Ten Writing Tips from Stephen King

If you’re looking for tips on writing, best-selling author Stephen King seems like a good person to listen to.

Over his career, King has published 61 novels and written approximately 200 short stories. His books have sold more than 350 million copies, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. 

King’s non-fiction book On Writing combines stories of his career as a writer (both the highs and the lows) with advice on the craft of writing. 

If you want to improve your writing, here is King’s advice: 

Find a place where you can write. Shut the door. Set yourself a writing goal for the day, and write about whatever you want – as long as you tell the truth.

Here are 10 other writing tips King shares in the book:

1. Take writing seriously

Writing is serious.

You must not come lightly to the blank page.

2. Use your vocabulary

Don’t make any conscious effort to improve your vocabulary.

Attempting to dress up your vocabulary is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes.

3. Don’t use the passive voice

The passive voice is weak, it’s circuitous, and it’s frequently tortuous as well.

With the passive voice, the writer usually expresses fear of not being taken seriously. Remember, the rope was not thrown by the writer. The writer threw the rope.

4. The adverb is not your friend

The road to hell is paved with adverbs, those words that modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs (and often end in -ly). When writers use adverbs they are telling us they are afraid they aren’t expressing themselves clearly, or getting the point or picture across.

Like the passive voice, adverbs seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind.

5. Use similes, metaphors and images wisely

Avoid cliches, common similes and metaphors. Saying someone fought like a tiger or ran like a madman makes you look either lazy – or ignorant.

6. Fear is at the root of most bad writing

Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason.

Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.

7. Read and write

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.

8. Test your work with a trusted friend

Stephen King threw out his first pages of Carrie. His wife rescued them from the trash, and encouraged him to keep writing the story. 

It became his first hit.

9. Revise your work

King recommends you write two drafts and a polish. Revise for length, following a formula: Second draft = first draft minus 10 percent.

10. Don’t do it for the money. 

Don’t write for money. Do it for the joy. 

If you can do it for the joy, you can do it forever.