In the reflection of his lifelong writing career, Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft recounts King’s numerous rejections and subsequent growth as a writer. King narrates his experience with rejection in order to convince struggling writers to persevere through failure. He relies on consistent tone, connotative diction, and structured syntax to deliver hope to aspiring writers.
King employs consistent tone to persuade his fellow writers to remain firm in the face of failure. After his first rejection by Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, King recalls that “[he] felt pretty good” (Pg. 40), expressing a sanguine attitude. Most people receive rejections poorly, especially in the case of a first rejection, which feels especially heart-wrenching. However, King preserves a positive perspective in hopes that aspiring writers will persevere past rejection. In addition, he remarks “optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure” (Pg. 40) because one’s attitude affects one’s determination to pursue a passion. Despite the many rejections King experienced, his
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King describes the nail that he pounded into the wall “impaled” (Pg. 41) the rejection slips on it. As opposed to stating it held up the slips, “impaled” (Pg. 41) connotes negativity as it portrays a strong, violent image. Even though the rejection impacted King profoundly, he kept steady and unceasingly honed his craft. He remembers replacing the “nail” (Pg. 40) on the wall with a “spike” (Pg. 41) to hold up all the rejection slips that he received over the years of submitting his work to publishers. A “spike” suggests a more forceful method was necessary to hold up the immense weight of the countless rejection slips, but King went on writing as normal. He perseveres through every rejection and encourages fellow writers suffering from the same predicament to follow his
The publication history of all of John Clare’s work is, in the end, a history about editorial control and influence. Even An Invite to Eternity, written within the confines of a mental institution seemingly distant from the literary world, is not an exception to this rule, for it and Clare’s other asylum poems do not escape the power and problem of the editor. And, further, this problem of the editor is not one confined to the past, to the actions of Clare’s original publisher John Taylor or to W.F. Knight, the asylum house steward who transcribed the poetry Clare wrote during his 20 odd years of confinement. In fact, debates continue and rankle over the role of the editor in re-presenting Clare’s work to a modern audience: should the modern editor present the unadulterated, raw Clare manuscript or a cleaned up, standardized version as Taylor did? Only exacerbating and exaggerating this problem o...
Brizee, Allen, and J. Case Tompkins. "Purdue OWL: Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism." Welcome to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL). 21 Apr. 2010. Web. 21 Apr. 2011. .
On December 10, 1950, in Stockholm, Sweden, one of the greatest literary minds of the twentieth century, William Faulkner, presented his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. If one reads in between the lines of this acceptance speech, they can detect a certain message – more of a cry or plead – aimed directly to adolescent authors and writers, and that message is to be the voice of your own generation; write about things with true importance. This also means that authors should include heart, soul, spirit, and raw, truthful emotion into their writing. “Love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice” (Faulkner) should all be frequently embraced – it is the duty of authors to do so. If these young and adolescent authors ignore this message and duty, the already endangered state of literature will continue to diminish until its unfortunate extinction.
In On Writing’s section titled “On Writing,” Stephen King iterates multiple times, his true feelings for writing by telling his story. The central point that he uses to say that writing is his passion and what he truly feels joy in is how he writes. King at one point says, “When I am writing, it is all the playground…”(King 149), this is the best example of how he translates his feelings. He uses the playground as a metaphor to intensify the joy he gets from writing, as a playground or park is something we can all relate to. It is not just that one quote, but it is also his tone as a whole, rather than being some distanced writer not showing emotion, he creates a tone of a proud father, pushing a child to love what he does, and not to take it for granted. King accomplishes this tone by giving small tips and tricks that he has used over the years, almost as a mentor to give the sense as it is not just a book, but a guide to becoming a better
Adler-Kassner, Lisa. “Taking Action to Change Stories.” The Activist WPA: Changing Stories about Writing and Writers. Logan, UT: Utah State, 2008.
I strongly agree with Stephen King’s excerpt of “What Writing Is”. The fact that he mentions telepathy and it being possible, then he shows you it’s possible. That’s pretty great. You can see similar examples in modern times such as say the media casting bad vibes to the people. Everything’s either crime, racism, or sexism these days. Further dividing us a nation.
Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.
“On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft” is not written in the traditional textbook format. The structure of this book works as an educational tool is because it offers a personal look at how writing has affected one successful novelist's life. Each section of the book contains something important about the craft of writing. The book also includes a great deal of about the personal impact writing has had on Stephen King's life.
A bad book, so-called, has just as much to teach us as a good book. It is often a far better teacher than any work that is uniformly artful, where excellence disguises the nuts and bolts of craft. A bad book also teaches us something a better book cannot: humility. Not the humility of resignation — that of admitting that we will never be very good at what we do, no matter how earnestly we try. Such humility can easily morph into the indulgent self-flagellation that either demands the commiseration of friends or brings our vocation to a standstill, where thereafter we are those people who petulantly claim we “could have been
3.Walle, Alf H.: Hack writing vs. belle letters: the strategic implications of literary achievement, Journal of Popular Culture, Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996
I am in the process of writing my first novel in hopes to get it published after I graduate high school. Many students, and teachers unfortunately, have shot down my dreams of doing so but I have persevered with this aspiration of mine. I’ve found the people who think I can accomplish this are those who know for a fact I will continue with this dream.
The purpose of Baker’s essay and its placement in The Prentice Hall Guide for College Writers is to encourage young writers to realize that writing truly is a privilege. It is also placed in the book to show college English students that writing does not have to be a grim task and that thinking of it in that manner will only make the student average.
and Other Greats : Lessons from the All-star Writer's Workshop. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. Print.
“The Road Not Taken.” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan et al. 8th ed.
Beckett, Samuel. Krapp’s Last Tape. Literature: A World of Writing. 2nd ed. Ed. David L. Pike and Ana M. Acosta. New York: Pearson, 2014. 178-182. Print.