Stephen King’s 6 Practical Tips Can Improve Your Writing and Editing
Everyone has a reason to give up… you don’t!
“What you know makes you unique . . . Be brave.”
— Stephen King
These are the lines from “On Writing,” — a writing memoir about writing obstacles. In addition, this book coils around an everyday wheel of writing advice.
When I bought this book, I felt like Stephen King was one of those (sleazy, old, lazy) men. But to my surprise, the King is quite the opposite. His advice is pure gold.
The autobiographical part of “On Writing” made me a terrific fan of Stephen King. Thereupon, I could relate to 70% of the problem he went through as a writer.
Since writing was his call, he got better at his craft. Stephen King, in his book, has written writing advice and lessons that can make us (pretty) fair writers.
I sometimes feel like hugging Stephen King if he was reachable— hug for all the lessons he implemented in his 64+ written novels and 15+ dramas over the years.
Here are 6 lessons from Stephen King's “On Writing” that can make your writing “pure gold.” (…If followed)
1. Beware of adverbs
- Using adverbs is the best gateway exit for newbie writers.
Are you a new writer? Want to submit 1000 words today? Checking on adverbs is the last thing to cross your mind.
Since adverbs are teeny-tiny mistakes, it’s hard to spot them when your task is to submit according to *word count.*
As Stephen King says: The adverb is not your friend . . . I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
What are god-forbid adverbs? Here are a few examples:
Abnormally Briefly Calmly Dauntly Emotionally Fully Gracefully Helpfully Initially…
The big difference between regular occurring adverbs and normal words is the “LY” difference. They might sound like “Love You,” but they work quite the opposite.
Sure, why shouldn’t we use them?
Overuse of adverbs is the hallmark of lazy and cluttered writing. The most common adverb sentences are: “She spoke softly” and “I accidentally spilled the coffee.”
How to improve?
Adverbs are like coffee grounds. They should be brewed into coffee or strained before sliding into the cup.
Writing beginner.com suggests that adverbs don’t add anything to the sentence. They take away the impact.
What should we do?
Easy fix: According to ProWritingAid, we should use strong verbs to modify sentences.
For example:
- He walked quickly
… to: He ran, galloped, jogged, bolted, or raced.
Or,
- She looks perfectly
…to: She looks gorgeous, stunning, and over the moon.
Result: Boring writing → Descriptive writing.
2. Your job isn’t to find ideas but to recognize them.
Here’s what to do:
- If you’re a socializing person: open Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp
- If you’re a non-socializing person: go for a walk
Either way, you’ll unveil new ideas at every step. This is not something grand. It’s how the brain works.
Each day, we come across hundreds of ideas, most of which we forget and think they’re *foolish*
Stephen King says:
“There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers . . . two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize/find them when they show up.”
The ideas come into raw forms — like spilled milk used to make soft butter.
These ideas might look funny, but they’ll make you money. Your immediate task is to follow the concept through boiling, fermenting, and cooling down processes.
Uh…yes!
How to improve?
Most people do the following:
- Find new ideas
- Carve through raw ideas
Stephen King suggests that “finding new ideas” is problematic. Hence, writing ideas show up every day.
Your task is to find those ideas, filter, catch them, write them down and forget. It might look foolish, but when you look at the concept again, you’ll realize it’s a gift.
Poke through the holes of ideas, experiment with them, and flush them into the mortar and pestle. Now see them forming an opinion.
Then, you realize great ideas come to you every day. You don’t go and find them.
That’s why Jeff Goins practices a formula every day to craft headlines:
Number or Trigger word + Adjective + Keyword + Promise
3. Don’t dress up your vocabulary
Over the years, we’ve seen vocab getting “fancy.”
Ughh, is it?
Stephen King says: One of the bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.
Most writers (including me) love to put fancy words into their stories. I accept that most of the time, I did not even know the meaning, but I still chose that word.
Unveiling the truth: Nobody has the time to go and search for meaning for the vocab. They will dump your article.
Hence, the outcome:
- Less/no views
- No money, no honey
- Flawed life
- Anxiety
Sure, you can save all the trouble if you stay away from using fancy words in your story. If you’re a writer, your task is to make the story “easier,” not “difficult.”
People pay you to read your story. What are they getting? Rich chocolaty words they don’t know the meaning of would lessen their self-confidence in the long run.
They don’t pay you for this!
How to improve?
Perhaps, this quote from Stephen King makes sense:
“Use the first word that comes to your mind if it is appropriate and colorful.”
Again, remember that your task is to make things easier. Use vocab as much as you want, but delete the part where you try to be “Extraordinary.” Your writing doesn’t have to be extraordinary. Your writing should be simple and sweet.
You can take help from “Thesaurus” and “Merriam Webster” to check the words’ synonyms. And if you use a fancy word, try adding a mini definition alongside the word.
For example:
Cognitive dissonance — looking at your own feeling and reactions from a third person’s point of view.
4. Read. A lot.
Question: how can I write better?
The easiest one-word answer: read
As Stephen King puts: can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.
When I started as a writer, I felt this advice was crazy. But since I’m 3 years into writing, I think I could be much better if I had just “read” — which I do now!
When I faced a lack of knowledge, readers coming to read my articles were educated than me.
- Of course, they were readers.
- They knew there wasn’t any spice in my article. Hence they left.
It took me a whole lot of years to change this mindset. I started reading. And even though I don’t remember everything I read, I have this self-confidence that illuminates in my article.
Do you see them?
If you don’t read, you’re making it easier for users to leave your story unfinished.
(Short horror story: readers can sense it.)
How to improve?
Stephen King says:
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”
Although I try to find shortcuts in reading, there aren’t any.
Audiobooks and Kindle are alternatives to make reading easier for you. It’s your task to go ahead and read the book.
No matter if it’s Kindle, audiobook, or hardcover: read.
And when I say read, I mean read articles and stories. Here on Medium, they take $5 from you and give you access to ad-free stories.
In short, if you read one article/10 pages of a book per day, you’re doing a great job staying connected with the world.
We writers are different. We have books and articles. Make use of what we have.
5. If you write, you’ll offend someone
I read it somewhere:
- Your biggest critic is someone you know
- Your biggest fan is someone you don’t know
But writing is different. All we have is “someone we don’t know.” That’s the fun-ish part of writing. We read stories of people we never met in our lives. True.
Even though you root for enhancement, there’s always someone ahead of you.
That stems from the competition. Also, this brings critique, offense, and unnecessary rudeness.
Stephen King says:
“If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it.”
In short, whatever you do, some people will never be happy. But you cannot please everyone, can you?
And if you go deep down into queries people have with your writing, they’ll want you to quit. (Like, quit)
How to improve?
There is no writer without a critic.
- People hated Shakespeare,
- Same with Hemmingway and Leo Tolstoy
But can we change the truth? Shakespeare’s classics are the best in the world. True.
We writers must understand that a critic is fine if it helps us.
Critics like:
- Stop writing
- What a foolish story
- Fake writer
- Bot
… doesn’t help! Consider critics that are there to magnify the information and help with the vocab or mistakes.
For example, Hi friend, I saw you put “there,” but it should be “they are.” Thank you.
Live for these critics that help. Not critics that are there to harm you like jellyfish-es.
6. Show up every day
Do you know what the most challenging part of writing is?
- Writing
It’s hard showing up every day to write. Can’t we write all the articles in one single day? No!
I wish that were possible, but it’s not. For writing, you must show up every day with a smiling face. (Like Tom did with his eyes)
- That’s what actual writing is.
People may like you sitting in your home, writing, and all the perks that come with “work from home,” but there’s something alongside the fun part — pushing your comfort zone.
As Stephen King says:
“The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can get better.”
Remember when you fear writing, but you do it anyway. The gleaming look and smirk on your face are priceless.
Starting is the tricky part. Rest gets easier.
How to improve?
Focus apps help with the cluttered mind. It does all the job for you while you sit and write.
You can invest in some focus apps (free, paid). For example, focus apps like:
We writers don’t realize it, but time tracking, notes app, text to audio speech, and idea generators play a significant role.
These apps always help you to get started. Remember that the real crunch is to continue and break through. These apps are the middlemen. You have to make a real effort.
Remember, if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.
As Stephen King puts into words:
It starts with this: Start by putting your desk in a corner, and every time you sit down to write, remind yourself why it’s not in the middle. Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.
Bonus lesson:
Fear is the embryo of lousy writing.
Anxiety never benefits. It adds to the uncertainty.
If you’re a writer/or starting as a writer, remember to divert your worries. The sooner you get away with fear, the sooner you’ll embrace the world that awaits you beyond f...f…fears.
There’s a whole new world that starts after you stop fearing.
Fear, my friend, is the enemy.
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