This was such a good book and very cleverly structured. It’s the first time I’ve read a Stephen King book. He’s a really engaging writer and it feels like he’s really talking to you while reading. In fact, he comments on the relationship between author and reader in the book.

It’s structured in unequal thirds where the first third is an autobiography, to set King’s writing into the context of his background and how he became a successful writer. The middle third is more about the mechanics of good writing with some great advice including a writing exercise. Just a note – I highly recommend trying the writing exercise because it’s fun and absolutely fascinating when characters that you are writing about come alive and just take the story on a journey that’s revealed as you write. The final third of the book is about King’s near-death accident and his subsequent recovery while writing this book 20 years ago.

I made several notes while reading because several points which King made really impacted me. I think that these would be my takeaways from the book.

Takeaway 1 – Where King is telling about the time he got in trouble for writing and selling his first “book” at school. He says:

“I was ashamed. I have spent a good many years since – too many, I think – being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent…in my heart I stayed ashamed. I kept hearing Miss Hisler [his teacher] asking why I wanted to waste my talent, why I wanted to waste my time and why I wanted to write junk.”

I think this impacted me so much because although Stephen King is known for writing horror stories he’s obviously a talented writer and it seems almost as if his teacher’s criticism could have potentially derailed him. Instead, I instinctively feel that she should have been celebrating and encouraging his talent for writing instead of making him feel guilty for writing in a genre that didn’t align with her taste.

As a teacher myself, I sincerely hope that I will never make this mistake and that I will always encourage any budding authors in my classroom. In fact, I know that over the past three years I have spotted some incredible talent, and encouraged those individuals in my feedback on their writing, and seen their confidence rise as a result.

Takeaway 2 – King shares something which I found beautifully profound yet simple.

“‘When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story’…It was pure revelation…’Why,’ I wondered, ‘didn’t English teachers ever do this?’”

I often use far too many words and need to learn to edit myself so when I read this I was really encouraged by it and I too wonder why English teachers never do this. Maybe I should, although to be fair I’m usually trying to get students to write more rather than less. Maybe what I should be doing both as a writer and as a teacher is encouraging the use of more precise language.

Takeaway 3 – This next bit is obvious but I think that I will use it to simplify my explanations to my students about what a narrative story is and what it’s comprised of.

“…stories and novels consist of three parts: narration which moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.”

Finally, if it’s not already clear, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys writing, reading autobiographies or for anyone interested in Stephen King’s writing tips and tricks. He is very affirming and encouraging and states how “it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one”.

I am a massive fan of the author, David Didau, and found his simple, direct style really easy to connect with.

I would highly recommend this book to all newly qualified/trainee teachers. Didau gives some great tips to really help our learners learn and from that perspective, it’s a very empowering book because of course, that’s our ultimate goal as teachers isn’t it.

I read the book cover-to-cover but you could just as easily dip into different sections as needed.

I’ve already started using some of the simple but great ideas in his book and will use more as the academic year progresses.

I’m hoping that all of my learners will benefit from this.

My specific takeways were the benefits of:

Takeaway 1 – Slow writing and drafting – if I use the idea that each student is just learning and drafting their work to begin with it may have the effect of lowering the stakes a little and helping learners not to fear committing their thoughts to the page.

Takeaway 2 – Being more explicit and clear in my instructions to students. There are so many things about the English language that I take for granted but which may not be obvious to my learners unless I teach them explicitly.