Stephen King: Toolbox

This morning we will read and discuss Stephen King's third section of his autobiographical novel On Writing. This is the part he talks about how to be a better writer. We'll read and stop occasionally to write a few prompts/exercises in our journals.


Sometime during second period we will stop reading/writing and begin to watch Misery, one of Stephen King's favorite novels that he wrote. He mentions Misery in the first section of his memoir. Details about the film are here:


Misery (1990) was directed by Rob Reiner. William Goldman (the author who wrote The Princess Bride) wrote the screenplay based on Stephen King's novel.


Paul Sheldon (the protagonist) is played by James Caan.
Annie Wilkes (the antagonist) is played by Kathy Bates.
More cast/crew information about the film can be found at IMDB.com at this link.


WRITING EXERCISES:

• Write a "what if..." speculative idea as a basis for a short story you might write.
• Write a single paragraph in which you describe an object, room (place), or person.
• Write a long, long sentence. Try to write the longest complete sentence (not a run-on) in our class. Count how many words your sentence is. A run-on has two or more independent clauses (often with two or more subjects and two or more predicates and a lot of commas or semi-colons)
• Ex. It is nearly half past five we cannot reach town before dark and eat at that restaurant with Annie and Paul because there is a snow storm and we might run off the road and die and that would be a bad thing to happen since its my birthday today.
•  Rewrite your paragraph using only short SUBJECT + PREDICATE sentences. Remove conjunctions, for example. How does that change your style?

HOMEWORK: Complete "Toolbox" if you did not complete it in class.