Tag: Stephen King

Murder your darlings

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

-Stephen King, On Writing

Writers love to write. Well, most of the time that is. Actually, for me quite often it’s as painful as opening a vein. But even harder is cutting out something that you’ve written and loved. Maybe in the light of day it’s not as brilliant as you thought it was in the wee hours of the morning. Or maybe it just doesn’t fit in the story any more.

I now have a folder on my computer with a bunch of chapters that have been completely cut from the current draft of Thief of Destiny. It’s sad because there are some great scenes and characters in those chapters, but the truth is they no longer fit with my new plot line. And since the plot is working out much better than before, all I can do is send them to the “old chapters” folder and hope that maybe they’ll see the light of day in a future book or a novella. Somewhere I have a file called “darlings” with deleted paragraphs and scenes from book 1. It’s tempting to post some deleted scenes or make a “director’s cut” version, but on the other hand, things are generally cut for a good reason. Chopping down my beloved prologue from Thief of Hope was so hard at the time; now I can barely remember the original version because the changes worked so much better.

So the writing proceeds. Chapters are cut and new words are added. The book is coming along. I keep thinking of the words of a wise fish as inspiration: “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”

Thoughts on the Dark Tower series

Warning, there be spoilers ahead!

It’s been about a year since I finished reading Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and I wanted to finally share a few thoughts on it. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it, although it is a long series (7 books), and most of the books are rather lengthy. But worth it. And you haven’t read it and plan to, avoid this post so you won’t read any spoilers. I was really careful not to read anything until I was done with the series because I hate spoilers.

I actually came to the Dark Tower series differently than most people. I first read the graphic novels about Roland as a young man, and I saw his friendship with Alain and Cuthbert and his love for Susan. While some people found The Gunslinger (book 1) a bit slow, I was riveted because I was already invested in Roland’s world and couldn’t wait to find out what else had happened since I’d last seen him as a teenager mourning the tragic loss of Susan. (Side note, I don’t think I ever finished all of the graphic novels but I would like to someday.)

There have been lots of books and articles that analyze the Dark Tower. I’ll be brief and list a few things I loved about the series:

1. The world. Worlds within worlds, some like ours and some not. Pretty amazing and mind-boggling stuff. I read the books almost one after the other with a couple breaks in between, so by the end I felt like walking around saying “thankee sai” because I was so caught up in the world Stephen King had created.

2. The characters. Roland especially. What’s not to love about Roland? He has an old world charm and he’s the kind of guy you don’t want to mess with. And yet you also want to take him and shake some sense into him because the damn tower is going to be the death of him and all his friends. And he doesn’t care. It’s his goal and he’s sticking to it. My next favorite character was Oy, because I have a soft spot for animals. His death was the one I feared the most.

3. The action sequences. Wolves of the Calla and The Waste Lands were my favorites in the series. Blaine the Mono and the city of Lud. Facing down the Wolves in Calla Bryn Sturgis. Pure gunslinger style.

4. The ending. Okay, I think a lot of people may disagree with me. I didn’t have to wait years and years to finish the series as people did who were reading them as King wrote them, and I’m not sure if I’d feel differently if that were the case.  *SPOILERS* I really liked the idea of Roland finally getting to the top of the tower and… ending up back at the beginning. It worked perfectly for me. The reason is that as much as I love Roland as a character, he was an asshole much of the time. He cared more about the tower than anything or anyone else and he would have sacrificed all of the others in a heartbeat to get there. To me the idea that he didn’t get it right and would have to do it again–and keep doing it again–was poetic justice. Ka, if you will. He needed to learn from his mistakes and do things differently. Having Cuthbert’s horn gave me some hope as a reader that he might have a chance to succeed in his next try. In my mind I was expecting Roland to die when he entered the tower and find some peace, but I also felt like he didn’t really deserve that yet. So the ending worked for me.

Now for the one thing that really bothered me. My main frustration with the final book was with the villains. There was so much build up over Mordred, especially in Song of Susannah, and I was expecting something big. I mean, you have King Arthur references galore and Mordred is Roland’s son. I’m thinking of the legend of Arthur and Mordred killing each other on the battlefield and wondering how that might have some sort of reference here.  And I have to admit, as much as I hated the spider (yes, Mordred is half spider and you know how much I love spiders–NOT), there were a few scenes where I had a bit of sympathy for Mordred the starving boy, until I reminded myself he was also a spider that liked eating eyeballs. I thought maybe there would be a big confrontation between Roland and Mordred and he’d be conflicted about killing his son, I don’t know, something. But dying of food poisoning? No last words between Roland and Mordred? What a waste! And I know there’s more of the Man in Black in King’s other books, which I haven’t read, but his ending also seemed anticlimactic. And ditto with the Crimson King. As soon as we learned what the Artist could do with his erasers, I know what was going to happen to the Crimson King. He posed little threat to Roland with his sneetches, which Roland could easily shoot down. Again, lots of build up but little return. I don’t know if Stephen King was trying to say something profound here, but for me it was just annoying.

Still, on the whole, thumbs up for the Dark Tower series. If you haven’t read it, go get the books and stretch out in a comfy chair and be prepared for the ride of your life.

Calling up the muse

You know how when you get lost in a book and it starts to take over your world? I’ve been working my way through Stephen King’s Dark Tower series (now on book 4) and I’m definitely having that feeling. I admit, I have a bit of a fantasy crush on Roland Deschain. Maybe it’s because my introduction to the series was through the graphic novel The Gunslinger Born with its gorgeous artwork and a young, attractive Roland. In the series he’s older, a bit more grizzled, a survivor who is single minded in his goal of finding the Dark Tower. He’s a badass with an old world, courtly charm.

Of course, instead of spending my precious free time reading the Dark Tower series, I really should be writing. But I seem to have lost my muse. Maybe I need some of Roland’s single mindedness so I can finish writing book 2? I really don’t want to view GRR Martin as a role model in how long it takes to put out another book.

So I’m trying to picture Roland as a muse.

“You there. You have forgotten the face of your father.”

“Um, no. I just want to kickstart my writing. Can you help with that?”

He stares at me with those weathered blue eyes. “How do you write, with your hand or your heart?”

Ah yes. “See, that’s the problem. I know it’s in my heart, but how do I find it again?”

“You don’t find it. You do it.” He shakes his head in disgust. “It’s in your heart or it’s not. If you don’t know that, you don’t deserve the title gunslinger.”

“But I’m not a gunslinger. I’m trying to be an author.”

“Trying? Do or do not. There is no try.”

Wait a minute. “That sounds an awful lot like Yoda.”

“If I’m your muse would you not expect Star Wars to slip in somewhere?”

“Yes, I guess you’re right. But how–”

“There is no how. Write from your mind and your heart. That is how you will remember the face of your father. Go. Do it. Now.”

“Thankee sai. I’m off to write.”

He stares at me again. “And this facebook? And twitter? What of those distractions?”

“Yes yes, signing off.”

“And email. And the book. Put it down. For a time. We will wait. The Tower will wait. Your characters are more impatient. They need you.”

He’s right about that. And so I am off to write and lead my characters on their way to their own version of the Dark Tower.