Under the Dome
I’m going to start off by saying every writer should read Under the Dome by Stephen King. It’s told from a mostly omnipresent point of view, which is great when you have multiple characters that you want the audience to see in detail. I’m very good at this, but most writers aren’t. My skill came from years and years of on-line role-playing where I had to switch characters and points of view within a matter of minutes.
It’s also good because this looks to be a primary example of a book that was planned beforehand. I would almost bet money that he wrote the Synopsis, outline and character lists beforehand. Stephen King even says this in his author notes at the end of the book. He’s had the idea since 1976 (I was -1 in 1976). He was waiting for technology to catch up to him.
This is an Author Driven book. It is not a character driven book. Keep that in mind when you’re reading it. There’s a lot of summary, flashbacks, briefings, and Author “push”…
It is fantastic for what it is. Very few Authors can pull this off with any kind of success. With that being said, read it as something to learn from and remember all those writing books you’ve read. All the suggestions and examples and thoughts in those writing books is going to solidify and clarify in your mind after you finish reading this.
