“The situation comes first. The characters—always flat and unfeatured, to begin with—come next. Once these things are fixed in my mind, I begin to narrate.”

—Stephen King
ON WRITING: A MEMOIR ON THE CRAFT

“I lean more heavily on intuition, and have been able to do that because my books tend to be based on situation rather than story.”

Stephen King
ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT

“Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.”

Stephen King, ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT

“A strong enough situation renders the whole question of plot moot, which is fine with me. The most interesting situations can usually be expressed as a What-if question.”

Stephen King, ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT

“(…) stories are found things, like fossils in the ground.”

Stephen King, ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT

“It’s best that I be as clear about this as I can—I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course).”

Stephen King, ON WRITING

The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.