On Writing Blog Two

In What Writing Is, Stephen King notes the parallels between writing and telepathy. While initially I was skeptical of this idea because I didn't see the likeness, once I completed the section I realized that King wasn't referring to telepathy in the super natural sense. King didn't mean that he or any other writers could read minds; he simply was using the term by its definition, "the ability to know another's thoughts", to convey his message that the reader must be able to comprehend the author's purpose and messages when reading the author's work. His example of the rabbit in the cage with the number 8 on its back shows his ideal writer to reader "telepathy" in action. King also stresses that a writer must be serious about his or her work, and that he or she must "not come lightly to the blank page".

In The Toolbox, Stephen King uses an actual toolbox that belonged to his uncle to base his metaphorical instructions for writing on. Just as his uncle’s toolbox had several levels, King describes the various levels that one needs to be familiar with in order to succeed as a writer. In the first level, King talks about two of his pet peeves: using passive voice and using adverbs. While I have been taught the horrors of passive voice, King’s opinion on adverb usage was one I hadn’t heard before. I learned that using strong verbs to convey a message instead of adverbs is a great writing technique; therefore, now I will be more aware of my excessive adverb usage. In the second level, Stephen King discusses paragraphs and how to use paragraphs in writing. King expresses the necessity of “frags”, or fragments, in writing. He says that while sometimes they are over-used, fragments help to streamline writing, and he emphasizes that at this level, one must learn that the paragraph is flexible and can be a single word or several pages long, as long as it is used well. This was also a new idea to me because I had always learned that paragraphs should generally be no shorter than three sentences, but I understand now that while the tree sentence rule may apply for a more formal educational-based paper, they have no place in the book world. King’s third level is simply “begin to write real fiction”. He says that once you have all of the ingredients, or tools, rather, the only thing left to do is write.
            Another part of this section that I found interesting was King’s views on grammar. As he states, grammar deserves the top shelf of (my) toolbox.  I don’t particularly favor literature, but I could go on for hours about the wonderful aspects of grammar. Grammar is not something that I have to decipher or form an opinion on; the rules of grammar have already been created for me, and my job is simply to execute them. As King stated, “bad grammar produces bad sentences”, which in turn, produces bad stories. I have started several books that I simply could not finish because the grammar was so horrible, and I’m disappointed that Stephen King did not include the detailed section on grammar that he was considering, as I know I would have found that section most appealing.