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Najeal Young

Dr. Linda Carroll

English 3310

May 30th, 2017

The King's Essay: A Helpful Guide to Finding Your "Writer's Voice"

In my essay, I chose to discuss the pathos, ethos, and logos within Stephen King's

Memoir to show how he formed his own writer's voice with these three rhetorical strategies

within his writing. My main focus is to explain to freshmen students how these strategies not

only strengthen their writing but it also helps them develop their own distinct writing voice that

will appeal to a certain audience. My audience for this paper are freshmen students and I will go

into great detail what pathos, ethos, and logos are as well as give them two examples for each

from Stephen King's memoir. I'm very excited yet anxious to write this piece simply because I

enjoy sharing my views with others, yet I tend to be my biggest critic considering that I find

myself obsessing over the perfection of my writing. Reading Stephen King's memoir was more

interesting and enjoyable than I expected, yet I was flabbergasted by the amount of pages we had

to read in so little time and was discouraged because I had convinced myself that I wouldn't be

able to finish in time. Surprisingly though, I maneuvered through the reading at such a quick

pace and was able to finish the book on schedule. As far as my writing goes, I tend to catch

writer's block fairly quickly to the point where I have to stare at a blank page for hours on end

before I can actually become satisfied with my thought processes. Once I finally do figure out

exactly how I want my paper to go, my writing flows to the point where I can finish a paper

within hours. For this paper, it was hard trying to pinpoint exactly how I wanted my writing to go
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simply because I want to give enough details and a thorough explanation of my topic. I do

believe that my paper will reach every requirement and will be more than satisfactory.

Stephen King's book On Writing is his memoir/how-to that gives the audience an insight

on his life and how certain aspects of his life has shaped his writing techniques. In his book,

King refers to events in his childhood and young adulthood that not only shaped how he is as a

person but how it also had a great influence on his writing. He touched upon being raised by a

single mother, having to move constantly, missing a years worth of school due to ear and throat

problems, how his passions for writing became more prominent in high school as he was a writer

for his school's newspaper, how he helped his brother publish a family newspaper, and actually

got into trouble for selling is own work. After college he wrote about how he became a high

school English teacher in order to provide for his growing family, yet his passion has always

been writing. He began writing a piece on a young girl that had telepathic powers, yet discarded

the piece because he felt he didnt know enough to make the piece great. Yet, his wife influenced

him to keep writing the piece, which turn out to be one of his best selling novels Carrie. After

this he focused his time on his writing and developed an addiction to alcohol and cocaine,

believing that it made his writing better. Yet again his wife influenced him to get his life together

and to find other ways to make his writing better.

Further into his memoir, King began to give his advice on what makes a better writer. He

explained what a "writer's toolbox" was and how a writer should focus more on grammar instead

of vocabulary. He explained how a writer can use complex or simple vocabulary in his/her
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writing, yet they must focus more on grammar in order to avoid any common mistakes. He also

went into detail on his own process when he writes novels. He explained how one should write

the complete first draft of a novel at once and that it should take no more than three months to

write it. He went on to say that once the novel is done to keep it in a drawer for no more than six

weeks in order to distance yourself from the novel. Afterwards he suggested reading the novel

throughout and make the appropriate changes and edits to pull the whole piece together. He then

suggests to give the writing to multiple friends in order to get their perspective on the final draft

before giving the writing to a publisher.

King used the three rhetorical strategies (pathos, ethos, and logos) all throughout his

memoir. The strategy pathos is where a writer uses the quality of an experience in order to evoke

emotions such as pity, sympathy and sorrow. This strategy can be used through words and/or

pictures. The first section of King's memoir used a vast amount of pathos as he used his

childhood to evoke the emotions of his audience in order to show those events influenced his

writing. Near the beginning of his memoir, from chapters five to eight, Stephen King wrote about

how he missed a year of school due to ear and throat complications. He explained the amount of

pain he went through due to measles and complications with his tonsils. Yet, he was able find

comfort by reading comic books and rewriting them while also adding his own details to the

stories. "Most of that year I spent either in bed or housebound. I read my way through

approximately six tons of comic books...At some point I began to write my own stories.

Imitation preceded creation; I would copy Combat Casey comics word for word in my Blue

Horse tablet, sometimes adding my own descriptions where they seemed appropriate... (pg. 27)."

He explained how he showed his mother his work and how she became disappointed when he

told her that his writing was not his original work. She went on to encourage him to write his
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own story, saying "Those Combat Casey funny books are just junkhes always knocking

someones teeth out. I bet you could do better. Write one of your own (pg. 28). From there on

out, he wrote his own stories.

Another example of pathos in King's writing was when he was hit by a car, almost

costing him his life. He went into great detail of what he went through that day when Bryan

Smith hit him with his car. His injuries were so severe that it was believed that he wouldnt

survive. He suffered from multiple injuries: a broken leg in nine places, an acetabular fracture in

his right hip along with an open femoral intertrochanteric fracture in the same area, a spinal

injury, four broken ribs, a head laceration, and a broken pelvic. He explained his struggles

through physical therapy as well as how he lost his desires to write. "I didnt want to go back to

work. I was in a lot of pain, unable to bend my right knee, and restricted to a walker. I couldnt

imagine sitting behind a desk for long, even in my wheelchair...(pg. 266)." He used this incident

to show how his writing, although it took a while, helped him get through one of his most

traumatic experiences. He wanted to show his audience that writing was his outlet as well as his

passion and used this experience to show how much writing actually affected his life.

The second strategy King used in his writing was ethos. Ethos is the writer's ethical

appeal which is meant to convince the audience of the writers credibility or character. King does

this throughout the beginning of his memoir in his three forewords. This is his attempt to show

his readers that what he says throughout this book is credible given his years of successful

writing. Not only this but the language used (I.e., cursing, slang) made him more relatable to the

readers which made his advice easier to comprehend and digest. In the first foreword he

explained why he choose to write this book on writing and that his purpose was not to write

simply because he was a good writer, but because he wanted to give his insight and advice to
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other writers. "...why did I want to write about writing? What made me think I had anything

worth saying? The easy answer is that someone who has sold as many books of fiction as I have

must have something worthwhile to say about writing it, (pg. 8)." He included his success in

order to show readers that he does have credibility but he also uses it to show that it's not his

only reason for writing and that he's not writing simply because he has multiple best sellers.

Another example of King's usage of ethos falls within the first foreword as well, where

he explains that language is one of the most important aspects of a book and that people tend to

not ask about the language of the content. "What follows is an attempt to put down, briefly and

simply, how I came to the craft, what I know about it now, and how its done. Its about the day

job; its about the language (pg. 9)." Throughout his book he uses relatable, everyday language

in order to come across as approachable in his writing. He curses, uses slang, and writes as if he

is speaking in person. His work is more relaxed and flows as if it were regular verbal story

telling which was his intent.

The final rhetorical strategy that King used in his work was logos. Logos is the appeal

to one's logic and is meant to persuade an audience through use of logic or reasoning. An

example of King's usage of logos is when he explains the toolbox. The toolbox is one's

writing mechanisms and King suggests that every writer should have a toolbox. "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... (pg. 114)." According to King

every writer's toolbox should have at least four levels and should consist of vocabulary and

grammar so that their writing can be strengthened, that once faced with a difficult writing

task the writer could use their "toolbox" for help. Another example of his logos use was

when he explained that in order to be a good writer one must read and write. "If you want to
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be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. Theres no

way around these two things that Im aware of, no shortcut... (pg. 145)." He goes on to

explain that reading can give one insight and teach them lessons and that, in fact, the bad

books tend to give the best advice.

Stephen King's book On Writing is his memoir/how-to that gives the audience an insight

on his life and how certain aspects of his life has shaped his writing techniques. In his writing he

gave his audience insightful advice based on his own experiences and used the three rhetorical

strategies (pathos, ethos, and logos) in order to make his advice more relatable. King's writing

was meant to be as realistic as possible given he is telling his life story and he wanted to show

that everyday aspects do, in fact, influence one's writing and that one should take these aspects

and strengthen their writing.

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Bibliography

King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. London: Hodder, 2012. Print.