10/31/2022 0 Comments Steven king tool box writingThe toolbox consists of multiple layers, drawers if you will. He envisions us writers to have a box of tools that we have at our disposal to perform the craft of writing. I first heard of this term when I read ‘ On Writing’ by Stephen King. In the second post in this ‘How to Write a Short Story’ series, I’d like to explore the writer’s toolbox. (Do you like to use scalpel or a skill saw?) Every writer is different, only you know the tools you like.įor the sake of fun, I’m going to throw out a poll: What’s favorite book on writing? And comment if you have any good ones I haven’t mentioned.“Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation, Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sort of writing as ‘good’ and other sorts as ‘bad’, is fearful behavior. Good writing is also about making good choices when it comes to picking the tools you plan to work with.” - Stephen King You need to know which tools you find more effective. Just like whatever I say is going to be insufficient for your own purpose. It’s important to note every book I’ve read is insufficient for my own writing. And once you know the number of acts you can pull out the handy protractor of Act structure and piece together the story like wall of legos. You should now have an idea of your story and your character, so how many acts does it require to tell this story? Doesn’t really matter, whatever you think works. As you move on you may use the tools of character development and evolution to construct a character arc. You may start on the macro level: Blake Snyder and his fifteen beats with fun and games and glimpses of death and all that, or Syd Field and his plot points. Prioritizing your tools and systems for different levels of writing. Made me think of organizing this so-called toolbox. In the memoir, Steven King talks about levels of the toolbox. I’m sure it’ll continue to grow, but I think it’s pretty good so far. In fact, I’d say some of these books set me back.) Over time I have made a lot of my own tools (this blog will outline most of them), combined them with the good ones I’d learned over the years, and now I have a toolbox. (I’m not recommending any of these books, except maybe Gustav Freytag’s and it’s free, read or don’t read whatever you like. All of these books gave me tools which I unknowingly stuffed into my subconscious. The most recent one I came across, after reading an article about Francis Ford Coppola writing The Godfather, was a book over a hundred and fifty years old by a German Gustav Freytag (I can’t find the original article, sorry). They each became little heroes for a time, and then I found their systems insufficient and moved on. Then I read Lajos Egri, Robert McKee, David Trottier, Ken Dancyger, David Howard, Blake Snyder and Joseph Campbell. Syd Field was my bible (because my Professors told me it should be) for several years. I usually obsess over the new information for months. I have read many books on writing, not sure I’ve hit all the big ones, but I’ve read a lot. The section made me think about the toolbox I have unconsciously built through the years. Here’s the quote: “I want to suggest that to write to your best abilities, it behooves you to construct your own toolbox…” Thanks Steve. There is a whole section in the memoir (which contains a lot of instruction on writing) titled “Toolbox”, which talks about putting together a toolbox for writing. I have seen a large number of movies based on his books, and many are pretty damn great. To put it out there, this is the first Steven King anything I’ve read, I don’t know what that means, but if you care. I’m currently reading Steven King’s memoir “On Writing”.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |