All you need to know the writers, 10 minutes Tips Stephen King

Reading Stephen King books, do not say that he is one of those writers who like brevity. However, in an article dated even to 1986, King spoke about the need to know any writer to be successful. From listening to such advice even if not one of the best writers of our time?

My acquaintance with the work of the King did not begin with the books. I first learned about it after watching the movie "haze"Which struck me absolutely everything: plot, characters, and a disaster, of course, the ending. Be sure to look at it, if you like science fiction or thrillers.

But most of all I was hooked on the story. After watching, I began to search the internet all you can find about this film, and learned that the script was created based on the book by Stephen King "Fog». Then I, like many others, had heard about the King, but not seriously thought about, to read books, written in the genre of horror. However, the film caught, and I decided that I could not give up on the work of this man. And so it happened.

King has become one of my favorite writers. Accidentally stumbled on his article in which he talks about what to writers, I knew about it should know as many people as possible.

We publish a translation of the article unchanged.

Introduction

Yes, I know that the title of the article a bit like the promotional material for the losers of the authors, but I really I talk about the things that you need to know for those who want to earn a living writing.

The story of how Stephen King learned to write

When I was in high school, I walked smack into trouble, as it often happens with high school students. I wrote and published a short satirical article in which he made fun of a few teachers from her school. Taunts were not too good-natured, rather dirty and cruel.

A copy of the newspaper into the hands of school staff, and since I had the sense to leave under article his name, I was invited to the director. By the time the satirical writer in me has evaporated, giving his place 14-year-old, who was trembling with fear in anticipation of punishment.

I was not punished, but was forced to bring a bunch of excuses and a week to work in the correctional center. There I was forced to write a column about the sport in a small magazine. The editor was a man who taught me everything there is to know the writer. His name was John Gould.

He told me that he needed a columnist for a column about the sport and offered a closer look to each other. I said nothing about the sport and even in algebra understand more. He replied: "You'll learn."

I agreed and decided to try it. Gould gave me a stack of yellow paper and said he would pay half a cent per word. The first two articles I wrote were on the school basketball team. I took them to Gould, he looked up to. He read them, took a black pen and taught me everything there is to know the writer.

That's what was part of the draft before the patch:

Last night in the gym Lisbonskoy high school fans and fans of the team were impressed by the sports performance, which surely will go down in school history: Bob Ransom, more commonly known as bullet-Bob for their volume and accuracy, scored 37 points. He did it with speed, grace... and even strange politeness, earning only two fouls in their chivalric test, beating the previous record in 1953.

After unedited:

Last night at the high school Lisbonskoy fans and fans of the team were impressed by the sports performance that is sure to go down in school history: Bob Ransom scored 37 points. He did it with speed, grace... and even strange politeness, earning only two fouls and beating the previous record of the school basketball team in 1953.

When Gould finished editing an article on the same manner, he looked at me and said, "I threw a bad part. The whole article is a good one. "

Another entry

In the United States annually thousands of courses for writers workshops, presentation of invited authors, lectures, questions and answers, which end drinking gin. I will take away from the boards of all the unnecessary rubbish, leaving only the essential.

What you need to know to be a successful writer

1. Be talented. What is talent? I can already hear someone shouting proves his opinion on this matter. For a writer, talent means two things: publishing and money. If you've written something, and for that you sent a check, you cash it and get real money, I think you're talented. How to understand that writing - it's not yours? I do not know. Certainly not after six unsuccessful stories. And not after 60. After 600? Maybe. After 6000? If you did not work after the 6000 story, it is better to try his hand at programming.
2. Be careful. Errors, double spaces, orthography - watch this. If you bring a draft to the publisher, make sure that it is printed on a neat white paper. If the draft many corrections, re-type it again.
3. Criticize yourself. If you do not have crossed half the draft - you're lazy. Only God does everything perfectly the first time.
4. Remove every unnecessary word. If you want to write, go directly to the case. Remove all the verbal garbage, rewrite, and try to reduce the product as much as possible.
5. Do not look in the directories, making the first draft. Throw dictionaries and encyclopedias in the trash. We made a mistake in the word? You have two options: start looking for it in the dictionary and to interrupt your thoughts or write somehow and fix later.
6. Know your audience. Only an idiot will send the story of a mother and daughter who talk about religion in Playboy. But people do it all the time. If you like science fiction, read scientific journals. If you like poetry, read by famous authors and submit their poems in the right places.
7. Write to entertain. Does this mean that you can not write "serious literature"? Not. But your serious ideas should support an interesting story, and not vice versa.
8. Ask yourself: "Do I have fun?". The answer is not always to be positive. But if he is always negative, you will need to take on a new project. Or a new career.
9. How to deal with criticism. Show your draft to a number of people. For example, ten. Listen carefully to what they say. Smile and nod. Then check out all the points on which they walked. If seven out of ten agreed on the fact that the character is uninteresting or banal plot the course, so the way it is. If everyone said something different, you can safely ignore it.
10. Agent? Forget about it. Till. The agent takes 10%. And 10% of anything - it's nothing. As long as you have nothing, nothing to the agent you pick. As soon as you need it, you can find it easily.
11. If turned bad start anew. In a civilized society, mercy killing is against the law. In writing it's different.

That's all you need to know. If you read carefully, you will now be able to write anything.

My 10 minutes came to an end.

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