{"product_id":"stephen-king-on-writing-a-memoir-of-the-craft","title":"STEPHEN KING ON WRITING A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT","description":"\u003cp\u003eStephen King’s \u003cem\u003eOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft \u003c\/em\u003eis one of those books that I’ve always heard about from other writers, but I didn’t get around to reading it until very recently. I wish I’d gotten around to it sooner because it’s truly a fantastic book.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn it, King talks about the events that led to him becoming a writer, which is all well and good, but the real meat of the book starts about a third of the way in. This is where he starts doling out advice on what things to avoid in your writing (\u003cem\u003e“The adverb is not your friend”\u003c\/em\u003e) and encourages you to really think about how your sentences are constructed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI’ve been saving my favorite excerpts from the book to a text file that I can reference later. I’d like to share one:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. […] Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is\u003c\/em\u003e use the first word that comes to your mind, if it is appropriate and colorful. \u003cem\u003eIf you hesitate and cogitate, you will come up with another word – of course you will, there’s always another word – but it probably won’t be as good as your first one, or as close to what you really mean.”\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd there’s plenty more where that came from.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Michael Wiese Productions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39551729565859,"sku":"","price":23.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0355\/5285\/4156\/products\/king.jpg?v=1616798466","url":"https:\/\/thelabyrinthstore.com\/products\/stephen-king-on-writing-a-memoir-of-the-craft","provider":"LabyrinthBooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}