[katyseagull]

[ QUOTE ]
<u>On Writing</u>, by Stephen King


For instance, King hates plotting, he says. He likes to discover the work by writing it. This would go a long way toward explaining why he can do things like let his stories drift haplessly for very long stretches, filling them out with endless detail about cornball, often quite thin characters who aren't doing anything in particular. When he at length snaps to, he can finally march his story along, if anyone is still interested. This kind of writing is on full display in messes like The Stand, which rambles on over a thousand pages, much of which is essentially unfilled with anything particularly lively.

This may be how King likes to write, and it is often recommended as the way writing should be done -- it should be essentially "found." To King's credit, he elsewhere puts aside the culturally much-vaunted role of genius in writing and ascribes writing stuff worth reading primarily to hard work. But in denigrating the need to work on structure and plot even in the sort of workaday fiction he writes, he falls into the same trap he decries. Writing without plotting requires much more of lucky genius and visits from a muse than fully envisioning where you are going and why and how to get there from the start. King may be able to eventually tidy things up into a workable whole that feels somewhat unified and has gone in a direction worth pursuing without plotting, but how many of us are among the best-selling authors in the world, or have dozens of novels behind us that have trained us and honed our skills for decades? In effectively saying, "just do it blind," King is unconsciously promoting the spooky exceptionalism he insists good writing isn't really about.*




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I wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading your post on King. I haven't read any of his books (started The Stand but didn't get far) but I found your discussion to be really interesting. Is it obvious when reading his fiction that he is sort of discovering his story and plot as he goes? You mention his hapless rambling in The Stand, and you allude to his thin characters. Is this a typical King trait in his other novels as well?

Also, I am completely confused by how writers find their symbolism. I guess I suspect many find it after they are done writing. I remember back in high school having to write papers about symbolism, usually pertaining to some novel we had just read, and I remember hating it. I have a lot of trouble with symbolism. I find it to be either non-existent or forced.