10 Most Important Features Of Stephen King's Writing

Stephen King has shared great advice on writing description. If there’s too much, many readers will become bored as they read paragraphs devoted to scenery that, let’s face it, isn’t there. In his words, the writer that causes boredom, "grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling." If there is too little description, however, the reader can’t participate in the world – it just won’t capture them.

Stephen King has refined this aspect of his writing into a particular skill. He clearly loves language – saying in an online interview that “sometimes there’s the kind of language you feel like you can just eat with a spoon,” but he also knows not to overly focus on it at the expense of characterisation and storytelling.

Focusing on the need for and power of description, King has on several occasions made it clear that you must be able to describe if you want to be a writer. If you can’t describe things, you’re not going to succeed. It’s a challenge that keeps many a writer going. When we say, “Oh it was so great, I just can’t describe it,” the writer needs to step up and try to do so.

Here’s one example from Paul Sheldon’s initial encounter with Annie Wilkes from Misery, purely to show the power of the language and the descriptive skill (which certainly doesn’t take away from the action):

“The lips clamped down again. The breath flew down his throat again. Blew down it like the dank suck of wind which follows a fast subway train, pulling sheets of newspaper and candy-wrappers after it, and the lips were withdrawn, and he thought For Christ’s sake don’t let any of it through your nose but he couldn’t help it and oh that stink, that stink, that f***ing STINK.”