On Writing
On Writing is both a textbook for writers and a memoir of Stephen's life and will, thus, appeal even to those who are not aspiring writers. If you've always wondered what led Steve to become a writer and how he came to be the success he is today, this will answer those questions.
Stats for nerds
94recommend
159mentions
135people
2007–2026years
67% recommend31% neutral1% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- On the subject, I cannot recommend enough Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott & On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft - Stephen King. Two exceptional books.
- It started after reading Stephen King's "On Writing" where he likened the art of writing as the unearthing of an archeological site after you stumbled upon a unique bone of a story. His advice was to choose a domain you are deeply intimate with. For me, I've been a struggling startup founder for 15 years—enough material to inspire a novel.
A 1,000-word writing exercise turned into a complete 125k-word manuscript over the course of a year.
In year 1, I learned the sheer joy of unencumbered creative flow and authentic expression. A similar flow I used to get from coding (and more recently vibe coding). What made it effortless was a mindset that I was writing for the sake of it, not with the intention of publishing.
After a year of keeping it close to my chest, I decided to show it to a few close friends. They liked some of it, destroyed some of it. Some ultimately encouraged me to publish it.
In year 2, I learned about the chasm between writing for myself and writing for an audience. Nerdy stuff I thought were clever completely flew over my readers' heads. So I studied a dozen textbooks on literature, prose, poetry, voice, grammar, and completely rewrote the manuscript twice over, this time with the audience in mind. There is a lot more finesse to writing than I originally appreciated.
In year 3, I felt ready to pitch literary agents. The reason wasn't to make a career out of writing, but to learn from professionals. After 100 personalized pitches and 0 offers of representation, I learned that pitching agents was much harder than pitching VCs. Especially for a niche novel like mine; fellow startup founders was too small of a TAM.
In year 4, I engaged with a professional author/editor (Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse), who gave me essays worth of incredible developmental feedback. Lots of nuanced feedback I couldn't get from textbooks. Per his advice, I started back at chapter 1 and refactored the whole manuscript. I distilled it down to the best 88k words.
The tinkering never stops; when do you know it's done? I realized that I kept on tinkering because it was more comfortable than overcoming the fear of launching. Today, on 06/08/26, almost 5 years after that Stephen King writing exercise, I'm ready to say “ship it.”
Blockchained is a near-future startup sci-fi thriller that chronicles a struggling startup founder who meets a mysterious investor in Hong Kong. Little does he know that the too-good-to-be-true investor works for the Chinese government.
Blockchained was written for the fellow startup founders, engineers, and near-future sci-fi enthusiasts. In other words, HN community, you are my target audience
Sample chapters available at https://www.blockchainednovel.com/ — eBook and paperback available today. Hardcover edition coming soon.
I suppose we live in an era where it must be qualified that Blockchained was 99.9% lovingly handcrafted. No AI was used to write this novel aside from research, spellcheck, grammar, and the occasional phrasing checks.
- I found Stephen King's On Writing a worthwhile read for anyone thinking about writing, no matter your opinion on King's other works (I am not a fan). A hard lesson well expressed is using fewer words, which King describes as "kill your babies".
- The first three paragraphs are good advice for business writing. Strunk made the same point with "Omit needless words".
If you approach (or would like to approach) writing more from the perspective of a craft rather than meeting KPIs, Stephen King's On Writing is great.
- Zinsser’s book is great. I’d also recommend Stephen King’s ‘On Writing: A memoir of the craft’. A shorter, easier read, shares a lot of topics.
- To know more about creators and their tools, I recommend:
- "Programming is (should be) fun!", by Gerald Jay Sussman. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2MYzvQ1v8Ww
- "On Writing", by Stephen King. Just the chapter "Toolbox".
