Assigned Reading: Stephen King's The Dark Tower Series: The Gunslinger

So you've decided you want to try your hand at writing a book? Great! We each have an individual perspective on the world and expressing it goes a long way towards fulfillment. Now since you have decided you want to write the best you possibly can, you know you have to read the masters. Stephen King is undoubtedly the master not only of the horror genre, but also of the well written, compelling story. His fantasy series the Dark Tower is truly a masterpiece, and one people are STILL talking about even though the last book was released nearly a decade ago now.

Now when I say you need to read The Gunslinger, I am not talking about the newer, expanded version of the book released in 2003.Though that book is very good and if it's the only one you read, it will work for my purposes here, but the man went back and FIXED the original with the skill he had acquired over the previous thirty years of writing.  I am talking about tracking down a copy of the original. I am not as great a writer as Mr. King. But this book, one of his very first books written, gave me the most insight into the development of an amateur writer into the professional. The book as originally written gets better with each passing sentence. And I can see a pattern in this books that holds true in my own.

Clearly Mr. King was gripped by this story, it has a fevered, passionate beginning, a small lull of uncertainty as the story moves forward, and then WHAM! the man figured out how to write. Every word suddenly became more meaningful, each sentence more compelling, each character better drawn. My own writing took such a leap somewhere in the middle of my third novel. I don't know how many novels Mr. King had completed by the time he finished The Gunslinger, but if you write, you have to read this book. If you have read it already, pick it up and read it again, it's a book worth taking apart.

I don't pretend to have the ability to write as well as Mr. King, but this book gave me hope. If my passion was strong enough, if my ideas were clear enough, if the world I imagined was real to me, then I could convey these things to my audience, even if the only audience I ever have is my now 11 year old daughter. Writing is an apprenticeship, a long, lonely one. Words are whispered to us by our characters and our job is to channel them onto the page without screwing it up. A novelist should grow with each word written. Amen.