Why Stephen King Can't Write (according to some guy)

If you only have one story to tell, you can afford to spend lots of time choosing the best words to tell it.

 

Honestly, I like King's writing because it's vague enough that I can put in my own details without it ruining the story. This is why I don't like Tolkien: Tolkien goes on and on and on in description to the point it's dull. I hate Lord of the Rings for this reason. King might not be a great literary writer, but he's a great storyteller.

 

Seems like a pedantic reason to hate a book.

 

Don't get me wrong, it has a great world to it, and the main story itself is okay, I just hate the prose.

 

Kaitou Wolf clarified what he meant, but in response to this: only a reader who fails at reading can fail to engage himself or take interest in Tolkien's imaginative world and story arc because Tolkien communicates it in too much detail.

Now that I am learning what some of Stephen King's stories are about, I can say the same about his stories, although the application is different. (Replace "too much detail" with "quick and dirty prose".)

 

I sympathize with this. Reading is boring. Thinking about what has been read, after it has been read, is the interesting part.

 

I found nothing drastically wrong with that paragraph - certainly not to the extent of saying King "can't write". I had a clear picture in my head, and the 'maze' thing was clear to me, at least. As to putting the story above the words - that's my philosophy. If your story is weak, boring, or rambling, the words you use won't matter. Silk purses and sow's ears...

 

I'm not a King fan at all—I tried to read one of his novels once and lost interest about halfway through (I think it was the one about the bad dog). However, lots of people like him, and that's fair enough. He seems like a decent guy, and some of what he says about storytelling makes sense. In fact, I like his articles on writing better than I like his books!

I feel sorry for the people on this thread who think reading is boring. What a shame. I'm not judging them at all—in fact, avoiding boredom may benefit them as writers because their writing will never BE boring—but I feel bad that they've missed out enjoying books. I suppose they get 'stories' from films and TV, and there are lots and lots of great movies and shows out there, so it's a good 'age' to dislike reading, I suppose.

But ...reading has given me so much pleasure during a fairly long lifetime. It's a solitary experience, that takes me out of humdrum life into a new world and lets me play/live/work/love there. I open each new book with a huge sense of anticipation. Sometimes my hopes are dashed, sometimes fulfilled, but it's always a rush to start a new one. I feel sorry for folks who don't enjoy these journeys. Is their first reaction to any new book, even before they crack open the cover, always ...oh, shit, I'll be glad when THIS is over...?

Ach, well...

 

I have no reason being in this thread, because I've never read a Stephen King book all the way through...

However, I have to agree with the article about the "rank of doors" line. I couldn't figure out what a rank of doors was either, and just decided it was a bunch of doors and moved on. Of course, I think that happens a lot in reading. If you don't understand something, you make the closest connection you can think of and go forward.

Also as an aside, my mother has read a lot of Stephen King and she used to complain that he was too detailed. So, I don't know. I need to read him myself, I suppose. Maybe she meant detailed in terms of meandering.

 

It seems unfair to claim Stephen King cannot write, with the crux of the argument picking on just three passages (there are much better and more detail analysis available online).

I think Mr King is a good writer, however his stories are a little unimaginative. If we are going to pick on bad writers there are far worse and equally as popular (JK Rowling *ahem*).

 

To be fair, he probably is too vague for some people. Some cases his vagueness is perfect, in others he needed to be specific so we could see what he was talking about; it's all about maintaining a balance of what you want the readers to know.

 

I must admit, the 'maze' part of the quoted paragraph kind of lost me, but everything else about King's paragraph was clear enough to me to let me work with is as a casual reader.

Anyway, what a terribly written article! Pointing to his subjective connection of Jack Nicholson from The Shining and then pretending that that was a point showing King's bad writing, that will likely hold up as one of the stupidest things I'll read this year. And I follow comments on The Guardian Facebook page. On a textual level King is mostly fine to be honest; he has a few hiccups, but he's mostly competent, rarely good, and more often than that pretty bad.

King isn't a very good writer. Or at least he doesn't try to be. Most of King's problems are more conceptual, and structural. I've read many of his novels and short stories in my life, and the man can't write an ending, he's not even very good at a middle. Or if not that, his endings can be good, his beginnings can be awful like in 'Salem's Lot. It is a rare King story that is consistently good, but there are some exceptions. One thing King does, and I'll not even pretend like I am the first to notice this, is that he takes an idea he thinks is cool and runs with it without any time to take stock, criticize the idea, and let it mold. I know why too, and fewer people seem to have picked up on this issue in King's writing: the man doesn't know how to redraft. At all.

Either that or he doesn't bother with it. You can see this in his On Writing where he gives the first draft of the story that would eventually become '1408', and comparing that first draft with the finished product side-by-side I couldn't see any difference. That's just bad practice. A redraft should be the time when you go through the story and work out the weaker moments of the plot, and generally add the complexity that a good novel needs. The best example I can give of this is his novel The Tommyknockers, which is quite possibly the worst novel I've ever read in my life. It's clearly King commenting on nuclear radiation, and this seems to have been a very active theme in King's mind while he wrote it, it's clearly what the novel is discussing on it's secondary level. However, what is the book saying? I have no idea, the message of the novel became so confused, and seemed to disappear in the end into a murkey mess while the story wrapped up. I don't actually know this, but I'd be surprised if King didn't start that novel with the best intentions, and then grew very tired of the novel somewhere along the way. It certainly feels that way to me. Which is a shame, because that poet protagonist (what was his name? Jim Gardener?) was one of the better King protagonists, and I liked the fact King threw in his scraps of poetry. I actually think King missed a great opportunity with that novel to do something and little different and make the novel just focused on that character and his struggle, and write a serious novel - cutting out entirely the silly alien story. He wrote a serious novel before with Rose Madder, so why not write about a struggling poet?

Actually, that's one thing I don't hear from people, but I'll say it. King's not a bad poet actually.

 

Funny that I just found an article on facebook of 22 tips from King about how to write.

To be honest I love his writing style. It takes a while to get used to, but as someone mentioned before, it's a far more casual tone. It makes him seem more like a story teller than an author, but his stories are just expressed on a page rather than orally.

 

My first drafts aren't that different from my final draft - just a little polishing. A lot of writers don't "redraft" (I'm assuming that means having more than one draft with lots of changes). I don't think that's 'bad practice' at all, and I don't think that, in and of itself, should be a criteria for being a bad writer versus a good one.

Some writers just have a style we don't care for. Fair enough. It doesn't make them a bad writer (or make someone we like a good writer). It just means that no writer will be liked by all readers.

 

Don't misunderstand me. My point is that the fact King's first draft is pretty much identical to the finished product, when it's known he doesn't plan stories ahead (especially '1408'). You'd expect to see some changes, even if they are only on a minor, textual level. I certainly wouldn't send what is essentially a first draft away to the New Yorker, which is I think where '1408' first appeared. My main point with redrafts, though, was on complexity.

That's why I started talking about The Tommyknockers, as a way of showing a much better, bigger example of this problem with King's writing than with a short story. '1408' just lead me to that point about complexity and the second layer of meaning that I think is what makes a good novel, generally anyway. The second layer of meaning in Tommyknockers is, I think, a mess, and that novel needed a much more comprehensive redraft than it evidently got. This issue I have about King's redrafting skills can also be applied to the story '1408', a second layer would require at least a rewording of some sentences - which I don't see when I compare the text in On Writing with the story in Everything's Eventual.

Having a complexity is my usual criteria for a good novel, if the novel has some higher meaning or message behind the text, and is doing more than just telling a story. There are some exceptions, but that generally holds true for me. If you disagree then it's no bother - it just means we value different things in literature. 'Good' is a pretty subjective word.

To tell you the truth, though, I like Stephen King. I wouldn't have read most of his work if I didn't. He's fun, but I also see his limitations as a writer. He's not, even by his own admitting, on par with writers like Haruki Murakami or someone like Don Delillo. Writers I would say are both good and popular. I don't think that's snobbish in any way to point out that King doesn't seem to try to be like those writers either, he's happy writing the literary equivalent of McDonald's, which is how he describes his own work in On Writing so don't shoot the messenger. Plus, he sometimes tries to write more serious stuff, and some of his work I think is very good.

 

This struck me too about King's work. He has the opportunity to redraft, to revise, meaning to see more deeply into the story than he did in his first draft, but he doesn't take it. He just fixes some grammar issues, takes out a few adverbs, and calls it good enough. It's passable, I guess, but it isn't anywhere near as good as it could be.

I haven't read much King - The Stand (unabridged edition) kind of ruined him for me. I couldn't finish that book. But I did think the novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption was a great story. I mean, it's a great story indifferently told. Someone who cares more about prose - about technique - would have made it brilliant. Maybe in another universe Cormac McCarthy would have written it, or Anthony Burgess, and it would then be one of the great novellas of the twentieth century. As it is, it reads to me like a wasted opportunity, and I'm very glad Frank Darabont and not Stephen King made the movie.

 

Oh god yeah, Stephen King's directorial efforts are ... well, let's just say: who actually liked Maximum Overdrive?

I've heard The Stand is one of his novels that you should only read if you are already a fan, and prepared to stick with it. I've not actually read it myself, I tend to stay away from his longer works. That's mostly an attitude lingering from when I was a teenager, and didn't want to lug some 1,000 page brick of a book around everywhere I go. So I've not read Stand, I've not read IT, and not read Under the Dome either. Maybe it's time I did that. 'Rita Heyworth', I think you are 110% right on that, it was a good story but the writing was nothing special, it is one of the much better of his output however. As are the short stories 'The Fifth Quarter' and 'The Man in Black Suit'. 'Riding the Bullet' is a good horror story too. He can write good stuff.


Also I've just thought: the original article? Why bring Jack Nicholson into it at all? That wasn't even King's image, it was Kubrick's. King didn't have a maze in his Overlook hotel from what I remember, instead he had animal plants that come alive. The more I think about that point the less sense it makes. That article was written by a moron.

 

I'm indifferent to King - I loved It and The Stand ( I'm a sucker for end of the world fiction so maybe I'm biased ) but after reading a few more King's I was all king-ed out. I think the best thing about King is his ability to create believable characters and a good tone. Everything else about his writing is rather ho-hum that includes a lot of his stories - the ideas are much better than the content. I've actually found other horror writers to be better skilled than him but never got the credit - Poppy Z Brite, Jack Ketchum, Kathe Koja. The trouble with those three is they can be over-the-top and too violent - they're not for everyone. They also couldn't match King for the number of books they put out ( it's hard to build a fan base when your fans have to wait years for the next one ), nor were they noticed by Hollywood - Aloha, free publicity. Maybe the guy should've wrote his article comparing him to other underrated writers. Instead of nitpicking out of context.

This paragraph isn't too offensive or stellar - it just is what it is.

The only thing I'd clip in this paragraph is big - if he's going to a concert it goes without saying that the auditorium would be big - plus three plain modifiers in a row makes it kinda blah, rank actually means row of - so you could keep it - though in a way because of the plain modifiers it kinda stands out not to just say row of. I'd maybe rework the last sentence to include the fact that the do not cross tape was being used to funnel or herd the group of people because right now it doesn't seem to gel with how the people are waiting. But it's only one paragraph so who knows it could've been cleared up in the very next one.

 

Well, the Nicholson image is appropriate. The article author didn't claim it was King's idea; he said that when he read the paragraph from Mr. Mercedes, he immediately thought of Kubrick's The Shining. You're right: King didn't have a maze in the book, he had the topiary animals instead. But the article author wouldn't think of King's version because it doesn't involve a maze - the image would make no sense. The Kubrick version does. The point he's trying (not very clearly, I admit) to make is that the maze in Kubrick's The Shining is a proper maze: it's intended to be difficult to escape. The "mazelike" thing in Mr. Mercedes is a different thing entirely: it's an organized line, allowing large numbers of people to line up in a small area. Therefore, "mazelike" is not an appropriate word.

Still, he could have made the same point without bringing Nicholson into it and causing all this confusion.

The article isn't written well. That's why I didn't dignify it when I posted the link - I just said King can't write "according to some guy." The title is an obvious exaggeration: King can write. It's just that he doesn't write very well. There are many writers who write better than King but don't sell anywhere near as many books.

 

You are right on the money here. Absolutely correct. To be honest, this thread has made me think maybe it's time to read IT and The Stand. See if the books he's most known for actually stand up to my unreasonable expectations.

I've not read anything of his newer than Lisey's Story too, so maybe his newer stuff is on the whole better. He's been branching out more I've noticed - mind what is with him pumping out two novels a year now? He must be practically stabled to his writing desk!

 

I tried to read Stephen King's novels twice - the first time was Bag of Bones and the second was Under the Dome. I didn't make it past p.50 in either one. King has a waffly style of writing that I just don't find engaging at all, and I hate the meaningless details. In terms of the quoted paragraph though from the article - I took issue with the "wide, steep drive" and "big auditorium" because they came together back to back and looked like a junior high school creative writing exercise. @minstrel is right - the rhythm in that sentence SUCKS. You don't need to read it aloud to hear it.

However, the rest of the paragraph was perfectly pleasant. Like I said, I don't normally like King's style of writing, but I have no issue with the rest of the paragraph. One bad sentence doesn't reduce the writer to the status of "can't write". And to be honest, by now I'm only all too aware that many things in writing boil down to personal taste.

Like @daemon - he clearly loves Tolkien judging from his previous comment about anyone who doesn't enjoy Tolkien being a poor reader. Well, frankly, I couldn't get past p.3 - even in The Hobbit. Yes, he paints a fantastic picture and I admire the world-building - but meandering detail bores me. After 2-3 pages I'd like to know what's happening, rather than more history or description when I've already read 2-3 pages of description. However, I *don't* visualise things well when it comes to books. I feel things well, but I don't visualise them well. A little ironic considering I can draw and make polymer clay sculptures very well - so I certainly can and do visualise at a high level, but not at that kind of level. I almost never see details. I feel them. For me, concrete descriptions of objects and names don't stir me in any way. Poetry, on the other hand, does wonders for me. For this reason I love Hunger Games - I found the prose to be simple and poetic, and when I can feel it through the poetry of the language, I start visualising things my way, and it's perfectly satisfying (for me, at least.)

It boils down to basically if the writing works for you on a personal level, that's all. Tolkien tells a good story, has an amazing world and I can see the loveliness in his writing - but I still can't stomach his books. It's just personal taste.

So, considering all this, I would hesitate from saying King "can't write". Unlike Twilight, which is a one hit wonder, King's consistently pumped out worldwide bestsellers - he's clearly got something and is doing something right.

Now back to the article - while I agree with the writer's claim that words are as important as the story, I do not agree with his interpretation of what King wrote in On Writing. In the end, the words are there to aid the story, so in that sense, story is certainly the most important. You cannot really ask if the paint is more important than the painting - without one, there would not be the other. One's the tool and the other's the product, and are both equally important. However, the big picture rests in the product, not the tool. I think King was basically emphasising something that writers - as lovers of words - sometimes forget, which is that we sometimes play around with words so much, cus it's so much fun, that we end up over-indulging and suffocating the story with our purple prose.

Funnily enough I didn't take issue with the way the article was written. But I did check out the writer's book on Amazon and...

MY WORD that guy's writing is atrocious!!! Yes, I dislike King's style, but King's a far better writer than that guy is! How did he even get published!?

Here's an excerpt from the first page:
"... that Bucky had money and that I could get away from my half-brother, my family, and my life. But there is a better way, Your Way, Dear Lord. Thank you for sending my Bucky to see that. It wasn't Bucky's money - O'Kells have money, I won't ever have money - and Bucky wasn't so bad."

And my favourite:
"the line of his nose sharp enough to cut the wind."

Whaaaaa...

Like, seriously, this is worse than Twilight. That's saying something. And Dan Brown. There's a chance it's deliberate as the whole thing has this childish foolish girl's diary tone about it, but that's no excuse for writing such eye sore!! (it's also saying something that I can't actually tell if this bad writing is deliberate or if he's just that bad.)

Edit: that excerpt belongs in the "worst opening lines" thread in the Prompts subforum lol