Tag Archives: Horror

STEPHEN KING’S SURPRISINGLY SIMPLE SECRET TO SUCCESS

When it comes to being a master of the commercial writing craft, few authors are more successful than Stephen King. The “Horror Guy”, who King calls himself, has tirelessly worked for over sixty years. He’s produced more than fifty novels and countless other pieces in a non-stop career during which he almost died from substance abuse and a nasty vehicle accident. “Prolific” is an understatement when it comes to labeling this writing machine, and there’s a surprisingly simple secret to Stephen King’s success.

Yes, the secret to Stephen King’s success is surprisingly simple. It’s a concoction beyond natural storytelling talent, which he has in spades. It’s a mix beyond craft knowledge and prose perfection. And it’s a blend beyond something else—something most writers simply won’t do in their lives. Yet it’s a simple success secret which Stephen King slyly shares if you follow his work.

Before I disclose Stephen King’s s simple success secret, let me tell you what triggered this post. I’m a big Stephen King fan. I’ve read a lot of his stuff—From A Buick Eight is my mind-blowing favorite—and I know many readers can’t Stand him (pun intended). Certainly, he’s verbose compared to James Patterson, but I’m on Team King all the way, even though Team Patterson outsells him.

I connected with a lady who recently retired from the same police force I served with. I didn’t know her directly, but I worked with her dad in the RCMP years ago. She made a career as a detective with Vancouver’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (I-HIT) and was their high-profile spokesperson for a long stint. Now this fine lady has a keen interest in beginning a crime-writing career, and she was silly enough to turn to me for advice.

I see piles of potential in this unfolding writer. She has the proper package required to be a commercial success and a household name in crime fiction circles, just as she was in the true crime world. Part of our long talk was me recommending resources to study. Stephen King’s On Writing—A Memoir of the Craft was at the top of the list.

Stephen King. Where do you start to explain his success secret? First, Stephen King is self-made. He didn’t come from writing royalty, and that story of him working nights at a laundry and throwing Carrie in the trash isn’t bullshit. His wife, Tabitha, rescued the manuscript and submitted it to Putnam and the success of Stephen King—writer—began.

Stephen King is coming on to 74. He still writes every day that he can and that includes Christmas and his birthday. Mr. King still finds time to read—lots of reading time—and he generously gives what he has to spare in helping others to develop their writing skills. That includes unfolding writers like my retired detective friend who I hope has redlined, yellow highlighted, and made black ink notes in an On Writing copy as I have.

In prepping this post, I reread On Writing. Or, I should say reviewed my red lines and yellow bars along with black ink notations. I’ve paged this prize at least a dozen times as I’ve built my skills, and I’m now at the point that I can legitimately call myself a commercial writer who’s achieved international bestselling status.

Call me a bragger. Just don’t call me a bullshitter, and I attribute my achievements much to Stephen King’s simple success secret which I’ll keep you in suspense from while I do a quick review of what’s in On Writing and why these pages of gold are so, so valuable for anyone who wants to make it in the commercial storytelling world.

Mr. King wrote On Writing in 2000. At least that’s what the copyright page says. That would have made him around 52 which is 11 years younger than I was when I decided to take writing stories seriously.

On Writing opens with this quote in the foreword: “What follows is an attempt to put down, briefly and simply, how I came to the craft, what I know about it now, and how it’s done. It’s about the day job; it’s about the language.

It’s about the day job and it’s about the language. Commercial writing is a job. It’s bloody hard work that requires a writer to show up every day, sit down with their ass in the chair, and put their fingers on the keys—not just when they feel like it or when they think the muse calls. And it’s about using those keys to transcribe language into a crafted story that’s saleable to a mass market.

Like Stephen King has been doing tirelessly every day for 60 years.

This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less the bullshit.

On Writing is a short book by Stephen King standards. It runs just shy of 300 pages, but those pages contain sage quotes like these:

You must not come lightly to the blank page.”

It’s writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close this book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe.”

Simple sentences worked well for Hemmingway, didn’t they? Even when he was drunk on his ass, he was a fucking genius.”

I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Good writing is about letting go of fear and affectation. Also about making good choices about the tools you plan to work with.”

I love this job. I want you to love it, too. But if you don’t want to work your ass off, you have no business trying to write well—settle back into complacency and be grateful you have even that much to fall back on. There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust over your typewriter or computer. He lives underground. He’s a basement guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think this is fair? I think it’s fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist (what I get from mine is mostly surly grunts, unless he’s on duty), but he’s got the inspiration. It’s right that you should do all the work and burn the midnight oil because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know.”

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others. Read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mindset, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. It offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or your word processor.”

A radio host once asked me how I write. I answered ‘one word at a time’. Day in and day out. Not surprisingly, it’s that simple. It’s the secret to my success.”

In my humble opinion (IMHO), Stephen King’s surprisingly simple secret to his success as a commercial writer is tirelessness. He’s tirelessly written one word at a time for over six decades and shows no sign of letting up. Long live the King.

———

Post note from Garry: There is a book karma god or some kinda benevolent page muse out there. I published this piece on Saturday, 20Feb2021 and on Sunday, 21Feb2021, I went into a used bookstore in Parksville on Vancouver Island. What did I find? A first edition, hardcover of On Writing in pristine condition. SCORE! Start the f’n car! Even the dust jacket had no fading or marks. I’m going to have this baby framed in a shadow box.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEPHEN KING

Stephen King HBDThe master of horror turned 67 today. I wish him many more years of creative success and providing unselfish guidance and inspiration to writers like me.

I saw the movie Carrie before I’d read anything by Stephen King or even heard of him. I then heard the story behind Carrie, which was his spark to success, and it planted the seed that one day I could become a successful writer, too.

In case you don’t know the story, Stephen King was raising kids, working in a laundry facility, and writing in his spare time. Like so many wanna-be authors, he received many rejections from agents and publishers. He gave up and threw the manuscript for Carrie in the garbage. His wife, Tabitha, fished it out and encouraged him to finish it then submit it to Doubleday. The rest is history.

Stephen King & FriendsWhen you look back over his forty-plus year career it’s, by any standards, impressive. He’s produce fifty novels, five non-fiction books, and around two hundred short stories. Then there’s the movies, TV series, graphic novels, and comics.

Most people know The Shining, The Stand, It, Cujo, Misery, The Green Mile, The Dark Tower Series, and Bag of Bones as household words. His recent works Under The Dome, Dr. Sleep, and Mr. Mercedes will also prove timeless.

My favourite Stephen King books are From a Buick Eight, 11/22/63, and On Writing.

King’s brilliant imagination shines in From a Buick Eight. It’s about a possessed car that a small Pennsylvania police department seized and kept stored in their garage. Down-right freakin’ freaky is the best I can describe the story. It held me right to the last word.

Stephen King 11226311/22/63 is a take on the November 22nd, 1963, assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. The plot is a time traveller going back to prevent the JFK murder. Knowing what I do about the JFK case, I found his attention to detail and historical accuracy impeccable. No question he did his homework, especially in portraying Lee Harvey Oswald to be the wife-beating asshole he truly was.

Stephen King On WritingEvery writer has to read and absorb On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft. This is one of the top five books I’d recommend to writers, regardless of their genre. Here’s a few points to lock in.

  • The key to good dialogue is honesty
  • All novels are letters aimed at one person – your ideal reader
  • Never tell a reader if you can show them
  • A slower pace gives a bigger and better build
  • Kill your darlings
  • Get backstory in as quick as possible
  • Grammar doesn’t wear a coat and tie
  • Read a lot and write a lot
  • Just tell the goddam story

One of Stephen King’s writing techniques is to imagine a ‘What-if?’ scenario and go from there, writing as you go and turning up what the mind uncovers. Misery is a good example. What if a psychotic nurse kidnapped a writer in the Colorado mountains?

Here’s a couple quotes from him on successful writing.

If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you paid the light bill with the money, I consider you successful.

Read and write four to six hours a day. If you can’t find the time for that, you can’t expect to be a good writer.

Sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing to do is shovel shit from a sitting position.

Stephen King charictureSome criticize Stephen King for being too long and verbose. I call bullshit. If you analyse his work, you’ll find that every word is necessary to tell the goddam story. And I love his fearless way of saying it.

They always fuck you at the drive-thru.

Happy Birthday, Mr. King, and keep on writing.

NEVER, EVER QUIT!

Thank you for making No Witnesses To Nothing such a monster success!

garry6This is the perfect example of team players believing in a common goal – writing, publishing, and marketing an AMAZON TOP-TEN BESTSELLER.

Today, after 72 hours of promotion by Amazon’s KDP Select Program and our team, No Witnesses To Nothing went from obscurity to #5 on Amazon’s Kindle Best Selling List in the Horror/Occult genre.

The still-climbing downloads went all over the world; Canada, USA, UK, Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, India, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. The reviews are coming in and they don’t get better than this from Rene Benziam in Morocco:

“I’ve been waiting for the release of this book for some time and I wasn’t disappointed. I downloaded it yesterday and spent most of the night reading. I couldn’t put it down.” 

I hope this post inspires other writers going through the same lonely, doubting process that I went through. Please believe in your dreams, build your team, and above all…

Never, ever quit!

3D1If you missed the Amazon promo, give me a shout and I’ll download you a free copy.  You can preview it here at:

No Witnesses To Nothing: Garry Rodgers: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

Another thanks… to you as a reader and hopefully a reviewer.

I’m dying to know know what you think.