{"id":3951,"date":"2019-01-09T16:11:04","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T21:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=3951"},"modified":"2020-01-18T10:21:35","modified_gmt":"2020-01-18T15:21:35","slug":"stephen-king-is-wrong-books-do-more-than-just-tell-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/stephen-king-is-wrong-books-do-more-than-just-tell-a-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen King is Wrong: Books Do More Than Just Tell a Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stephen King once said on CNN Money<\/a> that books themselves aren\u2019t important since they\u2019re basically just a delivery system for a story. But they\u2019re much more than that: they\u2019re canvases. I know. I\u2019ve been painting on mine for years.<\/p>\n

It started in college when I first bought books that weren\u2019t required reading. I\u2019d already been highlighting textbook passages with yellow marker, and scrawling my name inside, so of course I wrote my name on the first page of these books, too. But I also put down the date of the purchase, the book store, a recent event, and who I was with at the time.<\/p>\n

These scrawls sometimes proved amusingly opaque years later. Like: Great news on Wednesday<\/strong>. What about? Or: Argued with N<\/strong>. Who was N? And why were we arguing? Was it before I bought the book, after, and was the book connected in some way? I\u2019ve tried going back and comparing my journal at the time, but the cryptic notes don\u2019t open up their secret to me. More often, though, the inscription refers to a lunch with a lover or friend, and the scene opens up for me in a whole new way.<\/p>\n

Having known for a long time that I wanted to be a writer, once I started buying books as a matter of course, anything I read was also a subject of study. I underlined passages, circled words I didn\u2019t know or wanted to use, bracketed or starred phrases worth remembering and quoting. Sometimes arrows would point to another page so I made sure I remembered a connection for later.<\/p>\n

Great lines got the full treatment, and I\u2019d note their pages in the front or back of the book, along with an identifying word or two, sometimes the whole phrase if it was memorable.<\/p>\n

The more dedicated I became to writing as a career, the more the books I owned became a repository of ideas, notes, questions, descriptions of dreams inspired by the book, even short journal entries. It usually felt more immediate to keep the source of my inspiration and the idea closely connected. Some books have story titles, metaphors, character descriptions, opening lines written in the back or front \u2014 and even in-between. More than a few have whole scenes worked out.<\/p>\n

\"2015-03-07-1425738248-3002090-players.jpg\"<\/a><\/center>My books are also unexpected time capsules. I\u2019m always running out of bookmarks, so many older books have had receipts, notes, to-do list and even letters tucked into them.<\/p>\n

Once I started reviewing for The Detroit Free Press<\/em> and other newspapers and magazines in the early 1990s, the intensity of my entrance into each book deepened. Though I wrote drafts on my PC, I usually started the review somewhere inside the book unless I wanted to pass it on to a friend or relative later. Then I\u2019d have to restrain myself, keep pencils and pens away from the book at hand. It wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

Biographies are a passion of mine, and whether I\u2019m reviewing the book or not, they still seem to call out running commentary as I compare my life to the one I\u2019m reading about. But I don\u2019t tend to write much snark no matter what the genre, because if a book pisses me off that much, I\u2019m not likely to finish it. I do correct typos now and then. I can\u2019t resist.<\/p>\n

Occasionally a book feels so much like a freight train car covered with graffiti that if I want to reread it, I just buy a new copy of the book. There it is, virginal, unmarked, waiting for me to dive right\/write in. But I also keep the previous copy or copies because they form a small diary of my relationship to that text.<\/p>\n

I do have dozens of books on my iPad, but while I enjoy the convenience and speed of downloading, I miss the physical interaction. Every book tells its own story, but the books in my library tell my<\/em> stories as well.<\/p>\n

Lev Raphael is the author 26 books in genres from memoir to mystery.\u00a0 He teaches creative writing online at writewithoutborders.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen King once said on CNN Money that books themselves aren\u2019t important since they\u2019re basically just a delivery system for a story. But they\u2019re much more than that: they\u2019re canvases. I know. I\u2019ve been painting on mine for years. It started in college when I first bought books that weren\u2019t required reading. I\u2019d already been … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1142],"tags":[497,5,130,1652,1146],"class_list":["post-3951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading","tag-authors","tag-books","tag-reading","tag-reading-for-pleasure","tag-stephen-king"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3951"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5526,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3951\/revisions\/5526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}