On Writing

In On Writing, King gives a glimpse into his creative process and his attitude towards writing. His most significant piece of advice, in my mind, is that each author should bring his or her own experiences to the work, rather than trying emulate at style of writing because it is popular. King writes, “Every book you pick up has its own lessons,” and that is absolutely true, but I think this can be expanded to encompass every experience an author has in his or her lifetime. King believes that authors tend to have very keen observational skills and this, coupled with the ability to synthesize particular events that occur in one’s daily life with one’s imagination, is a precursor to writing believable fiction.
A corollary to this concept of imbuing one’s fiction with real-life detail, is writing honestly. This is necessitated by King’s organic approach to writing. Once he has fashioned characters and placed them in a novel situation, King is ardent about letting the characters evolve until they take on lives of their own. I find King’s approach fascinating; while King is the conductor of the train, he may have no idea where the tracks will lead. His metaphor about the story being a fossil buried in the ground is relevant here. King, ultimately, does not seem to know what his unearthed fossil will look like until he is done excavating.
With this metaphor, King continues to give some of his best advice. I agree with him that it is with subtle techniques that the most complete version of a fossil can be recovered. Because we all have different perspectives and experiences of life, each one of us has an inherently unique fossil to find. It is our directive, thanks to King, to incorporate our lives into our fiction and create honest characters and believable stories.