Tool Box and On Writing

I was surprised to find that the tips in the Toolbox were practical. After reading about his strange experiences growing up, I was expecting his wiriting advice to be "advanced" and what not. But right off the bat I loved his point of not using huge vocabulary words just for the sake of using them; rather, use the first word that comes to mind. We all know people (like half the debate team) that love to show off their extensive vocabularies. In attempt to sound smarter, they sound like tools. It's obnoxious, not to mention. We all learned those Mrs.-Shoemake-words too, buddy.

Speaking of Mrs. Shoemake, I felt that King's section on using active not passive voice was straight from her mouth. I can remember countless days of sitting in her class and hearing her screech, "The subject does the verb!" or receiving an essay that had PASSIVE VOICE written on it. I now try to avoid it at all costs, and agree with King 100% on it.

His examples of starting a story and then telling the reader to go finish was such a neat way to get the reader involved. When he was talking about the young wife stalked by a crazy ex-husband, I really did want to know what happened next. I was even more interested to know what would happen if we switched the characters and had the wife psychotic. Now, I didn't go write the story like he had suggested, but it was a nice idea nonetheless.

These chapters weren't the most interesting I've ever read; in fact, I had to force myself through the last 20 or so pages, but King's tips are definitely something worth listening to and trying, considering his success.