Discussion Board Questions
1. King describes writing as a form of telepathy. What is telepathy? How does King justify his claim?Does this fit with your ideas about writing? In what ways?
2. Neil Gaiman is a very famous author.Google one of his works (if you don’t already know one). Describe the work and your impressions. Does the tone in the piece you read for today match the tone of that work? In what ways?
3.Gaimantalks about where he gets his ideas. His response is a bit sarcastic. In your opinion, why does he answer this way?
Where do you get your ideas?
The question authors fear most … Neil tackles it here.
By Neil Gaiman
(from neilgaiman.com/FAQs)
Every profession has its pitfalls. Doctors, for example, are always being asked for free medical
advice, lawyers are asked for legal information, morticians are told how interesting a profession
that must be and then people change the subject fast. And writers are asked where we get our
ideas from.
In the beginning, I used to tell people the not very funny answers, the flip ones: ‘From the Idea-
of-the-Month Club,’ I’d say, or ‘From a little ideas shop in Bognor Regis,’ ‘From a dusty old book
full of ideas in my basement,’ or even ‘From Pete Atkins.’ (The last is slightly esoteric, and may
need a little explanation. Pete Atkins is a screenwriter and novelist friend of mine, and we
decided a while ago that when asked, I would say that I got them from him, and he’d say he got
them from me. It seemed to make sense at the time.)
Then I got tired of the not very funny answers, and these days I tell people the truth:
‘I make them up,’ I tell them. ‘Out of my head.’
People don’t like this answer. I don’t know why not. They look unhappy, as if I’m trying to slip a
fast one past them. As if there’s a huge secret, and, for reasons of my own, I’m not telling them
how it’s done.
And of course I’m not. Firstly, I don’t know myself where the ideas really come from, what
makes them come, or whether one day they’ll stop. Secondly, I doubt anyone who asks really
wants a three hour lecture on the creative process. And thirdly, the ideas aren’t that important.
Really they aren’t. Everyone’s got an idea for a book, a movie, a story, a TV series.
Every published writer has had it – the people who come up to you and tell you that they’ve Got
An Idea. And boy, is it a Doozy. It’s such a Doozy that they want to Cut You In On It. The
proposal is always the same – they’ll tell you the Idea (the hard bit), you write it down and turn it
into a novel (the easy bit), the two of you can split the money fifty-fifty.
I’m reasonably gracious with these people. I tell them, truly, that I have far too many ideas for
things as it is, and far too little time. And I wish them the best of luck.
The Ideas aren’t the hard bit. They’re a small component of the whole. Creating believable people
who do more or less what you tell them to is much harder. And hardest by far is the process of
simply sitting down and putting one word after another to construct whatever it is you’re trying
to build: making it interesting, making it new.
But still, it’s the question people want to know. In my case, they also want to know if I get them
from my dreams. (Answer: no. Dream logic isn’t story logic. Transcribe a dream, and you’ll see.
Or better yet, tell someone an important dream – ‘Well, I was in this house that was also my old
school, and there was this nurse and she was really an old witch and then she went away but
there was a leaf and I couldn’t look at it and I knew if I touched it then something dreadful would
happen…’ – and watch their eyes glaze over.) And I don’t give straight answers. Until recently.
My daughter Holly, who is seven years of age, persuaded me to come in to give a talk to her
class. Her teacher was really enthusiastic (‘The children have all been making their own books
recently, so perhaps you could come along and tell them about being a professional writer. And
lots of little stories. They like the stories.’) and in I came.
They sat on the floor, I had a chair, fifty seven-year-old-eyes gazed up at me. ‘When I was your
age, people told me not to make things up,’ I told them. ‘These days, they give me money for it.’
For twenty minutes I talked, then they asked questions.
And eventually one of them asked it.
‘Where do you get your ideas?’
And I realized I owed them an answer. They weren’t old enough to know any better. And it’s a
perfectly reasonable question, if you aren’t asked it weekly.
This is what I told them:
You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time.
The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.
You get ideas when you ask yourself simple questions. The most important of the questions is
just, What if…?
(What if you woke up with wings? What if your sister turned into a mouse? What if you all
found out that your teacher was planning to eat one of you at the end of term – but you didn’t
know who?)
Another important question is, If only…
(If only real life was like it is in Hollywood musicals. If only I could shrink myself small as a
button. If only a ghost would do my homework.)
And then there are the others: I wonder… (‘I wonder what she does when she’s alone…’) and If
This Goes On… (‘If this goes on telephones are going to start talking to each other, and cut out
the middleman…’) and Wouldn’t it be interesting if… (‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if the world used
to be ruled by cats?’)…
Those questions, and others like them, and the questions they, in their turn, pose (‘Well, if cats
used to rule the world, why don’t they any more? And how do they feel about that?’) are one of
the places ideas come from.
An idea doesn’t have to be a plot notion, just a place to begin creating. Plots often generate
themselves when one begins to ask oneself questions about whatever the starting point is.
Sometimes an idea is a person (‘There’s a boy who wants to know about magic’). Sometimes it’s a
place (‘There’s a castle at the end of time, which is the only place there is…’). Sometimes it’s an
image (‘A woman, sifting in a dark room filled with empty faces.’)
Often ideas come from two things coming together that haven’t come together before. (‘If a
person bitten by a werewolf turns into a wolf what would happen if a goldfish was bitten by a
werewolf? What would happen if a chair was bitten by a werewolf?’)
All fiction is a process of imagining: whatever you write, in whatever genre or medium, your
task is to make things up convincingly and interestingly and new.
And when you’ve an idea – which is, after all, merely something to hold on to as you begin –
what then?
Well, then you write. You put one word after another until it’s finished – whatever it is.
Sometimes it won’t work, or not in the way you first imagined. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all.
Sometimes you throw it out and start again.
I remember, some years ago, coming up with a perfect idea for a Sandman story. It was about a
succubus who gave writers and artists and songwriters ideas in exchange for some of their lives.
I called it Sex and Violets.
It seemed a straightforward story, and it was only when I came to write it I discovered it was like
trying to hold fine sand: every time I thought I’d got hold of it, it would trickle through my
fingers and vanish.
I wrote at the time:
I’ve started this story twice, now, and got about half-way through it each time, only to watch it
die on the screen.
Sandman is, occasionally, a horror comic. But nothing I’ve written for it has ever gotten under
my skin like this story I’m now going to have to wind up abandoning (with the deadline already a
thing of the past). Probably because it cuts so close to home. It’s the ideas – and the ability to put
them down on paper, and turn them into stories – that make me a writer. That mean I don’t have
to get up early in the morning and sit on a train with people I don’t know, going to a job I
despise.
My idea of hell is a blank sheet of paper. Or a blank screen. And me, staring at it, unable to think
of a single thing worth saying, a single character that people could believe in, a single story that
hasn’t been told before.
Staring at a blank sheet of paper.
Forever.
I wrote my way out of it, though. I got desperate (that’s another flip and true answer I give to the
where-do-you-get-your-ideas question. ‘Desperation.’ It’s up there with ‘Boredom’ and
‘Deadlines’. All these answers are true to a point.) and took my own terror, and the core idea, and
crafted a story called Calliope, which explains, I think pretty definitively, where writers get their
ideas from. It’s in a book called DREAM COUNTRY. You can read it if you like. And,
somewhere in the writing of that story, I stopped being scared of the ideas going away.
Where do I get my ideas from?
I make them up.
Out of my head. lUIlI!’ 10 n lull stop, and one nanosccond l.ucr ,lIl1l’pl.lIlllI’~ 11l11II”gill:irY cops
exactly why I had to do what I did, or insisting th.u I did 111,1III I.H.I do it.
1 happened to mention this to a hypnotist I saw 1II;’IlY years ago, and he I’
looked at me very nicely. At first I thought he was feeling around on the floor
for the silent alarm button, but then be gave me the following exercise, which
I still use to this day.
Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up. Then 14
isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up
by the tail and drop it into a mason jar. Then isolate another voice, pick it up
by the tail, drop it in the jar. And so on. Drop in any high-maintenance paren-
tal units, drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is
whining in your bead. Then put the lid on, and watch all these mouse people
clawing at the glass, jabbering away, trying to make you feel like shit because
you won’t do what they want-won’t give them more money, won’t be more
successful, won’t see them more often. Then imagine that there is a volume-
control button on the bottle. Turn it all the way up for a minute, and listen to
the stream of angry, neglected, guilt-mongering voices. Then turn it all the way
down and watch the frantic mice lunge at the glass, trying to get to you. Leave
it down, and get back to your shitty first draft.
A writer friend of mine suggests opening the jar and shooting them all in the H
head. But I think he’s a little angry, and I’m sure nothing like this would ever
occur to you.
What Writing 1;1
STEPHEN KING
King,Stephen.”WhatWritingIs.”On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. NewYork:Poc~etBooks
2000.95-99. Print. ‘
Telepathy, of course. It’s amusing when you stop to think about it f1 h – or years 1peo~ e ave argued ab?ut ~hether. or not such a thing exists, folks like
.1. B. Rhine have busted their brains trying to create a valid testing pro. I . d 11 h . . cess to
ISO ate It, an ate tune It’s been right there, lying out in the ope lik M
Poe’s Purloined Letter. All the arts depend upon telepathy to some de I e b r.
I b li h . . ff gree, ute I~ve t at wnting 0 ers the purest distillation. Perhaps I’m prejudiced, but
even If I am we may as well stick with writing, since it’s what we came he t
think and talk about. re 0
My name is Stephen King. I’m writing the first draft of this part at my desk 2
(the o~e under the ~ave) on a snowy morning in December of 1997. There
are thmgs on my mind. Some are worries (bad eyes Christmas shop .
even started, wife under the weather ‘ pmg not
with a virus), some are good things r:-
(our younger son made a surprise visit I Books are a uniquely portable
home from college, I got to play Vince magic.
Taylor’S “Brand New Cadillac” with
The Wallflowers at a concert), but right
now all that stuff is up top. I’m in another place, a basement place whe th
I f b . h I’ h re ereare ots o: ng t, ig ts and clear images. This is a place I’ve built for myself
over the y.ea~s.It s a far-seelll~ place. I know it’s a little strange, a little bit of
a contradiction, that a far-seeing place should also be a basement I bh ‘ h .. . h U p.ace, utt at s ow It ISWit me. you construct your own far-seeing place y . h. . , oumlg t
put It ill a treetop or on the roof of the World Trade Center or on the edge of
the Grand Canyon. That’s your little red wagon, as Robert McCam
. f hi I mon says
111 one o. is nove s.
This book is scheduled to be published in the late sum-
mer or early fall of 2000. If that’s how things work out,
then you are somewhere downstream on the timeline from
me … but you’re quite likely in your own far-seeing place,
the one where you go to receive telepathic messages. Not
that you have to be there; books are a uniquely portable
magic. I usually Listento one in the car (always unabridged; I
think abridged audio-books are the pits), and carry another
wherever I go. You just never know when you’ll want an
_j
STEPHE~ ..KJNG
rJj
30~
3
I IUt I 1I’lI’lt” J
escape hatch: mile-long lines at tollbooth plazas, the fifteen minutes you h.avc
to spend in the hall of some boring college building ,:aitil.’~ for your advisor
(who’s got some yank-off in there threatening to commit sUICIdebec~u~ehelshe
is flunking Custom Kurrnfurling 101) to come out so you can g~t his Signature
on a drop-card, airport boarding lounges, laundromats on ral~y afte~noons,
and the absolute worst, which is the doctor’s office when the guy IS runrung late
and you have to wait half an hour in order to have something sensitive mauled.
At such times I find a book vital. If I have to spend time 10 purgatory before
going to one place or the other, I guess I’ll be all right as long as there’s a l~nd-
ing library (if there is it’s probably stocked with nothing but novels by Danielle
Steel and Chicken Soup books, ha-ha, joke’s on you, Steve).
So I read where I can but I have a favorite place and probably you do,, . . . ,
too–a place where the light is good and the vibe IS usually strong. For me It s
the blue chair in my study. For you it might be the couch on the sunporch, the
rocker in the kitchen, or maybe it’s propped up in your bed-reading in bed
can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page
and aren’t prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets. .
So let’s assume that you’re in your favorite receiving place just as I am In
the place where I do my best transmitting. We’ll have to perform our mentalist
routine not just over distance but over time as well, yet that presents no real
problem; if we can still read Dickens, Shakespeare, and (with the help of a
footnote or two) Herodotus, I think we can manage the gap between 1997 and
2000. And here we go-actual telepathy in action. You’ll notice I have nothing
up my sleeves and that my lips never move. Neither, m?s~ likely, do yours.
Look-here’s a table covered with a red cloth. On It IS a cage the size of a ,.
small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink
rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly
munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8.
Do we see the same thing? We’d have to get together and compare notes to
make absolutely sure, but I think we do. There will be necessary var~ations, or
course: some receivers will see a cloth which is turkey red, some WIll see om’
that’s scarlet, while others may see still other shades. (To colorblind receivers,
the red tablecloth is the dark gray of cigar ashes.) Some may see scalloped
edges, some may see straight ones. Decorative souls may add a little lace, and
welcome-my tablecloth is your tablecloth, knock yourself out. .,.
Likewise the matter of the cage leaves quite a lot of room for individual
interpretati~n. For one thing, it is described in terms of rough. co~parjs~lI.
which is useful only if you and I see the world and measure the things in rt WHit
similar eyes. It’s easy to become careless when making rough comparisons.
but the alternative is a prissy attention to detail that takes all the fun out 01
writing. What am I going to say, “on the table is a cage three feet, six inches ill
length, two feet in width, and fourteen inches high”? That’s not prose, th:l.l
an instruction manual. The paragraph also doesn’t tell us what sort of rnatcrinl
the cage is made of-wire mesh? steel rods? glass?-hllt docs il really rnaue t
We all understand the cage is a see-through I1ICdiIlIH; Iwyolld thnt, we don’t
care. The most interesting thing here isn’t ~’VI’II 1111′ 1,111111 1I11111dlll11 rnhhi: III
STEPHEN KING I WhaL Writing Is 3071
9
I.hecage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not nineteen-point-
five. It’s an eight. This is what we’re looking at, and we all see it. I didn’t tell
you. You didn’t ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours.
We’re not even in the same year together, let alone the same room … except we
are together. We’re close.
We’re having a meeting of the minds.
I sent you a table with a red doth on it, a cage, a rabbit, and the number 10
eight in blue ink. You got them all, especially that blue eight. We’ve engaged in
an act of telepathy. No mythy-mountain shit, real telepathy. I’m not going to
belabor the point, but before we go any further you have to understand that
I’m not trying to be cute; there is a point to be made.
f
. lness can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hope- 11
u ness, or even despair-the sense that you can never completely put on the
page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists
clenched and your eyes harrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You
can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to
change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must
not come lightly to the blank page.
I’m not as~~ng you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I’m not asking 12
you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you
have one). This isn’t a popularity contest, it’s not the moral Olympics, and it’s
not church. But it’s writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner.
If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time
for you to close the book and do something else.
Wash the car, maybe. 13
