46 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen KingOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 23-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “C.V.”
Part 1, Chapter 23 Summary
King reflects on his marriage, noting some of the similarities between him and Tabitha: “We came from similar working-class backgrounds, we both ate meat, we were both political Democrats with typical Yankee suspicions of life outside New England” (62). They are most strongly tied, however, by language and their literary work. He falls in love with her during a poetry workshop in the fall of 1969 because he understands the purpose of her work.
King includes one of Tabby’s poems, which she read in the workshop, and “[h]er poem made [King] feel that [he] wasn’t alone in [his] belief that good writing can be simultaneously intoxicating and idea driven (64). They connect over their understanding of the work and how to conceptualize it.
Part 1, Chapter 24 Summary
Over the first three years of their marriage, Tabby gives birth to Naomi and Joe. King is at a drive-in movie when Tabby goes into labor with Joe, and the manager announces this over the loudspeaker. King drives home and takes Tabby to the hospital for a three-hour-labor. Both of his kids are “a treat” (67).
Part 1, Chapter 25 Summary
King gets his teaching certificate from the College of Education at UMO, but he is unable to find a teaching job. He begins working at the Franklin Laundry, earning little more than he did at the mill. While there, he mostly launders motel sheets, restaurant table linens, and hospital linens. The tablecloths often contain maggots, while the hospital sheets contain blood and maggots. He sometimes finds unexpected items in the hospital linens, such as a set of teeth.
Part 1, Chapter 26 Summary
King describes the early years of his marriage and family. He and Tabby must raise two kids while working low-paying jobs, King at the laundry and Tabby at Dunkin’ Donuts. They earn, “just enough to create a rough sliding margin between us and the welfare office” (70). One day, the family returns to their apartment after visiting Nellie. Naomi has an ear infection, and the couple wonders how they will be able to pay for the expensive amoxicillin. Just as they walk through the door, King notices an envelope. It contains a check for $500 dollars for one of his stories. As a result, they can pay for Naomi’s medication and enjoy a nice dinner.
Part 1, Chapter 27 Summary
In 1973, the family lives in a trailer in Hermon and King teaches English in Hampden. He begins work on Carrie. The family still has money trouble, and they barely make ends meet. Though King enjoys teaching, he has trouble writing in his off time, saying, “I felt as if I’d spent the week with jumper cables clamped to my brain” (73). Tabby, however, supports him in his writing.
Part 1, Chapter 28 Summary
When King is 19 or 20, he works as a janitor at Brunswick High alongside a man named Harry. One day, they clean the girls’ locker room, and King takes note of the surroundings. Years later, at the laundry, King remembers this day and uses the imagery to create the opening scene of Carrie: a girl getting her period in un-curtained showers and girls throwing tampons at her. He pairs this with an article he read about telekinesis and drafts Carrie as a three-page short story years later, while working as a teacher. He throws the story away because he can’t connect to it emotionally and knows it he would have to make it longer if it was going to pay well. Tabby rescues the pages from the trash and says she wants to know the rest of the story. Though King confesses to knowing nothing about high school girls, Tabby says she will help him.
Part 1, Chapter 29 Summary
King continues to write Carrie and feels the pages have potential. In order to connect to the main character, he draws on memories of girls he knew in high school. He recalls Sondra, an outcast, whose mother once hired him to move furniture from their trailer. Inside, King glimpses a life-sized crucifix and Sondra’s mother asks if he has been saved. Another outcast girl, Dodie, wears the same clothes to school every day until they begin to unravel. She buys new clothes and tries to reinvent herself, but people at school still tease her. Sondra dies from a seizure while Dodie kills herself.
Part 1, Chapter 30 Summary
In the spring of 1973, King sells Carrie to Doubleday and receives a $2500 advance. He does not have an agent and thus doesn’t realize that this is a small advance, even for that year. The book is set to be published in spring of 1974. King and Tabby project that he might be able to make $30,000 off Carrie, which seems like a huge amount to them.
Part 1, Chapters 23-30 Analysis
King’s character is tested as he undergoes hardship and instability in his early twenties. He finds happiness in his family but struggles under financial burdens. He explains, “I think we had a lot of happiness in those days, but we were scared a lot, too” (71). He fears that he is falling into a pattern of working hard and receiving little compensation in return, and that he “was simply repeating [his] mother’s life” (70). His struggle produces stress.
He also questions his identity as a writer. When he begins teaching, writing feels difficult: “If I ever came close to despairing about my future as a writer, it was then” (73). By giving so much to his day job, he has less energy to pursue his creative work and foresees himself never making it in the writing industry. Tabby, however, is a support to him. Even when the family struggles, she never questions his decision to spend his free time writing. Without this support, King questions whether he would have been able to continue with his writing pursuits.
King encounters a turning point in his career when he begins writing Carrie. Though he cannot connect to the story at first, he nonetheless perseveres. Working on this book teaches him that “sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position” (78). King challenges himself even when the writing does not feel good or natural and thus gains maturity. The advance from Carrie is the most the King has ever made from a piece of writing, and he and Tabby are filled with hope. Through this experience, King learns that perseverance and adhering to passion are crucial to the writing life.
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