Tag Archives: stephen king

October 23, 2014 · 9:36 am

Stephen King as a Writing Teacher

I loved On Writing, and it surprised me just how much I embraced it. Now, even though I’ve read only a few of his books, Stephen King has become one of my favorite authors–not for his writing, but for his devotion, his thoughtfulness, and his brain. I wish I could meet him.

Stories like this one remind me of how much I like him and want to hang out with him.

He’s just very authentic, and honest, sometimes about things that people (writers) aren’t comfortable admitting.

For example, he says that grammar–while still needing to be taught–isn’t the most critical skill.

And, even more heretical, he says that not everyone needs to be a writer. The scandal!

(I’ll take it a step further: not everyone needs to be a self-published writer…)

But I think he’s right. Sometimes it’s a matter of teaching people what they need right now in their real lives; they have opportunities later to further develop their talents if their interests take them there. Fundamentals. (See what he says about teaching kids to write directions from A to B.)

Also, I just love his frank crassness, like this: “Reading good fiction is like making the jump from masturbation to sex.”

Oh heavens, Mr. King, you’re givin’ me the vapors!

Anyway, he’s fabulous.

What do you think of King’s advice? Does it hold true in your experience?

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August 26, 2014 · 9:15 am

Review: Skeleton Crew

Skeleton CrewSkeleton Crew by Stephen King

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For a collection of short stories, this book took me forever to read. It’s an interesting peek behind the curtain of the famous writer while also being chock-full of scary, interesting, and mysterious tales. It’s a lot of fun, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to read it on your relaxing vacation (see: took me 3.5 months to read it all).

If you’ve read King’s famous “On Writing,” you may find this book extra interesting. He can’t help but reveal himself in these short stories, and when they are all collected together, it’s easy to see commonalities. For one, I feel like I have a real roadmap to Bangor, Maine (King’s beloved hometown). The laundry where he worked before he found a teaching job (and then became a writer) makes several appearances, and country roads in the vicinity twist and tangle until some of the more unruly characters appear. I have to wonder if King’s drug addiction lies behind some of the more nauseating and skin-crawling horrors: the rat-person in “Mona” in particular, and certainly the methodology in “Survivor Type.”

It’s interesting to read “The Mist” and King’s thoughts on it in the decades before it became a movie (his son Joe Hill even being “cast” as the precocious little kid in the story). The story, which opens the book, is one of the best, but is not the most frightening, by far. “The Jaunt” is a cheerful attempt at science-fiction, with the ending practically obvious from the get-go. The final story, “The Reach,” wasn’t horror in the slightest; it’s more of a quiet contemplation.

I found it intriguing that the horror factor in several of the stories (“The Mist,” “The Raft,” “The Monkey,” “Morning Deliveries (Milkman #2)”) is never clearly defined, explained, or even resolved. Particularly in “The Mist” and “The Raft,” bad things just sort of happen, and there isn’t a lot anyone–reader, character, perhaps writer?–can do about it.

While I enjoyed reading these stories because it allowed me to study King while he was at work (or, as he says, “my muse shat on my head–this happened as it always does, suddenly, with no warning.”), it reads like the grab-bag off his desk: a little of this, a little of that, some worth more, some not worth writing on the back of a napkin. It’s a ragtag bunch of stories, and shows the breadth of King’s talent and interests, but may not be for every reader.

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