03 “On Writing” by Stephen King

Wow, another great discussion!

On Sunday, January 11, 2026, we dug into Stephen King’s classic memoir/book on craft: On Writing . “Classic” seems to be a key word here – in several ways, as I’ll get into. However, despite many people having many reservations about this one, it was less polarizing than the first two books we discussed, getting zero Nays.

Here’s the breakdown:

The Discussion

As the sub-title suggests, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is part craft and part memoir of how Stephen King became a writer, allowing us to peer into his world up until the writing of this book in the mid- to late-1990s. Many saw direct correlations between childhood experiences and the horror he would write later. This wasn’t necessarily in terms of the stories he’d come up with (though there was some of that), but mostly in the why he was drawn to horror writing. This might be a good time to mention that most participants aren’t horror fans, though most had read at least a bit of his fiction. This fact certainly coloured the discussion.

One of the early observations to gain traction with the group was that there was a lot of male (“dude”) energy – and dude energy of a certain era. Many of his examples didn’t land with the readers because of this and because of the lack of horror readers at the table. He seemed to speak from a place of privilege talking about his partner (writer Tabitha King)  being there to support him, taking care of the kids etc. while he wrote. Also, although he discusses going through the school of hard knocks to become a writer, by this point in his career, much of the “craft” discussion including leaning on editors, his views on workshops and writing groups, and making a time and place to write seemed rooted in the fact that he’d been a published author for a long time. This represented another point of privilege and another disconnect from the average reader of this book.

Still, as pointed out above, nobody was an outright “No” for this book. The vote was split evenly between Maybes and Yeses – though most if not all Yeses had an asterisk, including my own. All agreed that the memoir part of the book was good, but the craft part seemed rudderless in places and, as mentioned, coming from a certain set of experiences and viewpoint (white man and wildly successful writer in his 50s writing this book during 1990s). Several people commented to the effect that even disagreeing with what he wrote helped them discover and/or strengthen their own convictions about writing.

Side Discussions

The book sparked some amazing side discussions including theme vs. story, conflict vs. tension, and other good “basic” books writers should read such as Strunk and White’s The Element of Style. We also discussed how King’s viewpoints would be changed by the fact that he was a mass market writer; i.e. he puts more emphasis on story over theme because story is critically important to his genre whereas theme is typically not. We also talked about the horror genre in particular including why we like or do not like it, and compared some of King’s novels and short stories to their movie versions.

Some Keen Insights

“We need to get to a place where we are less comfortable.”

“One thing King did was show that there is no shame in self-promotion.”

“Honest words are better than ‘best’ words.”

“Writing is an artform in which you can learn a lot simply by consuming it.”

Some Words from Others in the Group

Shannon:

1. First word you think of is often best. AND often the closest to what you mean, p. 118.
2. “Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation,” p. 128
3. “the paragraph, not the sentence, is the basic unit of writing—the place where coherence begins and words stand a chance of becoming more than mere words,” p. 134.
4. Don’t turn away from a genre or type of fiction that you love to write—and force yourself to write another genre—to try to impress someone, and especially not to make money. P. 159.
5. Plotting may disrupt the “spontaneity of real creation.”   “…stories are found things, like fossils in the ground.” The job of the writer is to uncover those stories, to allow them room to grow. “Watch” what happens, then write it down. SITUATION before STORY!!  Pp. 163-164.
6. BUT:  STORY before THEME!! P. 208.
7. Likewise with symbolism: find it naturally—and emphasize—once the STORY is already completed (first draft done). Pp. 199-200.
8. Each story has its own PACE, not all should be fast and furious! (Yet not too slow, so as not to lose the reader). P. 221.
9. WRITE REGULARLY!! And in a dedicated spot. (Though I didn’t agree with his details of either of these, they serve as a good reminder to allow ourselves space and time to create.)

Marion

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Jodene

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Final Verdict

In short: On Writing provides good, solid info. However, that info needs to be taken with a grain of salt. In this group, the size of that grain of salt seemed to determine whether you fell on the “Yes with asterisk” or “Maybe” side of the fence. All agreed that On Writing would help the new writer most. One participant who hadn’t read the book yet said that they would now.

Next Up…

Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere) by Lisa Cron. We chose this book because people had a hankering for a more practical guide to story writing this time around. It is a book that some in the group have read, and others have been meaning to read. So, this is a great excuse to finally pick it up.

Find out with us! New members are always welcome. If you’re not on our list already, contact us to sign up, and then buy your copy at Entershine Bookshop. (If it’s sold out, you can order it here. Bring your own copy if you already have it.)

Find out more about the Writing Craft Book Club here.

Footnotes

1. Star Rating is calculated by taking the weighted average of scores out of five and rounding down to the nearest half-star. “Yes” = 5 stars, “Maybe/I don’t know” = 3 stars, “No” = 1 star. As such, it is a general overall impression. The Star Rating is not – and is not meant to be – a comprehensive score or precise reflection of the Writing Craft Book Club’s take on the work. ↩︎