STEPHEN KING on Writing, Scary Stories, and More

http://www.bordersmedia.com/ is the place to watch this whole program, and more cools shows like this one!

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[ski rascal]

Well...without throwing in with those whom only seem to comment to get a response, may I please say I thought what King said about the short story art-form is spot on. I have published a novella and am currently working on three subsequent novels. Writing a story and getting it all out there in 15 to 25 thousand words is not an easy task. If you write, you know what I mean. Please respect the fact that writing is the truest baring of the soul of the writer. It takes courage, man...

[Douglas Wingate]

I agree with what King says about 'young writers stumbling into novels before they're ready'. Short stories and serials are much better to start with, because a novel really is quite a huge mission. I wrote a draft to a novel that took seemingly forever yet it was only 90 pages, and I eventually scrapped it. I've been writing for two years and I'm still not comfortable with a novel, so I'm working on a serial instead, with much more pleasing results. It's much less daunting to do a serial/short

[David Glass]

That's Y I hate being smart, 1 spends their whole lives looking 4 ppl who know more than 1, then its like whn I met w/astrophysicists as that's a hobby of mine despite never taking any courses in it; they were all basing stuff on Eisenstein principals and in like 5-min I showed them how modern science disproved those principals, they eventually had to more or less concede I was right but basically hated me thereafter, so no more collaboration.

[David Glass]

and to truly make it a novel; that might not be the main plot of the book, it might just be one of 10 sub-plots

[David Glass]

Heck, otherwise any short story could become a novel just by the novelist deciding to describe every flower people pass in a field, going into a 10-page description of the weather, saying where people's clothes were made, etc.

[David Glass]

The novel of the same story, you could have a love triangle between the girl and two men, one is the prince but cannot say, the other she things is but isn't; you could have a complex social edict she needs to follow, and interconnecting relationships with all their families, you could have all of this happening on a grand adventure, and this could still fit inside a kids book and be shorter than the short story, which would be so because of the narrative structure, not the size.

[David Glass]

I hate to disagree with King, but a short story could be 200 pages long; its the format, not the size- A short story involves only 1 plot story line (not necessarily only one point of view, mind you), a novel has many interweaving plot lines e.g.- a short story could be a girl becomes a princess by a prince seeing her at a ball and searching for her...

[James Ticknor]

Love how Joel Olsteen is behind the interviewer :)

[JIslandProductions]

I'm a new writer, the truth is when I wake up from an ideal. I quickly slammed my journal to the wall and write it. When I get more and more in the story while drafting the characters and novel, it's not a grab on seat read. Does anyone if they can answer, how can I keep it interesting for the reader?

[EmeraldEmpires]

This interviewer is a fruit, lol.

[ski rascal]

hahaha....love that :-)~