Stephen King � The Secret Lesson he has for you as a Writer

There is no mistaking that Stephen King is a masterful writer. His prose is clean and extraordinarily well written. But there is another, very valuable lesson, he has to offer you as an aspiring author. To understand this lesson you have to take a look at his body of work.

If you look at the enormous body of work that Stephen King has produced over the last several decades what do you come up with? You come up with an incredibly diverse range of works that run the complete spectrum of writing. He has written multi-volume stories that span decades of his life, collections of short stories, single book stories, and well just about every length of story imaginable. He doesn’t limit himself to the format of a novel or of a short story. In terms of story length he has no limits.

This same observation on his writing holds true for his television and movie writing. He has written traditional length movies, multi-episode Television shows, and movies that are a compilation of shorter works all tied together with a theme.

But this freedom of expression that he has is not just limited to the length of the work. It is also clearly evident in the subject and genre of his work. He has written horror, science fiction, fantasy and more. And often times his books simply do not stay within any one category. You often find a mixture of all these genres in one book.

His work, in other words, is very diverse. He has no qualms about writing whatever he wants to write in any length, and in any genre. He allows his stories go wherever they need to go.

You might be thinking to yourself that he is, after all, "Stephen King" so he can write whatever he wants. I don’t think this is true. I think this is backwards and the reality here is that he became "Stephen King" because he followed his heart and wrote what he wanted to write. He had the courage to follow his internal voice.

So what is the rule for Stephen King, and the lesson for you? It is that he writes what he wants to write. He has the courage to listen to his internal voice and take the story wherever it needs to go. This is the lesson of courage in writing and you should follow the same process. Write what you want to write, listen to your internal voice, and follow the story wherever it leads you in whatever length or genre it takes you.

 

Will Kalif is the author of two Epic Fantasy novels. For more insight into the craft of writing visit his site at: <a href="http://www.stormthecastle.com/mainpages/for_writers.htm"><b>StormTheCastle.com – Creativity with an Edge</b></a>

 

 

Reviews

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

Enjoyed this and good advice, S King is one of my favorites.

Chloe
xoxo

[Matthew Drana]

I think that he explains this very well in his book 'On writing', part biography part guide. I received it for Christmas a few years ago and I have read and re read it sometimes just for a specific part sometimes for the whole of the story. I will not be so bold as to say I like everything he has written ( I prefer to read his stories that more down to earth such as Hearts in Atlantis and The Body) but I would rank him as one of my favorites.

[Phil King, Sr.]

This came at just the right time for me to read it. I thank you for posting this. I just finished an article on cooking tacos, one of my favorite meals, for my family. I decided to write it because others might enjoy reading about the process of this meal. We'll see. Just the same, I loved writing it.

I have read all those novels, novellas, and short stories of King. This was fun because I could have written it, too. Your message is clearly shown. I would have loved to have kept reading, but you made your point, so I must be satisfied with that!