1973. And, as far as I know, never taught fiction at the university level.
So while this memoir is interesting—gripping, at times, in my opinion—it is by no means a Rosetta Stone for aspiring writers. It is, however, as he intended it to be, an inspirational introduction to the craft.
AUTHORS – I write short book reviews that focus on voice and vibe. They are useful to querying authors searching for comp titles. There are more like this on my website.