Stephen King on Writing: Throw Out Your Thesaurus
The ultra-prolific Stephen King gave out many tips for aspiring writers, including a recommendation to shorten the text . Here’s another one: “Any word that you need to look for in the thesaurus is the wrong word.”
King says that when you write your first draft, never look at the reference book. Just write.
Do you want to write a story? Fine. Take away your dictionary, encyclopedias, world almanac and thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus in the trash can. The only thing creepier than the thesaurus is those little paperback college students who are too lazy to read assigned novels purchased during the exam. Any word to look for in the thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. Do you think you could misspelled the word? Okay, here’s your choice: either look it up in the dictionary to make sure you spell it right – and disrupt your train of thought and writer’s trance in the deal – or just say it phonetically and fix it later. Why not? Did you think he was going somewhere? And if you need to get to know the largest city in Brazil and you find that you don’t have it in your head, why not write in Miami or Cleveland? You can check … but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don’t do anything other than go to the toilet, and only do it if it is absolutely impossible to postpone it.
Few of us use a physical thesaurus these days, so maybe just remove the bookmark from that thesaurus website.
Stephen King’s “Everything You Need To Know About Successful Writing In Ten Minutes” | Air program writers studio