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Writing advice (lemmy.world)
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[-] BillyClark@piefed.social 56 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Stephen King's book On Writing is a pretty good resource for advice for aspiring writers.

For the high level points, writers should write. A lot. That's his biggest piece of advice.

Writers should also try to "expand their toolbox", meaning they should be able to use different methods. Just keep practicing writing with the tools you have and the techniques and tools you discover. Eventually, you'll find what works for you. You can't just expect to use a tool proficiently without practice. But everybody is different, so in the case of outlining, for example, if you practice with it and it just doesn't work, then you'll eventually know that it won't work for you.

The last big point is to develop writing habits. Like, follow a specific daily schedule. Write a certain number of words each day.

[-] leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 1 month ago

The secret to how King achieved those three objectives (especially the first one)..? Cocaine!

[-] BillyClark@piefed.social 25 points 1 month ago

IIRC, in On Writing, the bad habit he spends most of his time talking about is his drinking. And he claimed that when they took his booze away, he started drinking mouthwash. He was so blackout drunk for so long that he doesn't remember writing one of his books. I think it was Cujo.

[-] HalfSalesman@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

I love to write but I also love doing lots of things so I only end up just writing verbose internet comments sporadically instead.

[-] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Sometimes I don't even have time to

[-] yakko@feddit.uk 5 points 1 month ago

Time to...what? Sell me your book?! I'm a publisher, sell me your book! Sell me- gah, just missed him.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Wait really? Because I have a half finished book I've never had the heart to finish because that style of book has gone out of style

It's a bathroom reader about bathrooms. I have STORIES. Everyone has phones now

[-] DisgruntledGorillaGang@reddthat.com 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I remember a coffee table book about coffee tables that did pretty damn well, make it!

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 37 points 1 month ago

Statistics don't lie, go for the cocaine!

[-] subverted_per 35 points 1 month ago

Ow wow she got to meet Stephen King?

[-] saltnotsugar@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago

If you want to write effectively, you need to sit by a cafe window and look out at the street while it’s raining. If someone asks you what your book is about, sigh heavily, then say that it’s a think piece about furries in space.

Aren't all furries in space time already?

[-] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago
[-] dreamkeeper@literature.cafe 3 points 1 month ago

You're becoming more like your father!

[-] Jaycifer@piefed.social 21 points 1 month ago

There are only a couple pieces of writing advice I see people consistently agree on:

  1. Write something consistently, even when you don’t want to. If you’re a full time writer, that might be at least one page a day. If it’s just a hobby, it could be less. The important thing is to keep what you are writing somewhere in your head to keep the creative juices flowing eventually.

  2. Read. Read good books/stories to give you an idea of what to do and what’s been done when writing. Read mediocre or even bad books/stories to give you an idea of what not to do and what’s been overdone in writing.

  3. Learn about or experience some stuff to help spark ideas for writing.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)
  1. Maybe 3a. If you can afford, go someplace new and see if the new environment, new food, new people, if it sparks something in you. Best cure for a writing rut is a new rut
[-] Donkter@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

To point 3, I heard some author point out, and I think it makes a lot of sense, that reading bad writing can maybe tell you what not to do, but there's so much good writing out there, more than you could read in a lifetime, that it just doesn't make sense not to read all the best books. If you read in a world of excellent writing your standards are that high and you can still take lessons from the worst of the best.

[-] lugal@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 month ago

There are authors who have a plot beforehand and there are authors who are as exited while writing as readers afterwards. Both ways can work when executed well.

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[-] fossilesque@mander.xyz 11 points 1 month ago
[-] backalleycoyote@lemmy.today 5 points 1 month ago

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.”

RIP Doc, your voice is sorely missed nowadays.

[-] eestileib 4 points 1 month ago

Stephen King too.

[-] codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago

As a writer, yes.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

This is all good advice

[-] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 8 points 1 month ago

Never outline. Just wing it, let it rest for a while (days, weeks, month) and then read it again. That last piece of advise is also from Stephen King. I believe from the newer preface of the Dark Tower series.

[-] frostysauce@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

He also provided the "use cocaine" advice.

[-] orbitz@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

To be fair he's been sober longer since being sober to now than from being published to getting sober. But I don't doubt that in the early years it helped write through some worse times.

Though if you read on writing the dude made a shitload of money from Carrie and I think his next novel to buy an awesome house.

Okay doubled checked 200k (what he made from Carrie) in 74 is worth about 1.3 million now (though probably over years I just did the inflation calculator from its release). Dude won the lottery on his first novel and kept writing ... Well some great some not as fun, but never technically awful. Though opinions differ for sure. I always enjoyed his books overall, first novel I read over 1000 pages, and way too young IT.

[-] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I do this when writing code too, I don't always submit it the same day I finish sometimes I wait to come back to it and see what my dumbass wrote

[-] Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

I used meth to write my book (I genuinely have an ADHD component to my mental health but it still fucked my brain and I've been clean two n a half years), but now I just brute force this ish. I mean, I smoke weed. Drink maybe once a week. And I masturbate to achieve ecstatic gnosis, obviously (and NOT on offbrand Walmart Benadryl anymore), but I shit out 2k-7k words a day by being agnetic, which means I always go above the call of duty, voluntarily, and I've done this for about twelve years, sew I r a gud @ righting automatikly liek fer reel d00d.

Don't focus on the book. Focus on you, growing as tall as you can living your best life, and the books will essentially fall out of you as long as you've done the work to get where you need to be.

[-] HereIAm@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

Are you sure you actually laid off the cocaine? 😅

[-] Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Yes, cocaine makes me jittery. I don't like it. Now, Adderall and methamphetamine both work differently than cocaine (preventing reuptake of dopamine vs flooding dopamine), which both make me "feel" normal (no euphoria) but I can sit still for 48 hours straight, writing the whole time, mind being able to hold a stack of three paragraphs rather than three sentences of what I'm about to write.

But, that also led to major depression and not being able to write more than three paragraphs when sober, so I quit with my life partner's help and now I'm just your average run-of-the-mill schizoaffective juggler, and you see how my authentic emanations are innately superior to what most people do with their lives. Ah, I shouldn't punch down. After all, I couldn't work at Walmart for twenty years. I'd kill myself!

[-] silasmariner@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago

Is agnetic a typo? I don't known that word.

[-] Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

God had me invent it. Complicated to explain, assume schizophrenia if you don't know about the topological matrix you are, but there's this word, supererogatory, which means to go beyond the call of duty. The hallmark example is stopping a purse snatcher. But, you can be forced to go beyond the call of duty. Thus, agneticism is what allowed humanity to rise out of Eden through the Agricultural Revolution, learning what objective good and bad are in the system they are not in but rather are.

[-] JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago

I will let this serve as justification for NOT purchasing any of the books you've written.

[-] Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Don't worry, it's written above your grade level. Part of the reason the CIA taught me how to employ dazzle camouflage is to make sure I don't accidentally wake up children to the occult before they're ready, cuz if you reflexively judge a book by, not even the cover, you just heard some shit from the author deliberately marketing his educational work to the people most in need of help, then you're not a potential reader. You're an animal.

Now go be butthurt cuz I know you can't help it, being reflexively dependent on your emotional impulses and likely held up by a normative ethos complex with your chosen figurehead idols.

99% chance you refuse to reply or shoot out what you think is a dagger in my heart to then ignore any replies from me after that point. But maybe you're different. Unlikely; statistically speaking, you're a statistic, and from experience I can say I've had this conversation multiple times now!

[-] Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 month ago

One of those works better than the other 2 combined.

[-] Agent641@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago
[-] Gormadt 6 points 1 month ago

I cannot recommend Ray Bradbury's "Zen in the Art of Writing" enough!

It's a great collection of essay's about creativity and writing that never fails to light a fire under my ass and get me out making things.

[-] Luisp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago

Writing one line at a time

[-] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

This also applies to art.

[-] IronBird@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

cocaine tbh if you can't make something fantastix blitz out of your mind on coke you can't make something good sober

[-] MastKalandar@feddit.online 1 points 1 month ago
[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

It means authors recommend what works for them, not necessarily what will work for anyone.

[-] Donkter@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

And the last panel just tells you to use cocaine, unrelated.

[-] ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Stephen King has entered the chat

Not unrelated

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[-] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Or very related

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this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
920 points (100.0% liked)

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