Thanks for your thoughts. I kind of thought you might pop up to comment I haven’t written about story structure at all, because you certainly have the best content on the web in that regard. No doubt, I’d just make a hash of it if I tried!

And yes, I think the debate will continue, indefinitely. Thanks again!

Why? Because King does the outlining in his head, AS HE WRITES his stories. Don’t think for a moment that he doesn’t have a solid plan in his brain before he begins writing. If you can do that — or worse, if in your effort to be like Steve you start a story with no clue where to take it — or if you understand the principles of story structure as well as he does, and you’re a freaking genius prodigy like he is, then sure, “pantsing” works. Just outline as you go.

But that’s not pantsing at all. Believe me, King isn’t experimenting with ideas, going down blind alleys, starting over and over again — which is precisely what pretty much all other pantsers sign up for. His advice in his book, “On Writing” — in effect, to just sit down and start writing, see what happens — is perhaps the most irresponsible and naive piece of writing mentoring to ever hit print.

He should stick to writing books and leave the writing instruction side of things to others.

That oughtta keep the debate heated up, ya think?
.-= Read Larry´s last article ..What We Can Learn from Episodic Television =-.

Thank you! Your feedback is really heartening–makes me feel like this is all worth the effort.

You make a great point about distinguishing between self-publishing and vanity publishing, so thank you for bringing it to my attention. It’s a subject I should be researching more because it’s now becoming so commonplace.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these 3 topics, as well. Lovely to hear from someone with as much writing and publishing experience as you!

I’m with you 100% on grammar. Misused apostrophes and pronoun non-agreement are my bigger peeves.

Snow is cold and white. Save adjectives for descriptions showing readers what they don’t already know.

Outlines are mandatory for a proposal (fiction or non-) to an editor/agent. There’s no reason not to begin with one. Stephen King may not formally outline, but does jot notes as an idea is developing. And none of the rest of us is Stephen King.

Self-publishing is printing, not publishing. That’s fine for those who choose to, but too many believe self-publishers’ pitches and fail to research the veritable impossibility of selling more than a handful of copies.

Vanity press and self-publishing are not synonymous. The former route taken by major, traditional publishers is the objection. For writers to pay for their books’ production, (sans editing, other than cursory attempts) then split all royalties on all sales with that vanity press is tantamount to a scam. For writers’ rejected submissions to be steered to a vanity press division is worse.

Please do distinguish between self-pub and vanity. It’s doubtful the writers’ organizations who have disassociated themselves from publishers with vanity press divisions would have done so, had those publishers chosen the self-publish route.

Writing Sideways is the bomb. You type from experience and smarts. The as-yet-unpublished would be well-served incorporating the topics in their own work, rather than mining for exceptions elsewhere.

So there.

I agree with your thoughts on grammar. Sometimes it works, sometimes you need to bend the rules.

Your numbers on self-publishing are thought-provoking, and you’re right–traditional publishing is highly competitive. Writers must choose for themselves whether they plan to beat the staggering odds, or self-publish and try to market it themselves.