King likes to write 10 pages a day. Over a three-month span, that amounts to around 180,000 words. “The first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months, the length of a season,” he says. If you spend too long on your piece, King believes the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel.

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over.

Here are eight writing strategies King shares that have helped him sell 350 million books:

• Tell the truth.
• Don’t use big words when small ones work.
• Use single-sentence paragraphs.
• Write for your Ideal Reader.
• Read a lot.
• Write one word at a time.
• Write every day.
• Write for the joy of it.

2,000 words

An effective writer is able to distill complex thoughts and ideas into simple, clear language that’s quickly and easily understood by others. This valuable quality helps them tackle even the densest subject matter by breaking it down into uncomplicated pieces.

No matter how an author writes his or her story, the basic structure is the same. There has to be a plot, characters, conflict, an introduction, middle, and an ending.

Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or with various traditions of poetry and poetics.