What makes a writer a “good and successful” writer? In our bookclub, we went through Stephen King’s “On Writing” and found 10 really good and concise tips. Here they are:
1) Even on the days you don’t feel like writing, you SHOULD write. Some of the best things come out of the worst scenes.
2) Have a writing goal. Stephen King is writing ten pages a day (around 2000 words).
3) If you don’t take writing seriously and approach it with the will to really achieve “something”, you won’t get far with it.
4) Every writer should WRITE a lot and READ a lot to get good at it.
5) Playing into this: Try to be as optimistic as you can when it comes to the quality you produce. Optimism is the only good response if you feel like you failed.
6) Don’t let the characters go to waste and don’t let a story simmer for too long. Get going. The first draft of a book should not take more than 3 months.
7) Don’t be afraid to write what you actually want to write (what others think about it, isn’t relevant).
8) Make sure you have a good atmosphere at your workplace and -if possible- a door that can be shut.
9) After finishing a book, let it rest, maybe 6 weeks, before starting to revise it again.
10) Don’t be afraid of the blank page.
A few quotes I loved:
“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking all out all the things that are not the story.”
“I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. If one is writing for one’s own pleasure, that fear may be mild – timidity is the word I’ve used here.”
“Every book you pick up has its own lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.”
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.”
“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”
“When dialogue is right, we know. When it’s wrong we also know.”
And lastly:
“When you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head.”
Let me know your writing tips! Is there anything you more or less agree with? From a personal perspective, as someone who also writes, I also find timing to be important. Some people work better in the morning than in the evening, or in one-hour sessions followed by a break and then the next section. And even as an outsider: which of his points do you find most relatable?