Stephen King Writing Advice You Might Not Have Heard

Stephen King of course needs no introduction and there's a wealth of quotes and tips from him out there so today I've picked a few that I haven't seen too often that I think we can use to help make our writing better on the topic of making things better I made a bit of a mistake recently when it comes to my own self-published book but luckily today's sponsor mble art can help you avoid making the same mistake that I did stay tuned to find out exactly how but for now let's start with tip number one from Stephen King stopping a piece of work just because it's hard either emotionally or imag atively is a bad idea very much agree here in fact I think this is the number one thing that catches most new writers off guard as well as more experienced ones there are times where you're up to your neck in a story and just nothing is working and the whole craft of writing feels basically impossible you can only see your mistakes and the things that you're getting wrong at those times it's so easy and it's so natural to assume that you're just no good at writing laying the fault entirely at your own doorstep is what most people will do they'll think oh this is really really hard harder than I thought so that must mean I'm just not C out for this those famous writers have written so many books and they don't have this problem so I guess I just don't have that Talent so they stop they leave those few hundred words or those 10,000 words on their computer or notebook never to return and what doesn't get talked about nearly enough is how writing is hard for everyone and beginning is the hardest time you'll probably ever go through as a writer of course you want to stop all of the signs and all of your instincts are telling you to they're all flashing bright red in your face ignore them we're just getting going but if you take anything from this video at all I hope it's that ignore those feelings as long as you still have that itch to tell a story just keep going if things don't work out if your story goes off the rails whatever the very worst outcome is that you'll learn something that will make your next attempt a bit better I think you only really lose when you stop take a break by all means if you want but don't let it beat you if you can manage to do that somehow then I think it's just a matter of time till you sit back in your chair one day and smile at something that you just wrote Because it's good number two paragraphs are almost as important for how they look as what they say they're maps of intent I really love this in my editing work I'll occasionally get a newer writer questioning if a paragraph's long enough or should they add to it or is it too long should cut something and there's always times to do both of those things of course but there really isn't a standard it's basically up to you a lot of writers might come from school or from college or from other writing related courses not that you have to have any of that but they might come assuming that those rules for writing something like an essay or a professional paper will still directly apply to writing fiction they'll quite naturally assume that paragraphs must be this sentences must be that and I get the great pleasure to be honest of of being able to turn the question around and say well what do you think because that's what matters you can build and present your story however you want to you can make it fragmented and disjointed or you can make it smooth and almost formless if you want it's just a matter of choice and if you're going to experiment with stuff like paragraph length and how things look on the page there's only two things I think that you really need to bear in mind firstly have a reason to me there needs to be a purpose behind that very short paragraph or reason that one sentence goes on for 10 lines if you're saying something or if you're sending a message or working towards that in some way with how your paragraphs are structured and set out then there's reason behind it and that's enough then secondly Clarity if you can retain Clarity in your writing regardless of how complex or simple it looks on the page then I think always strive to do that I always want my stories to be enjoyable by as many people as possible and how I present them on the page I think actually has an impact on that readers judge a book on many attributes before they've even taken it home or checked out of the library and one of those things is how the writing physically looks they'll look at the space between lines the number of words on the page the lengths of the paragraphs and huge paragraphs can be kind of imposing and to some readers it'll just be a bit too much so that is something to bear in mind I think however I'm not sure it necessarily goes the other way though I don't think too many people would put a book down for looking too easy to read of course it's all dependent on getting them to actually pick up your book first or to click on it for a closer look a huge part of that as has always been the case really comes down to whether your book has a great cover or not that's the mistake that I made recently when I self-published My Book Project Ventus now I'm not saying my cover is bad necessarily I'm okay with how it turned out but before I put so much time into branding that book and making my video ad for it and a website page and a bunch of other stuff all based around this cover art that I really really struggled to design well I just wish I'd known about today's sponsor mble art because the process could have been a whole lot easier if you're not familiar mble art is not just a book cover design company for Indie authors they're your partner in creating a book cover that will make your work shine mble Art's main goal is to provide each author with a competitive book cover design that will not only stand out in the category but also the genre and attract the right target audience that's something that I did not consider when I made my cover like I didn't even think about it mistakes were made mble art offers an unlimited number of revisions and will tirelessly work on your book cover design until you're completely satisfied and they don't take any prepayment you pay only when you're in love with the final result and I think that really shows how much they care about getting it right for writers that's just their main service by the way they've got a ton of other things that they can design for you including stuff I never thought of looking for help on like logos and branding for your author platform which would be great for something like your author website or your social media they even have a book formatting service too they can format your book in line with all the major publishing platforms and trust me I've just done that it's a pain to do it by yourself so having a professional do it I think would have been really nice you can even take free email courses through mble ART to help you with stuff like marketing your book and cover design which is just really helpful of course the thing that will peque your interest most though is their portfolio covers which you can have a look at on the website you can filter it by different genres as well and I don't write horror or even read that much of it to be honest but I think their horror covers are especially good so if you want to get a book cover that sells here's a gift 15% off your first order with mble art use the promo code kierum 15 during checkout links are all down below not only will you be getting a great cover for the book that you've put so much time into but you'll be helping support me and my channel too so you'll have my undying thanks nible art of course also have my undying thanks for supporting the channel and sponsoring the video so thanks guys all right back to Stephen King number three the object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story this is a great thing to bear in mind while we're writing I especially like how he's phrased that as making the reader welcome CU that really should be at the heart of what we do as writers the point of writing at least as far as I'm concerned is making a reader feel something the point is capturing and transferring some element of the human existence to your reader just for a split second so that maybe they don't feel so alone or so they laugh or so that they feel glad to be alive the point isn't necessarily making your punctuation conform exactly to the Chicago Manual of style while never once wavering from the rules and all of those rules are there for a reason of course they are grammatical correctness helps to hold our stories together but in holding things together it can sometimes feel a bit restrictive may be elements of your story that just don't fit within its bounds a great lesson to learn is that you can break the rules if it's important for your story again if there's a reason to do it follow your instincts disregard the rules if you want to the worst eventuality is that it just won't work and if that happens you can just backtrack and rewrite but remember that when you're judging if it works or not think about if you're making the reader feel welcome like Stephen King says bring them into the story speak clearly and confidently and no one's worry too much about the rules number four description begins in the writer's imagination but should finish in the readers this tip really speaks to me and my style or my approach to writing and I've said it countless times in these videos but there's always new people here so I'll say it again I'm not big on detailed description I'm getting there a bit these days I'm not as minimal as I once was but I'm still will always favor the straightforward I think however this tip really pushes past preferences and inclinations to what's really important important which is the reason we describe things in the first place however we choose to do it it's about prompting an image or a feeling in the mind of a reader or at least that's what I think it should be about it's that that I want to transfer rather than the exact specifics of something I don't need my readers to know the particular length and distance of a solar flare or the exact shade of the Flames that the sun's outer reaches I would rather they feel the warmth of the sunlight on their face description does begin in the mind of the reader that's definitely true but while it's still in there maybe think about what you want to achieve with it what parts of that description and what parts of that image do you want to transfer into your reader's mind finding the root of that I think will help make our description more effective figuring out the why of it so we can support all of those details with purpose number five try any godamn thing you like no matter how boringly normal or outrageous if it works fine if it doesn't toss it this is really good advice and I think it links into a lot of what we been talking about already in terms of breaking the rules from time to time but what I especially like about this is how he isn't just encouraging us to be radical and outrageous he's also encouraging us to be boring and it might sound really weird so bear with me but I think there's actually a lot to be said for that there are so many reasons to give up on writing especially when we first get going and we're new to the craft and feeling like what you're writing is boring is definitely one of those reasons but if we think about that it's really quite harsh if you had a friend who was just starting to write and they were nervous and unsure but hopeful and they sent you their story would you be thinking well this better not be boring probably not really you'd more likely keep things a little bit more supportive and optimistic for them so you should be doing the exact same thing for your own writing even if you do think the way that you're writing your story is boring that's not a huge deal there are way worse things to be recognizing that now or whenever you do just helps you get a bit closer to what's interesting by comparison so like Stephen King says be boring or be outrageous but I think be something don't worry about writing a boring story or an interesting one just worry about writing a finished one everything else is secondary the next story will be better the next one better than that and then sooner or later you'll be using my code kierum 15 when you're ordering your custom book cover from miart sorry don't forget to check them out at the links down below and thanks again to miart I've covered a ton of authors in this author advice series Series so here's a playlist of them all have a check and see if your favorite is among them if not leave me a comment and let me know and I'll see if I can make a video for you thank you so much for watching as always and happy writing by

Channel: Kieren Westwood

Views: 25,026

Keywords: writing advice from famous authors, writing advice from authors, authors writing advice, novel writing advice from authors, Stephen King, Stephen King on writing, Stephen King advice, Stephen King writing rules, Stephen King writing, Stephen King writing process, Stephen King writing tips, Stephen King writing style, Stephen King writing advice, Stephen King ten writing rules, writing advice from Stephen King, kieren westwood, storytelling, Stephen King storytelling

Id: zioO9Be0-nQ

Length: 11min 41sec (701 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2024