I recently became serious (again?) about writing fiction, and my mother recommended Stephen King's book on writing, aptly titled On Writing. I haven't read any of King's books, but I know he is prolific, creative and immensely successful.
The first hundred pages of the book are autobiographical. King has had an interesting life which he relates vividly. Some very memorable anecdotes, some not for the squeamish. He halfheartedly focuses on the beginning of his writing career, but frequently goes into stories that are unrelated. But it's all good, and can fall loosely under "origins."
Then he gets into the more traditional writing instruction. I found his tips to be practical, clear and implementable, without much artistic nonsense. I especially liked his explanations of editing, and he includes an examples of before and after editing an excerpt.
The end of the book gets back into the autobiographical side, relating King's near death experience that he suffered partway through writing the book in question. Horrifying, interesting and well told.
Overall the book is an odd combination of instructional book and autobiography which works quite well. I haven't read much on writing, but I'd be surprised if I found another book on the subject better than this. It's an easy read, entertaining, with some good nuts-and-bolts tips that any writer can use. I highly recommend this to aspiring writers, and/or fans of King.
In the back of the book (second edition) is a list of ~180 books that King has read and recommends as books that "entertained and taught" him. A huge variety. I suspect that a person could get quite a good education in literature by reading every book on the list, but I'm not going to found out. I do plan to use it to get ideas of what to read though. I'm also interested in reading some King now, and I'll be picking up one of his novels soon.
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