"Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova contains a major sticking point for Stephen King in On Writing: adverbs, especially when attached to dialogue, like "...Biff said exuberantly". Many new writers think that by attached unnecessary adverbs, they are somehow making their writing better. The opposite is true, according to King. Adverbs clog up the writing and slow down the pace. It also goes against the rule "show, not tell" in writing.
Ever since reading this section in the book, I have noticed adverbs everywhere, from Lord of the Flies to my own writing to newspaper articles. It is important to note that the use of adverbs does not mean that the writer is inexperienced, but they do need to be used sparingly. If the same idea can be communicated through showing the audience, the adverb just plagues the writing.
My previous post touched upon this a tad, but King has a writing process that is unique and intuitively make sense. First, he writes one draft of a book, front to back, without sharing it with anyone. This makes sense to me, because the first draft is just that: a first draft. Write the first draft of anything for yourself. The world is not watching you. After that first draft, put it away and forget about it for a substantial period of time. Write another story, spend more time with your family, or anything else you were just dying to do while writing the first draft. Just get out of the 'writing' mode. This is a major point that I originally overlooked. Letting the draft sits gets you into a different mindset, and you are more likely not to give up on what you've wrote, or to think that it is not good enough.
After that, come back and work on the second draft. Don't throw away the first draft. There is always something worthwhile to take away from what you have written. King even tells a story that he threw away the first draft of Carrie, his bestselling first novel. His wife found it in the trash, read it, and knew that there was something special there. So, needless to say, after leaving the writing, don't ever throw it away before trying to make it better. This includes revising, editing, deleting things, and just cleaning everything up and having it makes sense. After the second draft is done, pick a few select people that you trust to read your work and give you concrete feedback. At this point, you as the author have a better understanding of the story, the characters, everything.
The main thing that I took away from this amazing book, aside from all of the grammar tips and interesting anecdotes from King's life, was that writing takes a heck of a long time. The pace of writing a complete novel is different from anything I have ever experienced. Its hard for a lot of people, me especially, to let go of the need for instant gratification, and just let go. Slowing down, then letting others read it, and moving forward from there will create a wonderful product.
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