A friend went to a creative workshop by Reuben Morgan at the recent Hillsong Conference. Reuben recommended Stephen King’s book, “On Writing : a memoir of the craft” saying in contained a lot of good tips for writers if you can handle the swearing. I’ve never read a Stephen King book before but since I’m interested in writing I decided to give it a go.

I really enjoyed the book (but not the swearing) and now understand why Stephen King is such a popular author, he is a great writer. The book is non-fiction and the first 100 pages or so is autobiographical as he explains how he became a writer. The next part of the book includes many his writing tips for fictional writers but there was a lot that is useful for other writers. Even in terms of the nitty gritty of how to write so many pages.

Apart from the writing tips the thing that really interested me was the obvious Christian influence. I’ll include a few quotes to show you what I mean.

From the Foreword:
One rule of the road not directly stated elsewhere in this book: ‘The editor is always right.’ The corollary is that no writer will take all of his or her editor’s advice; for all have sinned and fallen short of editorial perfection … ‘

Pg. 33 (Childhood) :
On my bureau was a Bible won for memorizing verses in Methodist Youth Fellowship.

Pg. 61 (Talking about getting married) :
And while I believe in God I have no use for organized religion.

Pg. 174 (Talking about writing generally) :
If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it?

Pg. 230 (Talking about characters) :
And sometimes the good guy tries to turn away from doing the right things, as Johnny Smith does … as Jesus Christ himself did, if you think about that prayer (‘take this cup from my lips’) in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Pg 246 (Talking about themes in his books) :
I have many interests, but only a few that are deep enough to power novels. These deep interests include … the question of why, if there is a God, such terrible things happen.

There were others but these were the most interesting.