CoDunces was one of the strangest books I've read in terms of my reaction to it. i went through liking, disliking, and hating it over and over. Ultimately I decided I need to reread it sometime to make a decision.

'On Writing' is a horrible book. I don't see how it is a "useful resource" to writers. All King does is talk about his childhood and give random tips. In no way does this book improve a writer's capabilities. There are, however, other books out there that do.

This book was just an attempt to cash off on his legions of fans worldwide.

His tips are not random, they are constructed to build on and complement each other, with detailed and good explanations.


And you're wrong, it is nowhere near horrible.

*lol* It's obvious you're not a writer.

In what way did your prose benefit from King's ramblings?

I'm not sure you'll find great books on creative writing although it's a good idea to read some great authors on fiction and how it works. David Lodge has a wonderful little book on fiction. But you can learn from non-fiction writers, too, and Zinsser's book is a good one. Richard Rhodes also has a fine book on writing.

Anne Lamott (sp?) has, I think, a pretty good book on creative writing, but most books of this genre tend to stress the spiritual/from the heart/ releasing the inner child sort on approach that probably has limited value beyond simply getting people to put words on a page.

The method you're engaged in--the workshop approach--has long been recognized as the way to do it, and the tougher the criticism, the better your work will be.

I had to teach creative writing once--what a pain.

I am a writer; I enjoyed King's book and did take from it some interesting and useful tips. Since I don't have it at my side, I can't be more specific.

However, based on your contribution to this thread, and on DB's many, many, posts, I'd say his skills as a writer are more interesting to me than yours.

yeah, they all tie in

I'm on the 7th book. I started the series in August or so. I felt like the 2nd book was unbearable and almost quit the series there, and the 4th book was a real struggle after the beginning and through the middle. I liked the 1st, 3rd, 5th a lot, and the 6th was OK. The 7th is the best by far, so far.

re: King's writing, I haven't read that book. I actually feel like he is a pretty weak descriptive writer, at least in the stuff I've read lately. Which I don't really mind, because the storyline and characters are compelling, but it can get a bit confusing, especially so in the DT series.

I started off this thread by writing about King's On Writing, and did find it was far more autobiography than things most writers could take with them. More disappointing still was that the autobiography centered more on King as a person than as a writer. He didn't have much to say about his own books. I was surprised how low the yield of concrete tips and insight there were in the book.

I think you can get more out of almost any dozen pages of Lawrence Block's Telling Lies for Fun and Profit.

I finished Consider The Lobster by David Foster Wallace and liked it. Though I didn't find the subject matter of any of the essays except the porn one particularly interesting I did enjoy his style and humour. I'm definitely going to check out his other essay work, as well as his fiction writing. It's just too bad that it took him killing himself for me to discover him.

I am also a writer.

I'm also very pleased that you find someone else's prose better than mine. Having not read any of my work, I will consider your opinions lightly in the future.

Any scholar will tell you that King's stuff isn't great literature. He is best known for his plot making abilities, which he sells to movie producers. To regard him as a great writer is mistake.

This is more like it.

Black_milk

Mod request:
This forum expects a certain degree of politeness. Can you make sure your tone is more polite in future. I have edited your post to reflect what is expected, but in future, I'll just delete anything unacceptable. Otherwise, you are welcome to post here.


Speaking as a poster:

Great artist? Do you need to be a great artist to teach art? Would you consider teaching by anyone other than a great artist as having no use?

Eh, maybe King is more artisan than artist, but he has written works a lot better than the level of hack, which scholars, who probably haven't read much of his work, tend to use as an easy and lazy label for him.

May I ask what works you've read of his apart from 'on writing', because there are definitely some of his that are pretty close to 'hack', whilst others are pretty close to artistry (for example The Long Walk, The Body)?

And yes, half of 'on writing' is unnecessary autobiography, but at least it's a distinct half. I found the tips very useful, but I write only occasionally and for my own pleasure, and haven't done any formal courses in creative writing or similar. If you've done such a course, I guess King's tip are old hat and incomplete, maybe. Whatever, I found it pretty useful.

Also, if you're a writer, your phraseology is rather unusual. You're a professional writer? Or amateur? Or just doing it at college or similar?

lol I don't even remember what I said that could be interpreted as "not polite"... Could you please PM me what I wrote if that is possible?


I've only read a few. The Shining, The Stand, and a couple others. I usually read up an author entire's catalog, but obviously not from authors I don't particularly enjoy.

I'm a sports journalist right now, while studying to be a political journalist/analyst. Also working on my first novel, as writing books has always been my main objective. Went the journalism route because you can't be too sure in the publishing market. Also, to answer your question, French is my first language and I don't really write in English. Out of curiosity, could you point out what is wrong with my sentence structure/phrasing?

There's nothing wrong specifically other than a missing indefinite article (which is more a typo than a mistake), it's more the structuring. The fact you're French-speaking is probably the reason - every language uses slightly different structurings that often sound a little unusual if translated directly, but this is by no means a bad thing - French in particular can translate to a very interesting way of putting things that is quite pleasant to an English speaker's ear (I'm thinking of numerous English subtitles for French movies, as well as English translations of French novels; I'm thinking how much I enjoyed Papillon because of this, for example).

And fair enough about King, why would you read someone you don't enjoy? I just wanted to point out he i can produce works way better than 'hack', imho.

Anyway, nice to know more about you, and I look forward to more contributions from you.

It would make sense that we don't read too many books on creative writing if there aren't very many. I know that for the level one creative writing class our textbook was Creative Writing for Dummies. Pretty basic. It basically told you what plot was and how to help develop your characters.

Starting next semester, ISU is offering a undergrad/grad level course on teaching creative writing. I would imagine a ton of English Ed majors are going to be thrilled and take it. I won't be around to take it, but I would imagine teaching creative writing in high school is a huge hassle. No one would want to actually try to criticize.

You might consider reading a few of Dom's movie reviews, which are always of professional quality.

In addition, the members of this forum can be a good source of advice for writers. I don't usually offer unsolicited comments, but I have decided to make an exception. Note the sentence quoted above. In effect, you have stated that you haven't read any of your own work.

Last, few scholars these days would venture to call any writer "great."

Solo, read John Barth's story "Lost in the Funhouse," a story that is pretty near a course in how to write a short story.

I finally got around to sinking my teeth into: A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present. Earlier in this thread a poster commented that it is very left wing, he was right, but I am slightly left wing and enjoy it.

Also, I don't think it matters if you are left or right wing biased it's tough to ignore the facts he presents and I think he presents a totally different side to American history, although, I am by no means an expert. This is my first American history book and I just know what I picked up in the Canadian school system as well as TV / movies / etc.

I would highly recommend this to anyone. I'm currently about 60% of the way through it. It's a big dense book, but it's well written. I think I enjoy reading about history now that I don't care about memorizing dates and mundane facts and can just read it and go "wow, that's messed up". I previously read Gulag: A History and enjoyed it as well. I did not like Guns, Germs, and Steel but really liked All the Shah's Men. Just a list of history books I've read this year. I have a pretty diverse reading interest atm and not sure what to focus on, or if I should. Meandering has been fun and I intersperse non-fiction with fiction to keep it interesting.

Can anyone recommend a good Canadian history book?

Also, I have just ordered:
Brave New World
Cat's Cradle
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster
Watchmen
Gang Leader For A Day

and I have these on my nightstand (why did I buy more?):
Children of Dune
The Orc King (RA Salvatore fantasy)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade runner is based on this I believe)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (I've had this for a while, but I read Hemingway's short story anthology and although I liked it I needed a break from short stories)
China Study (about 80% finished but having a tough time polishing it off)

Do a search on Amazon for one creative writing book and you'll be able to click through to dozens of others. Many are very well reviewed. There are some great classics, too, that are almost forgotten, like books by John Gardner and I think Eudora Welty and some other famous femmes, because there seems to be a lot of heat generated over the "latest and greatest" in that category. If you go to writer's web sites, you'll find even more books on writing.

And then there are books on storytelling, like The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Uses of Enchantment, that have strong overlap with books on writing and are even incorporated into many of them.

So there is no shortage of books out there on and related to writing.

"Describe an apple. Now describe everything about that apple."

I remember reading of some politician having said, "You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts." I think this applies to a lot of the critics of so-called "left wing" history.

I hope you enjoy the Raymond Carver collection as much as I did, but that would be quite a lot indeed.

Cat's Crade was pretty good too.

Added to my Amazon list. I can't tell from the search feature if they have it at our library or if it's something else. I'll probably go check in a few minutes since I don't have class until 330.

Dug both of these. I still have to reread WWTAWWTAL (doesn't seem to save much time typing that!) because I feel I left a lot on the pages the first time through.

I was comparing DB's writing on this site to yours. You could be Truman Capote and I'd still call your previous post uninteresting and mindlessly combative.

I never said King was a great writer, I said his book on writing was useful and interesting to me. Reading comprehension does not seem to be your strong suit.

And while I believe Blarg's remarks on the book to be mostly correct, and there are certainly better books on writing out there, perhaps I just enjoyed it more than he did.

Have a nice day.

Nah, Pryor's reviews are of professional quality....I just sorta knock mine off without bothering to rewrite....but I'm glad you like them, John!

I was going to mention this but thought it would be nit-picky. Too funny.

I'm getting tired of you always telling people what to do, especially in the book and movies threads!