I’ve never thought of Stephen King as terse; anyone who’s read “Needful Things” can tell you that. He recommends brevity and conciseness to all writers in this piece on how to be a writer.
I haven’t written any fiction myself, aside from that one history term paper that was “historical fiction” written over 36 hours of Hell, in over 10 years. I wrote a 12 page short story called “Friends of the Air” that I thought was quite goood–good enough for me to get a Distinguished on my 8th grade portfolio. The story centered around two friends who were flying home for Christmas from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati in a Piper Cherokee when they encouter a winter Thunderstorm over Altoona, PA. The story culminates with them on short final to a country airstrip, ice covering their wings, the throttle firewalled just to keep their ice-cube Piper from falling out of the sky. I liked it–classic buddy story, gripping, and action-packed.
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I wonder at Fiction writers these days, how the business keeps going. Ultimately, they have to sell writing to a country with no imagination that doesn’t like to read. The pulp fiction market, with its westerns, sci-fi, and Harlequins plays well in the heartland, but who’s READING all these trifling fiction books I see in the bookstore?
Granted, I’m reading more non-fiction books these days, including self-help, technical, history, and biographies, so maybe I’m out-of-touch.