On Writing: Miscellaneous Topics

Matthew Erbst

6/27/11

English AP

It said a minimum of four!

On Writing: Miscellaneous Topics

These are just a things that interested me throughout the book. They are not enough to do a whole blog about like the other subjects, but they warrant some attention.

Adverbs: Stephen King hates, hates, HATES adverbs. He even declares that the “road to hell is paved with adverbs.” (125) and that he will “shout it [this hate] from the rooftops.” (125). His main reason for this hate is that adverbs, at least to him, weaken a sentence or are completely redundant. While I believe he may be a bit too strong on this topic, I share his feelings. Adverbs often drastically weaken a sentence by hugely limiting the need for proper storytelling and glaringly disconnecting the reader from what they are zestfully reading. A good example is the previous sentence that I peppered with the hateful grammatical form. (Zestfully almost made me ill)

Passive Voice: King believes that it removes energy from the story and sounds too businesslike for fiction. I agree completely, although I must admit that I succumb to it often.

Plot: Simply put, Stephen King does not believe in plot. His main basis for his belief is that our mortal lives are largely plotless. While writing a story, I do think characters should have a level of free reign to make them seem realistic, but without a general direction the story is going, there may come a situation where there can be no more progression, because many human lives end up like that. A good example is one that Stephen King himself talked about quite a bit, The Stand. As King said, he had reached a point where he simply couldn't continue the story until he came up with a very theatrical a plot-like solution, a bomb. While this may not be the same as having a preplanned plot from the beginning, it bears a semblance to plot. Yet if Stephen King's no plot method works for him most of the time, more power to him and those whom follow it, but I don't see it as a rule that must be followed. Ultimately, I think it should be a personal choice for the writer of what feels more comfortable and what works better when it comes to whether to use plot or not.