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/lit/ - Literature

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18133277 No.18133277 [Reply] [Original]

How is it?

>> No.18133304

I prefer Stephen King on Cocaine

>> No.18133308

>>18133277
It's a book full of cocktail recipes

>> No.18133404

>>18133277
Without Stephen King's 'On Writing' I would have never been able to write my best-selling children's book Antiracist Baby.

>> No.18133413

Surprisingly decent considering how awful King himself is at writing

>> No.18133686

>>18133413

Please, exactly how is King awful at writing?

>> No.18133697

>>18133404
kek
>>18133686
Seems like you haven't read him yet

>> No.18133702

>>18133697

Seems you can't actually answer the question.

>> No.18133710

>>18133702
Lol u dont even know ur own answer to ur question

>> No.18133714

>>18133413
Bro, read roadwork. It's great.

>> No.18134335

I've only read the shining
Movie was better

>> No.18134338

>>18133686
Well he isn't gonna be part of the cannon, that's for sure

>> No.18134342

>>18134335
cant go wrong with a plot about murdering your annoying wife, it never fails

>> No.18134347

>>18133710
That's why he's asking you you absolute fucking mongoloid. Fucking retard.

>> No.18134362

Awful.

King is a hack writer.

You learn how to write by reading quality literature and not by reading a hack writer's book on how to produce hack literature.

>> No.18134401

>>18134362
Makes more money than you ever will so who gives a shit? I mean seriously, people enjoy his shit so who cares?

>> No.18134406

>>18133686
It's funny because the entire school of "Best American Fiction" style short stories is basically just writing stories as if they are the beginning of Stephen King novels. It's all slice of life shit. His details and dialogue are very good.

>> No.18134574

>>18134406
Slice of life?
Anon you should go back to /a/
Ur confused

>> No.18134660

>>18134401
OP asked what the book was like and I told him. What does that have to do with how much money he makes? Like I give a fuck?

Kill yourself.

>> No.18134733

>>18133686
Go read a couple of old Mickey Spillane novels and you'll see the difference and why Stephen King is really good at certain things, but also weak in important areas, and mediocre overall.

Stephen King is great at dialogue, description, and atmosphere, but he rarely knows how to end his own stories, because most of them are like fever dreams that meander but don't arrive anywhere and he tacks on a bad ending when he's bored of it. His main characters almost all tend to be extremely developed and realistic and totally boring and forgettable.

King's books can be fun to read, far fewer of them are as fun to re-read. And even the best of them is just interesting enough to kill time. His biggest books are also his biggest failures, and some of his highly-touted books are not even as good as their TV and film adaptations, which is pathetic.

Mickey Spillane or Michael Crichton are good examples of more complete authors who are comparable to Stephen King. Chuck Palahniuk is a good example of an author who has similar skills and similar flaws.

>> No.18134750

>>18134401
I will say this about King. He can write, it's not good writing and it's laughable in comparison to better authors but he manages the minimum of effort to keep the reader entertained.
He's not even unique in this matter. There's enough celebrated authors that take so many shortcuts, but it sells. The only caveat is even if you admire King for this, it's not a great idea to pick him as a model, because it's very easy to plummet below the level of his acceptable writing.
>>18134733
>Mickey Spillane or Michael Crichton are good examples of more complete authors who are comparable to Stephen King.
Agreed, Crichton is my favorite author, he can engage the reader so much better.

>> No.18134755

>>18133277
>How is it?
Ironically his best book, for a mediocre author.

>> No.18134779

>>18134750
I think Michael Crichton was probably the 2nd most famous contemporary author behind Stephen King, roughly during the same period.

And their positions really should have been reversed. Imagine if Crichton was even half as prolific as King, for that matter.

Maybe if King only wrote like 10 books, they'd be that much better. Maybe that was his whole problem.

>> No.18134793

>>18133277
One of the only books where I still remember lessons from it and apply them more than a decade later. Taught me that adverbs were a mistake and that 90% of dialogue tags are useless and should never be used.

>> No.18134886

>>18133277
>Adverbs is below his level

The nerve of this mole-looking mediocrity

>> No.18134887

>>18134793
>adverbs were a mistake
Why?

>> No.18134901

>>18134779
>Maybe if King only wrote like 10 books, they'd be that much better. Maybe that was his whole problem.
It's because coke helps you write, but doesn't help you write (in italics)

>> No.18134903

>>18134793
>adverbs were a mistake

Yes let's just cut language to the bone, no meat, so the masses can easily gulp down your shitty stories and sell more copies. Who cares about prose right?

>> No.18134905

>>18134887
It's great advice for beginners, useless advice for practiced writers, who probably should know better.

>> No.18134907

>>18134887
I swear to fuck that Stephen King tells up-and-coming writers to never, ever use adverbs and gives no satisfactory answer beyond, "it just doesn't work, it's just not a good thing. Never do it."

>> No.18134951

>>18134907
If up-and-coming writers listen to it like the gospel they were probably never going to write something truly interestering anyways

>> No.18134960

>>18133277
it's based
>Eula-Beulah was prone to farts—the kind that are both loud and smelly. Sometimes when she was so afflicted, she would throw me on the couch, drop her wool-skirted butt on my face, and let loose. “Pow!” she’d cry in high glee. It was like being buried in marshgas fireworks. I remember the dark, the sense that I was suffocating, and I remember laughing. Because, while what was happening was sort of horrible, it was also sort of funny.

>> No.18135024

>>18134903
>>18134907
Adverbs provide no real prose value that can't be handled elsewhere in the sentence or via adjectives instead.

>> No.18135154

>>18135024
>Adverbs doesn't add value to prose

Nigga are you for real?

>> No.18135200

>>18135154
Yep. Explain how
>"...." Name said coolly.
is better than expressing the icy tone of the remark through other context?

>> No.18135205

>>18133277
This
>>18134733
>Chuck Palahniuk is a good example of an author who has similar skills and similar flaws.
There’s an incommensurability between human types, and King’s advice will be of greater utility to the neophyte, interested in middling genre fiction, that aims to snare film adaptations
>>18134779
>Maybe if King only wrote like 10 books, they'd be that much better. Maybe that was his whole problem.
As a commercial entertainer, he repeatedly won the prize of lucrative adaptations, also serving as marketing for subsequent novels; he is an ideal model, in that sphere — the envy of late critical success bloomers like GRR Martin, whom also worked in tv script writing.

>> No.18135206

>>18135200
Bitch, Moby Dick is like 50% adverbs. Are you saying Melville should've cut out the -ly adverbs?

>> No.18135219

>>18135206
Technically yes, but he at least could paint a scene. Flowery language then and flowery language now are not equivalent.

>> No.18135223

>>18135200
I love how you vaguely suggested it should be changed by never provide the actual alternative.

>> No.18135236

>>18135219
>Flowery language then and flowery language now are not equivalent

Yes, because flowery language is dying when you cut out double or triple adjectives and all out expel adverbs from your shitty prose. What is left is something akin to a programming language for delaying information to the reader.

Prose is dying because you remove the building blocks of language. It's all done in the name of selling even more copies of shitty novels. Kys.

>> No.18135241

>>18135236
relaying*

>> No.18135249

>>18135200
>>18135219

You use everything you can the best you can. Making a strict principle about it is not an effective approach. And adverbs give motion and color to verbs, the only thing that matters is flow and speech and some words flow well in adverb form

>> No.18135287

>>18135219
Show me an example of modern day flowery prose. Something published after 2010 or so.

>> No.18135613

>>18135024
Completely wrong. Go read Joyce

>> No.18135666

>>18135249
"Follow no rule off a cliff."

>> No.18136076

>>18133714
hearts in atlantis is his peak, compared to that rest is rubbish

>> No.18136124

>>18135024
>Adverbs provide no real prose value that can't be handled elsewhere in the sentence or via adjectives instead
Prose shouldn't be treated like some sterile coding where everything should be delivered in the most economical manner possible. People who don't actually love literature don't understand how beautiful words can look on the page and how they can be beautiful for their own sake - not just in service of advancing the plot. Honestly, plotfags should be shot.

>> No.18136217

>>18136124
>plotfags should be shot

Agreed, no color to their already bleak stories.

>> No.18136257

I can’t tell you if it’s good but I do know multiple authors who have gained a bit of notoriety and success and they all like this book. That said, none of them are exactly Herman Melville and they all write for sort of poppy niche audiences. Take that for what you will.

>> No.18136259

>>18134907
I think Hemingway said something like that too.

>> No.18136369

>>18136259
It's obviously not true since the best works all use adverbs

>> No.18136398

Worst thread this month

>> No.18136435

>>18136398
Just answer this:

Adverbs. Yes or no?

>> No.18136490
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18136490

>>18136435
NOOOOO adeverbs are opression perpetuated by old white males. YOU NEED TO DECOLONIALISE YOUR MIND. Why would I care that nearly every single writer in the western canon uses adverbs? They were racist bigotted pieces of shit and I feel asleep reading Sperm Whale (which itself, as the word Sperm may suggest perpetuates patriarchy).

>> No.18136610

>>18134660
After you, my friend.

>> No.18136644

>>18136435
>never use adverbs he said smugly.

>> No.18136906

>>18135200
Well if it's something short from which context cannot be gathered then adverbs work fine
"No" she said coldly
Or how about
"No"
Which one expresses the coldness better?

>> No.18137014

>>18134338
I definitely don’t think he’ll be apart of the canon, yes, but he’ll definitely have a influence on pop culture for years due to all the movie adaptations.

It’s like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes.

>> No.18137072

It’s better then paying thousands of dollars for a Creative Writing degree.

>> No.18137219

>>18133277

Not bad. The sections about his addiction are worth reading.

>> No.18138516

>>18137219
Do drugs make you a better writer?

>> No.18139742

>>18136490
>>18136644
Where did you faggots read that i dont like adverbs?