Summary Of Stephen King On Writing

My earliest recollection of a love for history is when I was a small child in the 60's. My family would take weekend drives to various places, some only a short distance away, others seeming like they were on the other side of the world. Many of these trips were to historical locations, such as Sutter's Fort, Marshal Park, or a sugar cane museum. It seemed I drawn to find out about these places, and who were the men that the statues depicted. As I grew older, I often tried to get my dad to stop the car so I could read the roadside markers that told a brief history of long ago events or places, much to everyone else's dismay. In history classes, I always excelled, and when asked by other students how it was that I remembered all that

Historical writer’s must be part writer, part lawyer, part preacher, part professor, part archeologist, and part police officer to create written works that will captivate and educate readers. A poorly written paper will turn away a reader and the writer's message will be lost. "On Writing" was a surprisingly good course on how to become a good writer. It took a while for King to get to the meat of his lesson, having to wade through the interesting, but irrelevant story of his early life. Stephen King as a subject matter expert on writing, and his early life seemed mostly irrelevant . Once I made it to the heart of his book, King provided a very good advice. Some of King’s advice I had heard before from various sources and I tried to employ them, and other advice that opened my mind's eye. King provided his two theses (p142): which are both simple yet very important. "Good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments." And "While it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent

My schools did not have a strong emphasis on good writing habits; it was more of getting the information on paper. I realize now, forty years later, all the bad habits that I picked up. Through the course of my life I have had to write many various types of papers, only to have them returned to my embarrassment. Grammar has always been in my top drawer of my toolbox. I continue to use a grammar checker. There is a large difference between spoken language and written language. When we speak, we rarely use proper grammar, and if we wrote as we spoke, the words would become disorganized and incomprehensible, making it difficult to understand. It is a good practice to have someone, not an expert on the subject read over it, just to see if it is understandable. King's second theses is more difficult for me to understand. It seems that there will be little hope for someone that is a bad writer. But for historians, it is must. They must be able to cohesively explain their thoughts on paper. All writers should seek out timely help, if nothing more than a proof