Mentor Text: Dark Tower Series

The Dark Tower is a genre bending story across time, space and imagination.

After 143+ hours of 8 audiobooks and a lot of deep reflection I not only loved the books but also learned a ton about writing. Here’s some of my take aways.

Before I begin, a quick note: I have a really hard time getting through long fiction books. Stephen King’s writing has always been extremely intimidating to me. The books are long and take a lot of focus to pick up on the excellent story craft. Thankfully Audible has allowed me to study the works of King by using the Audiobook + the actual book. I follow the book as Audible reads it. This has been a great help for me studying the craft of writing while also enjoying the story. I share this b/c this method might help you other struggling readers out there consume more stories and study more writing.

Another quick note, I’ve struggled to write what I wanted to say here. There was so much to write that I eventually had to say “this is it”. I think this conveys the important things I want to say.

Enough of that…let’s roll!

Perspective & Voice

There were a lot of characters in these eight books. Every character had a unique voice and every character got a turn with the mic. Even characters that I wouldn’t have expected to get a turn telling the tale from their perspective did get a turn and this, kept me very curious to see who’s perspective was next.

Some of the lessons here are pretty obvious. Topics like how to write great dialogue, how to communicate emotions through the words spoken, and how to use dialogue to move the story along. But one of the things that really stood out to me, is the use of tertiary characters to tell the story.

When it comes to storytelling there’s so many people involved in a story like this but it is hard to ignore everyone caught up in the action that isn’t the main character. One of the scenes in particular was told by a character who was literally on stage only for that scene. I thought this was really interesting because it gives you a chance to tell the story from a fresh perspective I’m not always be inside the main characters’ head.

In one of my current stories, I’m using this technique to do world building. The main character doesn’t know anything about the world that they ventured into and this minor character will be observing the main character breaking social morays. This way I can communicate social standards to the reader without having to use a “someone tells the main character” interaction. Besides, it is more fun if the main character doesn’t know and keeps breaking the norms.

I look forward to giving more characters a chance with the mic in my stories. Give everyone a voice and tell a story from different perspectives.

A Journey of Journeys

One of my current works in progress is a collection of stories from different narrators telling their experiences in the afterlife. My thought of this story was always that everyone is on their own journey, there are intersections, but they are not all on the same journey. I really felt like the Dark Tower had a similar style.

As I said earlier the Dark Tower has many many characters in it. Each of those characters are on their own journey. And while the main characters are on similar journeys, they all diverge and converge throughout the story. While the main character Roland is on his quest, he is joined by others but they all are on their own quest. I like how they think they’re on the same quest but in reality they are not.

The divergence and convergence used by King inspired me to revisit the connection points for my characters in Along the Way. I like how the characters in the Dark Tower have significant impact on each other. I feel like that is not necessary for my story, and that some of the interactions the main characters have in the Dark Tower with minor characters are more in line with what I would like to build in my story.

For instance, Roland is very impactful in many of the peoples lives that he encounters. He has an impact but does not necessarily change them. Some of the people change as a reaction to him. As I thought about this, I recognized this in real life as well as fiction. I think this is more the type of impact I’m looking for for my characters and is more in line with real life.

We don’t always go and join someone else’s quest but often everyone we meet impacts us somehow.

Who’s story is it anyway?

When so many characters are sharing the story, who’s story is it anyway? Roland is the character that starts the series but he isn’t the character who ends it (well…sort of). In the end, I feel like The Dark Tower was not just about Roland but all the Ka-Tet (the group - you’ll learn when you read).

So, when I say “Main Character”, I really mean the Ka-Tet not just Roland. Roland, the gunslinger, is one of the main characters but so is Jake. So is Susanna. So is Eddie. So is the Tower.

This question of who’s story is it made me think about the TV show LOST. Who was the main character of LOST…well the Island of course. Everyone else was important but the Island was the critical character of the story in my opinion. This brought me back to my own story Along the Way: Who is the main character?

I am not sure I have that clearly in my mind at this moment. I’ve returned to the story, ripped it open, started surgery. New characters have emerged in the story. Old characters have totally transformed. But who is the main character? I’m looking forward to finding that out. I thought I knew but guess not.

Our Stories Can Save Us

I wonder what Stephen King thought when he finished the Dark Tower series. Did he step back and say, “what was this all about?” as he suggests in his book On Writing.

My key take away, and perhaps it is what I needed the take away to be, was that our creations can save us.

Our creations can save us if we let them. We can explore what we would have done or who we could have been. We can rethink what we’re doing today or validate that we’re on the right path. Our characters are more than the words that make them.

I’ve been trying to write this post since late August. There was so much to say and so much I’ve learned from these stories. This post was only the tip of the spear. This epic work that has tentacles in all of King’s works is inspiring to me as a writer. Perhaps one day I can build a world like the Dark Tower. Build characters that you sigh at the end of the story and say, yes, that’s the right ending.

Thank you for this story Stephen King. The Ka-Tet’s tale was transformative to me as a writer and as a person.

Cover image by Naveen Annam from Pexels