You Should Read This: An Appreciation of Maya Angelou

When I taught at Hopkins, the students used to defiantly bring up King as an example of what they liked to read. It always surprised them when I said I liked him too. It feels like I’ve been reading Stephen King all my life. At least, for a very long time. He’s produced a lot of wonderful books, including one of my favorites, The Stand. In this book you get to see beneath the covers on a lot of those books.

What: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King is divided into two parts. The first is an autobiographical look at his writing over the years. It is unflinching and honest and well worth the read. The second is stuff about writing. It is also unflinching and honest and well worth the read.

Who: If you are a writer who buys writing books, it maybe impossible for you not to know about this book already. If you’re a writer who doesn’t read books about writing — this one’s worth picking up.

Why: Read this to become a better writer, or just to understand the craft better. King uses the metaphor of the writer’s toolbox, which is a very useful one.

I want to suggest that to write to your best abilities, it behooves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so you can carry it with you. Then, instead of looking at a hard job and getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the correct tool and get immediately to work.

What goes in your toolbox? Vocabulary and punctuation. Point of view. Literary Devices. Foreshadowing. You get the picture.

When: Read this when you’re feeling a bit starved for the muse and want to be reminded that writing is a matter of work, not divine inspiration.

Where and how: Read it with pen in hand, ready to underline and make notes that apply to your own writing. Read it with King’s books close by, so you can reach for them and see his principles played out in their pages.

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.

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If you want to explore the deepest roots of fantasy and science fiction, here’s a text that’s been obscured by time: The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, which is one of the first portal stories, in which a protagonist ends up in a world much unlike their own, as well as a Utopian novel. Written in 1666, it features a heroine who enters another realm, the Blazing World of the title, through an entrance located at the North Pole. There, she ends up becoming empress of a harmonious and progressive as well as wealthy kingdom.

Her kingdom is populated by races of talking animals: fox-people, bear-people, bird-people, etc. Eventually she decides to invade her former world, marshaling her forces and marching back to her homeland, using technology from the Blazing World in its defense.

Cavendish, who was the Duchess of Newcastle, evens writes herself into the text:

Hereupon a Councel was called, and the business debated; but there were so many cross and different Opinions, that they could not suddenly resolve what answer to send the Empress; at which she grew angry, insomuch that she resolved to return into her Blazing- World, without giving any assistance to her Countrymen: but the Duchess of Newcastle intreated her Majesty to abate her passion; for, said she, Great Councels are most commonly slow, because many men have many several Opinions: besides, every Councellor striving to be the wisest, makes long speeches, and raise many doubts, which cause retardments. If I had long-speeched Councellors, replied the Empress, I would hang them, by reason they give more Words, then Advice. The Duchess answered, That her Majesty should not be angry, but consider the differences of that and her Blazing-World; for, said she, they are not both alike; but there are grosser and duller understandings in this, than in the Blazing-World.

I found the book through Dale Spender’s excellent Mothers of the Novel, and one reason to read Cavendish is so she doesn’t get lost. So many of the writers Spender touches upon have been obscured, while their male peers remain, and give students the impression that only men were writing. Cavendish was a notable and prolific author of her time as well as an English aristocrat who spent time at the French court. Her life is well worth investigation, full of trials and tribulations as well as triumphs.

Other speculative fiction writers have referenced this book: Alan Moore in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and China Mieville in Un Lun Dun. You can find the book online in its entirety here.

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