Month: May 2019

 

I enjoyed Stephen King’s book On Writing so much that I looked for something else from him.  Preferably something that is not creepy.  This was not a full novel, but a novella.  It is part of a collection of novellas entitled Different Seasons and bound into one book.  This novella was made into the film The Shawshank Redemption.  I loved the movie.  It has been a long time since I have seen it, but I do not remember it being creepy, so this looked like a good place to start.

After about 20 pages I was hooked.  The main character, Andy, is a successful banker.  His cheating wife and her lover are murdered.  The police believe Andy did it.  They do not have much in the way of evidence other than a strong motive and the lack of a solid alibi from Andy.  Andy, in fact, had nothing to do with the murders.  He is the victim of some very unfortunate circumstances and a very flawed judicial process.  It is not really explained, but for some reason Andy testifies at his trial.  This almost never happens in reality because it rarely has a good outcome for the defendant and the defendant cannot be compelled to testify at his own murder trial.  Anyway, he is convicted  and wrongly sent to prison.

Having the appearance and many of the mannerisms of a typical banker is not generally helpful in a prison population.  Throughout the beginning of Andy’s residency in the prison, he is regularly sexually assaulted by a group of its most depraved inmates.  He eventually gains the favor of the “screws” (prison guards) and the warden by helping them with various legal and illegal financial matters.  This eventually gains him extra privileges and protection  which eventually keeps him safe from the prison’s miscreants.

Well into his stay, another inmate recounts a story of another inmate in another institution.  This inmate brags about killing a man and a woman.  The murder matches the one Andy has been sentenced for very closely.  Andy attempts to have the warden look into it, but this just pisses the warden off.   The warden has enjoyed Andy’s help on many shady dealings, and has no desire to see him as a free man.  Andy protests and is punished until he realizes that no justice will be given to him.  He appears to fall, “back in line,” as a model inmate to appease the warden.  All the while, for 27 years, I believe, he is implementing a plan for escape.  He burrows through his cell wall with a rock hammer and then squirms through 500 yards of disgusting sewer pipe to freedom.  This is where the movie differs somewhat from the book.  In the movie Andy sends incriminating evidence of the warden’s illegal activity to the local media, picks up large sums of money from local bank accounts, and heads off to Mexico to live a new life.  He is then joined there by his longtime prison friend who is paroled after Andy escapes.  In the book Andy does not leave anything to indict the warden.  The warden does, however, leave the prison embarassed and broken by Andy’s escape.  I liked the movie’s ending better, but I loved both.   There is one more story in this book that does not seem too creepy.  It is called The Body.  The title sounds creepy, but it was turned into the movie Stand by Me.  It also was a very good movie and not too creepy.  I will start on that next.

I have never read a Stephen King novel before this one.  I have never been big on horror for entertainment and have noticed a stronger aversion to it as I have aged.  Life itself has provided me with more than ample horror.  I have no desire to supplement it, but I figure that there has to be something about Stephen King’s writing, beyond the subject matter, that has made him so prolific.  I really wanted to understand his methods.  

This book is a very easy read.  He starts it off with several stories about his childhood and upbringing.  It is very captivating, but after a while, I was wondering when he was going to talk about writing.  Stephen King believes that one should write what one knows about.  This includes what may be learned from his or her upbringing.  I began to understand his point and saw how I might apply this concept.  He provides stories from early childhood all the way to when the book was written.

His writing style seems effortless, but he reveals the work he puts into it.  He has methods for setting time aside (which mirrors a previous book I read – The War of Art) for writing.  He outlines the type of setting he does his best work in and when to start marking up a first draft – it’s a strict six weeks after completion.  No more, no less.  He also urges the reader to read and write often – every day, in fact.

The only grammatical thing he really touches on is the adverb.  He does not like adverbs and he feels that your reader will not like them either.  My biggest takeaways from the book were to write what you know and provide just enough detail describing people and things to give the reader the ability to fill in everything else.  His physique resembled a walrus in a tank top.  The previous sentence is an example of being descriptive, but without burying the reader in details.  Each reader will likely have a slightly different, but very vivid image of this unfortunate character’s appearance and won’t be bored with an overly detailed description.  It helps to keeps the story moving.

This was a really good book.  It is worth a read even if you have no intention of becoming a writer.  I really appreciate that Stephen King took the time to do this.  There are very few authors that have gained an audience as large as his, and even fewer that have given a glimpse as to how it was done.  As time goes on, this may be looked at as one of his most important works.  I am also happy to report that his methods should translate quite well to all fiction writing, not just horror.  He just appears to be writing what he knows.