Simon Paul Woodward

Horror author

screenwriting

Blog #8 Write Like a Stephen King Style Machine

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People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.
– Stephen King

 

I love Stephen King’s novels. I grew up reading horror and Salem’s Lot, The Shining and The Stand were touchstone texts for me and my friends. One summer we spent several days trying to figure out how we could trigger a global pandemic capable of killing most of the population leaving a plucky bunch of heroes (modest cough… us) to have adventures in a post-apocalypse world peppered with lonely teenage girls desperate to be rescued by teenage boys with big hair, flying boots and second-hand overcoats (… you had to be there). Luckily for you, our chemistry set was basic, and we didn’t have the internet as a guide.

But I’m not here to talk teenage fantasies (or hair). I’m here to talk writing; something Mr King does every single day; not stopping for birthdays, Christmas Day, hospitalisation or any other puny excuse.

Obviously, Mr King isn’t an average writer. He’s a story-machine powered by a deep love of his craft, his characters and an addictive personality; so addictive that for a period it threatened his health, family, and career, and led to him writing books under the influence of alcohol, drugs, mouthwash and those little squirts of gas you get from a can just before the whipped cream oozes out. He admits that he can barely remember writing The Tommyknockers.

In his brilliant part-autobiography/part musing on the craft of writing, On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft, he outlines his simple, blue-collar methodology, well… simply. I would recommend that every writer should read this. It’s by turns amusing, brutally honest, supportive and exceptionally useful as a guide for bursting pretensions and demystifying the craft for new writers.

A key discipline for him is to write every day. No excuses. It doesn’t matter what you did the night before, where you are today and what you have lined up for the evening. You need to make it into a habit, with fixed hours, like a regular job. This isn’t just to keep you honest; it’s a discipline that enables you to stay within the flow of your novel and to maintain momentum as you see words mount up. (But he does acknowledge this may not be practical for everybody.)

What also stuck with me was the image of him whacking his growing manuscript against desk each morning before he wrote. Feeling its increasing weight, the heftier thunk the pile of paper made as it connected with wood – Thud! -this is his way of saying … “yep, it’s coming along“.

Like most of us, I suspect, I write on a laptop or iPad (other tablets are acceptable) and whacking expensive tech against tables is costly, ineffective and lead to lively budgetary debates with spouses and partners. Instead of the whack, I always scroll through a manuscript from the top to the bottom before starting; taking pleasure from its growth, making sure the visual flow of pages is attractive – that it looks like a book should look – remembering Stephen King and feeling guilty about all the days I didn’t write a goddamn single word

When I can force myself to write every day, I find it much easier to force my way through difficult sections of a book. To access those sections that just won’t flow out of my mind and into my fingers. If I don’t write every day, if I set the manuscript aside waiting for inspiration, momentum drains away. And even if I can’t find what I know is in there, sometimes the only way to get through a tricky section is to write it badly (even really badly) and then revise. It’s better to have a shapeless lump of clay than no clay at all.

And if you are writing… well, then you are a writer.

Books are a uniquely portable magic.
– Stephen King

 

Why you should ignore this golden rule: see the next golden rule.

Up next: Don’t write every day

Blog #4 Don’t Use Criticism As A Razor

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It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.
– Ernest Hemingway

I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.
– Erica Jong

There’s a scene in the film Betty Blue (I can’t remember if it’s in the book), where the eponymous heroine uses a comb to attack a publisher who has rejected her lover’s magnum opus with a brutally critical letter. As a negotiating tactic it failed, but at least it allowed Betty to let off steam – and Betty (as embodied perfectly by Beatrice Dalle) was a lady who needed to let off steam.

Criticism is the cliched, double-edged sword (a cliche I intend to stretch into a messy metallic metaphor) and the wise writer should be wary of both of its edges. Much criticism is entirely subjective and subjective opinions can be heavy and unwieldy.

Would you try to shave (face or legs) with something as unwieldy as a sword? No? Then why would you use a single piece of criticism to determine whether your latest project was the work of a genius or an idiot/dork/Frank Spencer/Homer Simpson/Pike from Dad’s Army (delete as age appropriate).

It’s a hard lesson for new writers, but: NOT EVERYBODY WILL LIKE, OR ENJOY WHAT YOU WRITE. Not when you start out, not when you have initial success, not when you are the writer of a global spanning, theme park spawning phenomenon.

Carrie by Stephen King was rejected 30 times, Frank Herbert’s Dune was rejected 23 times and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected 12 times and Jo Rowling told ‘not to quit the day job’.

Even now the boy wizard isn’t immune to criticism. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone has 47 reviews at a (Ron) measly 1* on Amazon (this is my favourite rant which is nothing to do with the book!). This isn’t holding back JK’s career or stopping her earnings, estimated at US$1 billion (more than the GDP of The Gambia).

When I first moved to London, I enrolled in an evening script writing class in Brixton. This was a pre-gentrification Brixton of families, students and squats. A place where you emerged from the tube amidst clouds of incense, hectored by a Baptist preacher’s barked eschatological threats. A place of underground bars and live music before the Academy was branded with anything other than its location. It was like entering another world and I loved it.

The script writing course was attended by an eclectic group (I remember a Sloane Ranger exclaiming “oh, ya, you’re a real Northern Lad” as if she’d encountered a mythical, hairy creature. (NB: I haven’t invented this – it happened… and I’m not Northern, I’m from the Midlands).

The course was the first time I was directly exposed to criticism. In retrospect, I can see this was a supportive – if somewhat mismatched – group of collaborators, but at the time I wasn’t ready for it.

My pitch was a serial killer screenplay called THE JIGSAW MAN. A peer of the realm had imprisoned his psychopathic child in a room with nothing but jigsaws for distraction. Now he’s escaped and as his culling all those who abetted his father in keeping his incarceration secret. Each murder scene was marked by a piece of a jigsaw puzzle placed on the victim’s body. The case was investigated by a puzzle obsessed cop somewhere on the Asperger’s scale.

Okay, not a script that will win awards, but it was my script, my idea, and it was the first time I’d pitched an idea to a large group of peers and writers much more experienced than me.

There were some supportive comments from the populist faction in the group. But then came a withering assessment that my script was basic, derivative and didn’t tell us anything about the world today or past. The critic explained she would never be interested in collaborating on such a project and instead urged people to support her (very well pitched) story about the oppression suffered by an Indian woman during the Raj.

With a few years hindsight I can see just how poor my reaction to the criticism was. Not in a throwing things around the room in a can’t you see my genius way; in a slinking away from the course and stopping writing for a year sort of way. A whole year when I could have been working on my craft. Writing short stories. Listening to criticism but only reacting to that which could take my writing forward. All my screenwriting critic was doing was expressing a perfectly legitimate subjective preference. She had the courage of her convictions. Back then, I didn’t.

& why you should ignore this golden rule: Taking tough criticism and using it positively is a hard lesson to learn. I exhort all new writers to expose themselves to the glare of criticism as soon as they can. And to listen. Really listen.

Next time: Don’t think you can make it on your own.