11 ms·

Stephen King: Can a Novelist Be Too Productive? (2015)

118 points by lermontov 8y ago

crooked-v 8y ago
I'm reminded of Lovecraft, who would use a thesaurus to pad his paid-by-the-word word counts by inserting various adjectives that sounded scary but didn't actually mean anything in context.
- ahansen 8y ago
  That's quite interesting! Does that not detract from how well his work reads, though? I suppose not by much given how popular he is.
  - krapp 8y ago
    Lovecraft is more popular for his ideas than the quality of his prose, except in a "so bad it's good" way.
  - saudioger 8y ago
    It definitely does detract from it. It's just so over the top ornate. There's a beauty to it, but you can lose sight of the story in the style. I'd liken it to trying to read a book written in calligraphy. Here's an example of what to expect: >In youth he had felt the hidden beauty and ecstasy of things, and had been a poet; but poverty and sorrow and exile had turned his gaze in darker directions, and he had thrilled at the imputations of evil in the world around. Daily life had for him come to be a phantasmagoria of macabre shadow-studies; now glittering and leering with concealed rottenness as in Beardsley's best manner, now hinting terrors behind the commonest shapes and objects as in the subtler and less obvious work of Gustave Dore. He would often regard it as merciful that most persons of high Intelligence jeer at the inmost mysteries; for, he argued, if superior minds were ever placed in fullest contact with the secrets preserved by ancient and lowly cults, the resultant abnormalities would soon not only wreck the world, but threaten the very integrity of the universe. All this reflection was no doubt morbid, but keen logic and a deep sense of humour ably offset it. Malone was satisfied to let his notions remain as half-spied and forbidden visions to be lightly played with; and hysteria came only when duty flung him into a hell of revelation too sudden and insidious to escape.
  - lmm 8y ago
    It's a very different prose style, but it works for the stories he's telling. That he stumbled into that style by trying to pad his length is interesting, but ultimately beside the point: the resulting stories stand or fall on their merits. (It does raise the question of to what extent good writing relates to the author trying to write well. E.g. I found the "author's preferred text" of American Gods verbose and meandering, and suspect that the original release was superior, even though Gaiman regards it as having been excessively edited for commercial reasons)
- LukeShu 8y ago
  I hadn't heard the postulate "one being that the more one writes, the less remarkable one’s work is apt to be" before. I suppose that outside the world of the literary criticism, there's a bit of an opposite feeling: If you're great, you probably have a reasonably large body of work. A while back, a friend and I both bought a copy of the complete works of Lovecraft; a single volume. It's a pretty thick book, but I was surprised it was just one book. For all the influence he had, all the diverse tales of horror, it all fit in one volume... with a reasonably large font-size at that. I remarked to my friend about this. Call him influential, but I'm not sure I'd call Lovecraft "prolific".
  - jcl 8y ago
    Curiously, while Lovecraft's works of fiction may fit in a single volume, his correspondence does not. It's estimated that he wrote over 100,000 letters -- one of the most prolific letter writers in history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Letters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Letters
CharlesMerriam2 8y ago
Can we stop with the random posting of non-technical nytimes.com articles?
- mromanuk 8y ago
  I think prolificacy is an interesting subject, and this type of articles add to the richness of HN.
- sarreph 8y ago
  > posting I don't think you're ever going to persuade a given HN user to stop posting content here. But to order 'we' to stop deeming content relevant and worthy for the rest of the community (by up-voting — which is what I think you meant) is rather laughable. The community decides what it wants to make popular, not you or I alone...
mromanuk 8y ago
Would be interesting to know, his work process to achieve that output. I'm reading "Deep Work", and I bet Stephen King, did the "lock yourself" and write until it's finished or something among those lines (avoiding all distractions)
- Swizec 8y ago
  He talks about it in his book on writing. It boils down to the same advice all great authors give: Reserve a time. For that time you do nothing but write. No internet, no phone, no people, nothing. Just you and your writing. Same time every day like clockwork. Yes, every day. Defend this time viciously.
  - spodek 8y ago
    I find such practices so helpful I call them sidchas -- for self-imposed daily challenging helpful activities -- to distinguish them from mere habits, like brushing teeth or reading the news. I find that having a few sidchas one of the most important life practices and that naming things makes them easier to instantiate.
- gnarcoregrizz 8y ago
  I was wondering the same thing, so I read his book "On Writing" a few weeks ago. I figured there might be some good take-aways for writing software since there seems to be some skill overlap. Here are my (crappy) notes: * The golden rule: read a lot, write a lot. * Have a place for only writing and concentrating. Do nothing else there. * Everyone has an innate talent ceiling. A good writer won't progress beyond being a merely good writer. * Story > plot. Stories can 'write themselves,' it's hard to plan up front. * He doesn't write for symbolism or metaphor directly, but may notice it as he's writing and fold some in. * Let the first draft age for a while before revisiting. His ideal time is 6 weeks. * "Kill your darlings." Aka be willing let a concept go even if it seems great. * Have an ideal audience in mind when writing. He says that his is 1 person - his wife. He says it should be 1 person. * 2nd draft = 1st draft - 10% * He's not a fan of adverbs * Research is inevitable for backstory. He wanted to write a story that took place in a specific location, so he went there to see how it was so he wouldn't get things too wrong. He doesn't worry about it too much though, unlike a writer like Tom Clancy. * He writes because he likes to, ostensibly not for money or anything else * He gets a TON of angry letters and criticisms, particularly for his use of vulgarity. * A lot of characters are based on people or stereotypes he encountered in his working class upbringing. One thing that struck me is how much he reads. He had a list of suggested books to read in the back page, and there were probably hundreds Obviously not all of the points apply to all types of writing, his list is very King-centric. If you've ever read him then the points will make more sense in context. For example, story > plot is definitely a "king-ism" since his stories are off the cuff and meandering. I couldn't even get through half of the Dark Tower series since it seemed like the plot wasn't going anywhere. In any case, I don't think you'll get very far writing software without identifying some of the "plot" up front.
Reedx 8y ago
Reminds me of when George RR Martin asked King, "How the fuck do you write so many books so fast?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0
- senectus1 8y ago
  hilarious. But really, they dont write the same sort of books... Martins books are hella complex worlds. King does theme'd stories... I'm not saying one is better than the other, just very different products that require a lot of different sorts of work to complete.
  - sudosteph 8y ago
    Are you unfamiliar with the Dark Tower series? King is no stranger to "hella complex worlds". Though tbf, it did take him quite a while to finish the entire series. But he was writing things in the meantime (or getting hit by a truck) for the most part. If you sum up the time he spent actually writing, he still was able to get them much faster. Edit: Another fun fact, many of King's non-Dark Tower books tie into the same universe, check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(Stephen_King) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(Stephen_King)
    - navait 8y ago
      I think that actually proves the GP's point. The Dark Tower was started in 1982, and not finished until 2004.
    - sorokod 8y ago
      A fan of Dark Tower but in a way, the Dark Tower multiverse is of "lower resolution"
      - zumzumzum 8y ago
        Later on in the series he also turned to referencing other series in a way I'm sure he thought was clever, similar to how he wrote himself into his own book. I didn't care for it. He also had the annoying habit of using cultural references as a crutch for world and character building. Oh, see this thing, it's just like a light saber from star wars! Or those flying objects, they're sneetches from harry potter! Well, that's one way to write a book. The DT was a sweeping, intricate, wild ride to nowhere. I'd put it in the same box as LOST. I don't regret either. I enjoyed them both immensely. But they weren't leading anywhere, and I didn't need to reprimanded by King at the end for wanting a satisfying ending.
sudosteph 8y ago
King was my favorite writer growing up. I read "Firestarter" in 6th grade, and then continued working through about 20 or so more of his works until graduation from HS. I was "that kid", always had my nose buried in a paperback from the library, usually one of his. His works were like familiar friends to me. I could step into nearly any library or bookstore and find myself absorbed into some small town in Maine, or perhaps a more fantastical setting in some cases. Some books I remember better than others, some left me frustrated at the end (looking at you "Cell"), but mostly I just felt like I was a hanger-on, privileged to be hitching a ride into King's imagination. It wasn't just his imagination though, it was his experience as a human that I think I really craved. It sounds sort of funny to say I learned a lot about human nature and society from reading his books (and reading them in the 2000's no less, 20+ years after many of them were written), but I did. His characters were never stupid or shallow or boring just because they were female. His characters had flaws and issues, motivations and fears, and the world around them was not often a nice or sensible place. I can relate to that, and I needed to relate to that growing up. I don't read his books as often now, but I do love the man and his works for how much they mean to me. I never regretted reading any of them (even ones I may not have finished). I'm glad he doesn't regret writing them either. Favorite quote from that piece that I think applies to many of us, in any creative field: > But I also understand that life is short, and that in the end, none of us is prolific. The creative spark dims, and then death puts it out. William Shakespeare, for instance, hasn’t produced a new play for 400 years. That, my friends, is a long dry spell.
- yawz 8y ago
  I read them when I was around the same age, but a decade earlier than you. They pretty much had the same effect on me. Did you read anybody else at the same period? Koontz, maybe?
  - kbenson 8y ago
    I read a few of each in High school. Koontz was fun but to me felt a bit more targeted for mass appeal (as weird as that feels to say in comparison to King). Then again, for King I was reading stuff like The Stand and The Dark Tower series, which may or may not be indicative of the rest of his work (which I mostly know through the movies made from them)?
dewitt 8y ago
> "Donna Tartt, one of the best American novelists to emerge in the last 50 years, has published just three novels since 1992. Jonathan Franzen, the only American novelist who is her equal." Pynchon. DeLillo. McCarthy. Roth... Edit: Morrison. Updike. Mailer...
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  I'd take Philip K Dick over all of them put together.
  - dewitt 8y ago
    Him too.
  - aidenn0 8y ago
    With few exceptions, genre fiction doesn't count as Serious Literature.
    - mr_toad 8y ago
      You mean because it’s not boring? It’s like serious literature has to eschew anything that would make it a good story, in case it got in the way of being good writing.
      - sincerely 8y ago
        Oh come on, Vonnegut is one of the most obvious examples of well respected American writers and you could hardly call his work boring. One of the 2016 Pulitzer prize winners (The Sympathizer - not cherry picking, just a recent book that comes to mind) was an extremely gripping/exciting story about escaping the end of the Vietnam war to America but it still managed to receive nearly unanimous praise. On the other hand, one could argue that if your works require elaborate setpieces and a fantastical setting then you're drawing attention away from an inability to write captivating stories. A plot summary of a Jonathan Franzen novel for example sounds incredibly boring but his writing is nearly impossible to tear yourself away from and will have your mind going for days or even weeks after you finish. It's perfectly fine to enjoy sci-fi/fantasy etc but there's no need to develop a victim complex about its position in the literary world.
Barrin92 8y ago
I don't disagree with King's thesis that a prolific writer can, of course, produce great works and many have done so, but I also can't shake the feeling that there is something special about authors who produce great works and then quit when they don't have anything else to say. bad works don't diminish great works, but it feels like authors who only produce works of great quality and nothing else have a special feel for their craft, it seems like they are so confident in what they have to say that they'd be repulsed by just putting anything out that isn't remarkable, and that at least to me makes them special. It's like comparing Daniel Day-Lewis and Jim Carrey. The former has taken on roles in remarkably few films, but pretty much every role is amazing and that's what's stuck in my mind when I see him in a film. Carrey also has participated in films like the Truman show but then I'm also reminded of the Grinch and the Mask, which just ruins it for me a little bit.
- sudosteph 8y ago
  Is Jim Carrey really a fair comparison? Most people know him first and foremost as a comedian. He's not even super prolific, has 60 acting credits on IMDB vs Day-Lewis' 30, and many of them are one-off cameo roles on comedic TV shows. I'd be more interested on your thoughts on, say Gary Oldman's performance quality (credited with 90 acting roles on IMDB) in comparison.
- RickJWagner 8y ago
  I like the comparison to Jim Carrey. Some of his work is brilliant. (Dumb and Dumber, The Grinch are two of my favs.) Carry, like King, seems plagued by personal demons. Both have immense talent, but also seem to be prone to these kinds of problems.
  - sudosteph 8y ago
    You yourself love "The Grinch", though the other commenter says it makes him like Carrey less. I loved "The Mask". I guess I just don't think "less than brilliant attempts" makes actual brilliance any less enjoyable. If anything I respect the creator for taking risks.
- travisjungroth 8y ago
RickJWagner 8y ago
I really like some of King's writings. But it's a mixed bag-- some are really good, some are really bad. When he's gone, I'll miss his best fiction. But I won't miss his public rants, they've been an embarrassment to him.
- barneyrubble 8y ago
  Links to some rants please? My Google fu is weak today.
magpi3 8y ago
I'm not a published writer, but my thought has always been that "serious" writers don't write less. They just publish less. And they publish less because they have a higher standard for their writing and their art (if I may use that word) than novelists who publish regularly. And (as Barrin92 also noted elsewhere on this thread), they only speak (meaning publish) when they have something to say. And don't we all take people who speak sparingly and choose their words carefully more seriously?
JJMcJ 8y ago
In the Victorian era, Anthony Trollope was very productive. His rule was seven pages a day. If he finished one novel, he started the next one. Contemporary publishing, with book tours and other publicity, can't really absorb more than a book a year or so from a single author. And the book tours, etc, take up a lot of a writer's time.
Animats 8y ago
There's William Butterworth, who has about 11 pseudonyms and over 100 published novels. I've read too many of them. You start seeing the same stock scenes coming around again. He writes good potboilers. "Tom Clancy" books are still coming out, even though he died years ago.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  As a boy I began working my way through Ian Fleming's "James Bond" series. After a few I noticed that they followed a formula, and abandoned the rest.
coldtea 8y ago
>I’m a recovering alcoholic, haven’t had a drink in almost 27 years OT, but what does that even mean? Recovered maybe, recovering, no. He is just someone that hasn't been an alcoholic for 2+ decades... It's like saying "I'm recovering from a broken ankle, I had my surgery in 1983 and have had no pain at all, and no fractures either, and been running ultra-marathons and doing base jumping ever since 1986".
- hrnnnnnn 8y ago
  The way I've often heard alcoholics talk about it is that despite their effort, the disease is always there. There's always a voice saying "have a drink" that they have to constantly guard against, even after such a long time.
- ramblerman 8y ago
  > and been running ultra-marathons and doing base jumping ever since 1986 Your own analogy doesn't hold up because by that logic then a recovered alcoholic would be 'fit' to have a drink again
  - coldtea 8y ago
    They would certainly be fit to have a drink again -- and they do just that all over the world. It's a AA/12-step inspired prejudice that you're "always recovering" and that having the occasional drink will be fatal to regress into alcoholism. What we call an Americanism. There are tons of people who once were alcoholics, quitted, and can enjoy a beer or glass or wine or two now and again, without becoming alcoholics again, and being able to go for weeks or months without drinking (just like any regular non-alcoholic person). It's a matter of character and willpower and life's circumstances, not some physical law or physiological necessity.
  - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
    Many folks can drink again, once they've learned how to control things. That generally means a period of sobriety, though it doesn't always. There are ways to treat the underlying issues while not completely abstaining. Many folks don't get treatment for alcoholism in their early 20's, quit, and drink normally the rest of their life. Unfortunately, many folks think that once an addict, always one. While this is true for some folks, it certainly isn't true for everyone. You really can be "fit" to drink again.
IIIIIIIIII 8y ago
I've tried to read King a few times over the years. I couldn't get over the lack of prose style and find him to be a craftsman of plots that (other) people are enthralled by, but not much of a writer. This is what happens when you're raised in your literary interests by the likes of Joyce and Proust, perhaps. If I'm a snob so be it. When I heard Harlan Ellison wrote novels in bookstore windows in a matter of days I thought "that makes sense."
- stupidcar 8y ago
  Speaking as a relative non-snob, I'm always a bit baffled when people cite Joyce like this. I mean, he clearly had an unrivalled mastery of language, but do people actually like reading prose like that? Even his supposedly more accessible stuff like Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist just seemed so dense and obtuse that while I could objectively admire the skill on display, I never once really found myself enjoying them. I'm not saying art should exist purely for the sake of entertainment. But, ultimately, if I'm investing the time to read a book, I need to get something out of the experience from moment to moment, and generally I find I get more from reading a bad writer with fun ideas than an expert stylist who makes no concessions to enjoyment.
  - bshepard 8y ago
    There is a way to find great pleasure in Joyce, it does require effort and education, but so do many other pleasures. Terence McKenna's "Surfing Finnegan's Wake" is a good way in, especially if you enjoy McKenna's weirdly-similar-to-George-Bush's voice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpeq91hK1Gk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpeq91hK1Gk
  - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
    Bloomsday celebrations frequently include reading Ulysses aloud where a series of people have a go at it. They love Joyce's prose and want to share the music of it with others. It is OK if it is not your thing, but there is certainly an audience out there who sincerely love Ulysses in all its facets.
- Chris_Jay 8y ago
ratnakarsays 8y ago
Yes, I guess writers are creative people
erikb 8y ago
That one is a surprise to me. I would argue that the best certainly write more than most. Maybe there's a difference between churning out book after book, and rewriting one book again and again until it becomes good. I think the latter is the one that makes one great. The first one offers little feedback, since three books further the author probably forgot most of the details of the first one. So maybe the problem is that "writing a lot" is measured in books rather than in words typed (and then deleted, to be typed again, in a different form and structure). Just reading this comment you will probably find a few errors that I will never see, because I won't rewrite it. Let that be an example of my theory.

118 points by lermontov 8y ago

I'm reminded of Lovecraft, who would use a thesaurus to pad his paid-by-the-word word counts by inserting various adjectives that sounded scary but didn't actually mean anything in context.

ahansen 8y ago
That's quite interesting! Does that not detract from how well his work reads, though? I suppose not by much given how popular he is.
- krapp 8y ago
  Lovecraft is more popular for his ideas than the quality of his prose, except in a "so bad it's good" way.
- saudioger 8y ago
  It definitely does detract from it. It's just so over the top ornate. There's a beauty to it, but you can lose sight of the story in the style. I'd liken it to trying to read a book written in calligraphy. Here's an example of what to expect: >In youth he had felt the hidden beauty and ecstasy of things, and had been a poet; but poverty and sorrow and exile had turned his gaze in darker directions, and he had thrilled at the imputations of evil in the world around. Daily life had for him come to be a phantasmagoria of macabre shadow-studies; now glittering and leering with concealed rottenness as in Beardsley's best manner, now hinting terrors behind the commonest shapes and objects as in the subtler and less obvious work of Gustave Dore. He would often regard it as merciful that most persons of high Intelligence jeer at the inmost mysteries; for, he argued, if superior minds were ever placed in fullest contact with the secrets preserved by ancient and lowly cults, the resultant abnormalities would soon not only wreck the world, but threaten the very integrity of the universe. All this reflection was no doubt morbid, but keen logic and a deep sense of humour ably offset it. Malone was satisfied to let his notions remain as half-spied and forbidden visions to be lightly played with; and hysteria came only when duty flung him into a hell of revelation too sudden and insidious to escape.
- lmm 8y ago
  It's a very different prose style, but it works for the stories he's telling. That he stumbled into that style by trying to pad his length is interesting, but ultimately beside the point: the resulting stories stand or fall on their merits. (It does raise the question of to what extent good writing relates to the author trying to write well. E.g. I found the "author's preferred text" of American Gods verbose and meandering, and suspect that the original release was superior, even though Gaiman regards it as having been excessively edited for commercial reasons)
LukeShu 8y ago
I hadn't heard the postulate "one being that the more one writes, the less remarkable one’s work is apt to be" before. I suppose that outside the world of the literary criticism, there's a bit of an opposite feeling: If you're great, you probably have a reasonably large body of work. A while back, a friend and I both bought a copy of the complete works of Lovecraft; a single volume. It's a pretty thick book, but I was surprised it was just one book. For all the influence he had, all the diverse tales of horror, it all fit in one volume... with a reasonably large font-size at that. I remarked to my friend about this. Call him influential, but I'm not sure I'd call Lovecraft "prolific".
- jcl 8y ago
  Curiously, while Lovecraft's works of fiction may fit in a single volume, his correspondence does not. It's estimated that he wrote over 100,000 letters -- one of the most prolific letter writers in history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Letters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Letters

CharlesMerriam2 8y ago

Can we stop with the random posting of non-technical nytimes.com articles?

mromanuk 8y ago
I think prolificacy is an interesting subject, and this type of articles add to the richness of HN.
sarreph 8y ago
> posting I don't think you're ever going to persuade a given HN user to stop posting content here. But to order 'we' to stop deeming content relevant and worthy for the rest of the community (by up-voting — which is what I think you meant) is rather laughable. The community decides what it wants to make popular, not you or I alone...

mromanuk 8y ago

Would be interesting to know, his work process to achieve that output. I'm reading "Deep Work", and I bet Stephen King, did the "lock yourself" and write until it's finished or something among those lines (avoiding all distractions)

Swizec 8y ago
He talks about it in his book on writing. It boils down to the same advice all great authors give: Reserve a time. For that time you do nothing but write. No internet, no phone, no people, nothing. Just you and your writing. Same time every day like clockwork. Yes, every day. Defend this time viciously.
- spodek 8y ago
  I find such practices so helpful I call them sidchas -- for self-imposed daily challenging helpful activities -- to distinguish them from mere habits, like brushing teeth or reading the news. I find that having a few sidchas one of the most important life practices and that naming things makes them easier to instantiate.
gnarcoregrizz 8y ago
I was wondering the same thing, so I read his book "On Writing" a few weeks ago. I figured there might be some good take-aways for writing software since there seems to be some skill overlap. Here are my (crappy) notes: * The golden rule: read a lot, write a lot. * Have a place for only writing and concentrating. Do nothing else there. * Everyone has an innate talent ceiling. A good writer won't progress beyond being a merely good writer. * Story > plot. Stories can 'write themselves,' it's hard to plan up front. * He doesn't write for symbolism or metaphor directly, but may notice it as he's writing and fold some in. * Let the first draft age for a while before revisiting. His ideal time is 6 weeks. * "Kill your darlings." Aka be willing let a concept go even if it seems great. * Have an ideal audience in mind when writing. He says that his is 1 person - his wife. He says it should be 1 person. * 2nd draft = 1st draft - 10% * He's not a fan of adverbs * Research is inevitable for backstory. He wanted to write a story that took place in a specific location, so he went there to see how it was so he wouldn't get things too wrong. He doesn't worry about it too much though, unlike a writer like Tom Clancy. * He writes because he likes to, ostensibly not for money or anything else * He gets a TON of angry letters and criticisms, particularly for his use of vulgarity. * A lot of characters are based on people or stereotypes he encountered in his working class upbringing. One thing that struck me is how much he reads. He had a list of suggested books to read in the back page, and there were probably hundreds Obviously not all of the points apply to all types of writing, his list is very King-centric. If you've ever read him then the points will make more sense in context. For example, story > plot is definitely a "king-ism" since his stories are off the cuff and meandering. I couldn't even get through half of the Dark Tower series since it seemed like the plot wasn't going anywhere. In any case, I don't think you'll get very far writing software without identifying some of the "plot" up front.

Reedx 8y ago

Reminds me of when George RR Martin asked King, "How the fuck do you write so many books so fast?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR7XMkjDGw0

senectus1 8y ago
hilarious. But really, they dont write the same sort of books... Martins books are hella complex worlds. King does theme'd stories... I'm not saying one is better than the other, just very different products that require a lot of different sorts of work to complete.
- sudosteph 8y ago
  Are you unfamiliar with the Dark Tower series? King is no stranger to "hella complex worlds". Though tbf, it did take him quite a while to finish the entire series. But he was writing things in the meantime (or getting hit by a truck) for the most part. If you sum up the time he spent actually writing, he still was able to get them much faster. Edit: Another fun fact, many of King's non-Dark Tower books tie into the same universe, check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(Stephen_King) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(Stephen_King)
  - navait 8y ago
    I think that actually proves the GP's point. The Dark Tower was started in 1982, and not finished until 2004.
  - sorokod 8y ago
    A fan of Dark Tower but in a way, the Dark Tower multiverse is of "lower resolution"
    - zumzumzum 8y ago
      Later on in the series he also turned to referencing other series in a way I'm sure he thought was clever, similar to how he wrote himself into his own book. I didn't care for it. He also had the annoying habit of using cultural references as a crutch for world and character building. Oh, see this thing, it's just like a light saber from star wars! Or those flying objects, they're sneetches from harry potter! Well, that's one way to write a book. The DT was a sweeping, intricate, wild ride to nowhere. I'd put it in the same box as LOST. I don't regret either. I enjoyed them both immensely. But they weren't leading anywhere, and I didn't need to reprimanded by King at the end for wanting a satisfying ending.

sudosteph 8y ago

King was my favorite writer growing up. I read "Firestarter" in 6th grade, and then continued working through about 20 or so more of his works until graduation from HS. I was "that kid", always had my nose buried in a paperback from the library, usually one of his. His works were like familiar friends to me. I could step into nearly any library or bookstore and find myself absorbed into some small town in Maine, or perhaps a more fantastical setting in some cases. Some books I remember better than others, some left me frustrated at the end (looking at you "Cell"), but mostly I just felt like I was a hanger-on, privileged to be hitching a ride into King's imagination. It wasn't just his imagination though, it was his experience as a human that I think I really craved. It sounds sort of funny to say I learned a lot about human nature and society from reading his books (and reading them in the 2000's no less, 20+ years after many of them were written), but I did. His characters were never stupid or shallow or boring just because they were female. His characters had flaws and issues, motivations and fears, and the world around them was not often a nice or sensible place. I can relate to that, and I needed to relate to that growing up. I don't read his books as often now, but I do love the man and his works for how much they mean to me. I never regretted reading any of them (even ones I may not have finished). I'm glad he doesn't regret writing them either. Favorite quote from that piece that I think applies to many of us, in any creative field: > But I also understand that life is short, and that in the end, none of us is prolific. The creative spark dims, and then death puts it out. William Shakespeare, for instance, hasn’t produced a new play for 400 years. That, my friends, is a long dry spell.

yawz 8y ago
I read them when I was around the same age, but a decade earlier than you. They pretty much had the same effect on me. Did you read anybody else at the same period? Koontz, maybe?
- kbenson 8y ago
  I read a few of each in High school. Koontz was fun but to me felt a bit more targeted for mass appeal (as weird as that feels to say in comparison to King). Then again, for King I was reading stuff like The Stand and The Dark Tower series, which may or may not be indicative of the rest of his work (which I mostly know through the movies made from them)?

dewitt 8y ago

> "Donna Tartt, one of the best American novelists to emerge in the last 50 years, has published just three novels since 1992. Jonathan Franzen, the only American novelist who is her equal." Pynchon. DeLillo. McCarthy. Roth... Edit: Morrison. Updike. Mailer...

pmoriarty 8y ago
I'd take Philip K Dick over all of them put together.
- dewitt 8y ago
  Him too.
- aidenn0 8y ago
  With few exceptions, genre fiction doesn't count as Serious Literature.
  - mr_toad 8y ago
    You mean because it’s not boring? It’s like serious literature has to eschew anything that would make it a good story, in case it got in the way of being good writing.
    - sincerely 8y ago
      Oh come on, Vonnegut is one of the most obvious examples of well respected American writers and you could hardly call his work boring. One of the 2016 Pulitzer prize winners (The Sympathizer - not cherry picking, just a recent book that comes to mind) was an extremely gripping/exciting story about escaping the end of the Vietnam war to America but it still managed to receive nearly unanimous praise. On the other hand, one could argue that if your works require elaborate setpieces and a fantastical setting then you're drawing attention away from an inability to write captivating stories. A plot summary of a Jonathan Franzen novel for example sounds incredibly boring but his writing is nearly impossible to tear yourself away from and will have your mind going for days or even weeks after you finish. It's perfectly fine to enjoy sci-fi/fantasy etc but there's no need to develop a victim complex about its position in the literary world.

Barrin92 8y ago

I don't disagree with King's thesis that a prolific writer can, of course, produce great works and many have done so, but I also can't shake the feeling that there is something special about authors who produce great works and then quit when they don't have anything else to say. bad works don't diminish great works, but it feels like authors who only produce works of great quality and nothing else have a special feel for their craft, it seems like they are so confident in what they have to say that they'd be repulsed by just putting anything out that isn't remarkable, and that at least to me makes them special. It's like comparing Daniel Day-Lewis and Jim Carrey. The former has taken on roles in remarkably few films, but pretty much every role is amazing and that's what's stuck in my mind when I see him in a film. Carrey also has participated in films like the Truman show but then I'm also reminded of the Grinch and the Mask, which just ruins it for me a little bit.

sudosteph 8y ago
Is Jim Carrey really a fair comparison? Most people know him first and foremost as a comedian. He's not even super prolific, has 60 acting credits on IMDB vs Day-Lewis' 30, and many of them are one-off cameo roles on comedic TV shows. I'd be more interested on your thoughts on, say Gary Oldman's performance quality (credited with 90 acting roles on IMDB) in comparison.
RickJWagner 8y ago
I like the comparison to Jim Carrey. Some of his work is brilliant. (Dumb and Dumber, The Grinch are two of my favs.) Carry, like King, seems plagued by personal demons. Both have immense talent, but also seem to be prone to these kinds of problems.
- sudosteph 8y ago
  You yourself love "The Grinch", though the other commenter says it makes him like Carrey less. I loved "The Mask". I guess I just don't think "less than brilliant attempts" makes actual brilliance any less enjoyable. If anything I respect the creator for taking risks.
travisjungroth 8y ago

RickJWagner 8y ago

I really like some of King's writings. But it's a mixed bag-- some are really good, some are really bad. When he's gone, I'll miss his best fiction. But I won't miss his public rants, they've been an embarrassment to him.

barneyrubble 8y ago
Links to some rants please? My Google fu is weak today.

magpi3 8y ago

I'm not a published writer, but my thought has always been that "serious" writers don't write less. They just publish less. And they publish less because they have a higher standard for their writing and their art (if I may use that word) than novelists who publish regularly. And (as Barrin92 also noted elsewhere on this thread), they only speak (meaning publish) when they have something to say. And don't we all take people who speak sparingly and choose their words carefully more seriously?

JJMcJ 8y ago

In the Victorian era, Anthony Trollope was very productive. His rule was seven pages a day. If he finished one novel, he started the next one. Contemporary publishing, with book tours and other publicity, can't really absorb more than a book a year or so from a single author. And the book tours, etc, take up a lot of a writer's time.

Animats 8y ago

There's William Butterworth, who has about 11 pseudonyms and over 100 published novels. I've read too many of them. You start seeing the same stock scenes coming around again. He writes good potboilers. "Tom Clancy" books are still coming out, even though he died years ago.

WalterBright 8y ago
As a boy I began working my way through Ian Fleming's "James Bond" series. After a few I noticed that they followed a formula, and abandoned the rest.

coldtea 8y ago

>I’m a recovering alcoholic, haven’t had a drink in almost 27 years OT, but what does that even mean? Recovered maybe, recovering, no. He is just someone that hasn't been an alcoholic for 2+ decades... It's like saying "I'm recovering from a broken ankle, I had my surgery in 1983 and have had no pain at all, and no fractures either, and been running ultra-marathons and doing base jumping ever since 1986".

hrnnnnnn 8y ago
The way I've often heard alcoholics talk about it is that despite their effort, the disease is always there. There's always a voice saying "have a drink" that they have to constantly guard against, even after such a long time.
ramblerman 8y ago
> and been running ultra-marathons and doing base jumping ever since 1986 Your own analogy doesn't hold up because by that logic then a recovered alcoholic would be 'fit' to have a drink again
- coldtea 8y ago
  They would certainly be fit to have a drink again -- and they do just that all over the world. It's a AA/12-step inspired prejudice that you're "always recovering" and that having the occasional drink will be fatal to regress into alcoholism. What we call an Americanism. There are tons of people who once were alcoholics, quitted, and can enjoy a beer or glass or wine or two now and again, without becoming alcoholics again, and being able to go for weeks or months without drinking (just like any regular non-alcoholic person). It's a matter of character and willpower and life's circumstances, not some physical law or physiological necessity.
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  Many folks can drink again, once they've learned how to control things. That generally means a period of sobriety, though it doesn't always. There are ways to treat the underlying issues while not completely abstaining. Many folks don't get treatment for alcoholism in their early 20's, quit, and drink normally the rest of their life. Unfortunately, many folks think that once an addict, always one. While this is true for some folks, it certainly isn't true for everyone. You really can be "fit" to drink again.

IIIIIIIIII 8y ago

I've tried to read King a few times over the years. I couldn't get over the lack of prose style and find him to be a craftsman of plots that (other) people are enthralled by, but not much of a writer. This is what happens when you're raised in your literary interests by the likes of Joyce and Proust, perhaps. If I'm a snob so be it. When I heard Harlan Ellison wrote novels in bookstore windows in a matter of days I thought "that makes sense."

stupidcar 8y ago
Speaking as a relative non-snob, I'm always a bit baffled when people cite Joyce like this. I mean, he clearly had an unrivalled mastery of language, but do people actually like reading prose like that? Even his supposedly more accessible stuff like Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist just seemed so dense and obtuse that while I could objectively admire the skill on display, I never once really found myself enjoying them. I'm not saying art should exist purely for the sake of entertainment. But, ultimately, if I'm investing the time to read a book, I need to get something out of the experience from moment to moment, and generally I find I get more from reading a bad writer with fun ideas than an expert stylist who makes no concessions to enjoyment.
- bshepard 8y ago
  There is a way to find great pleasure in Joyce, it does require effort and education, but so do many other pleasures. Terence McKenna's "Surfing Finnegan's Wake" is a good way in, especially if you enjoy McKenna's weirdly-similar-to-George-Bush's voice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpeq91hK1Gk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpeq91hK1Gk
- Mediterraneo10 8y ago
  Bloomsday celebrations frequently include reading Ulysses aloud where a series of people have a go at it. They love Joyce's prose and want to share the music of it with others. It is OK if it is not your thing, but there is certainly an audience out there who sincerely love Ulysses in all its facets.
Chris_Jay 8y ago

ratnakarsays 8y ago

Yes, I guess writers are creative people

erikb 8y ago

That one is a surprise to me. I would argue that the best certainly write more than most. Maybe there's a difference between churning out book after book, and rewriting one book again and again until it becomes good. I think the latter is the one that makes one great. The first one offers little feedback, since three books further the author probably forgot most of the details of the first one. So maybe the problem is that "writing a lot" is measured in books rather than in words typed (and then deleted, to be typed again, in a different form and structure). Just reading this comment you will probably find a few errors that I will never see, because I won't rewrite it. Let that be an example of my theory.