I've had a busy week covering oil spills and jobs reports and financial disasters and arguments in Congress. But I digress...
King refers frequently to a source all good writers should memorize; Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style." It is a tiny volume - only about 85 pages - but if writing for a living is your life's goal pay attention to it!
Rule number one in Strunk and White is get rid of the passive verbs. Use the active voice instead. King agrees that they weaken whatever it is you are trying to say. Make the subject of your sentence do the work of the idea.
The example he uses is... Instead of "The body was carried from the kitchen by Tom and Jerry and placed on the couch", say "Tom and Jerry lifted the corpse and moved it onto the couch." While perhaps a very Steven Kingsian sentence, the idea is... the body can't do anything, but lay there. Tom and Jerry, on the other hand, are still alive and can actively do something proactive. The effect is stronger.
King's rule number two (and the one that stuck with me) is avoid adverbs in all their myriad forms whenever possible. Like passive verbs forms they make the active verbs wimp out in your sentence.
Remember, an adverb is something that MODIFIES a verb, adjective, other adverb, or adverbial phrase. How can modify ever be a good thing? It saps the strength out of whatever you are trying to get across.
By the way, always remember the great Mark Twain quote: "No generalization is worth a damn... including this one!"
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