Even though this second 100-page section of On Writing was not as full of stories and humor and attention-captivation goodness as the first, King presents a wealth of great writing advice and certainly taught me a thing or two I did not know before. What Writing Is, a brief 5-page-long section of the book, brought up a line of thought I had never considered before: writing is like telepathy. That idea kind of weirded me out at first, but as I kept reading, it made perfect sense. I thought it was awesome to consider that we can read a message that was written anytime in the past and still understand it- like communicating through time travel. Also, I thought King's 'experiment' when he describes a scene and the reader imagines it in their mind was crazy...transferring a thought or picture from one person's mind to another, through time and distance? Crazy.
As I read on into the Toolbox portion of On Writing, I found the extended metaphor of the 'writer's toolbox' that King used to be both clever and helpful. The first level, King says, should be a solid vocabulary. I fully agree with this- I love words and vocabulary and spelling and the way a tiny change in diction can change the whole meaning of a piece of writing. I like how Mr. King reminds us, though, that it is "not how much you have, but how you use it," regarding vocabulary. He means to say that writers do not necessarily have to try to impress their readers by utilizing eloquent, grandiose, extravagant idioms; simple, plain, straightforward language gets the point across just fine. Grammar is also in the top level of the toolbox, which means that a solid grip is a necessity for good and effective writing. I LOVE grammar. No really, I do. I'm one of THOSE people. I've never heard that adverbs are bad though, but I guess it makes sense now that I consider it. Sometimes they just get annoying.
The second level of the 'writer's toolbox' is elements of style. King does mention on page 131 that "Teachers assign [essays] when they can't think of any other way to waste your time." Whoa! Rude. Anyway, I like how he says that fiction writing focuses on the beat of the reading. All the rules about 'dialogue attribution,' 'phonetically rendered language,' and the uses of commas and apostrophes could get pretty confusing in fiction writing, though. All in all, the Toolbox is very instrumental in helping the reader becoming a stronger writer. Probably some of the most helpful advice that Mr. King offers is to write about what we know and like, which makes sense because it's definitely easier to write about something I actually care about as opposed to, I don't know, the agricultural endeavors of ancient inhabitants of Northeastern Latin America. Right?
Overall, the midsection of On Writing has given me useful advice to become both a better reader and writer as well as prompted me to work to sharpen my skills .
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