Stephen King's analogy

In Stephen King's "On Writing" King creates a semi-biography mixed with tips on writing. In a later chapter he uses the phrase "There's no such thing as a bad dog." He goes on to say that that phrase shouldn't be used with someone whose child's face has been bitten by a dog. King says that in the same way there are bad writers in this world. And, this is the part that really upset me, no matter how hard a bad writer tries, he cannot become a great writer but he can become a competent writer.

I have several problems with King's statement.

1. Stephen King is an accomplished writer. The first few chapters of "On Writing" go into detail about the dedication he had as a young man toward writing. King has spent years perfecting his craft. Now these "bad writers" are a different story. I must agree though, there are terrible writers out there, but I don't think it's because they are just bad at writing from the start. There are two possibilities.

A. The writers may not care. I've seen dozens of books, games, and horrible movies be released on a daily basis. But for what reason? Either:

a. The writers work cheap

b. The writers know somebody (It's not what you know it's who you know) or

c. The writers have a big audience. (It's the only reason why those stupid Scary Movie-type films are released. By the way, I like Scary Movie 1 through 3.)

B. The writers are in the business for the money. I see authors plop out book after book, year after year. Koontz, Grisham, and Roberts to name a few. I have no idea how many books they've written but they keep on writing them.

To be clear, I have never read one of their books (which makes me a hypocrite I think) but I know people who have read their books. Who knows, maybe their books are all great, but when I see a new Koontz book on the Half Price display section every six months I get a little red flag go up in my head. It's like they got the same formula down but with different characters and scenery.

I've once heard that writers just write the same thing over and over. Their success depends on how well they can make the story look different. I can see that to a certain point.

Now somebody obviously loves what these people are putting out. Even Stephen King can be put into this category of authors putting out a new book every year or so. But there's my problem, when you have the formula down the magic is lost. I like to see works where writers are fumbling around in the dark. The attempt and lack of experience is what makes a work interesting to me.

There are exceptions though. People who master their art can create wonderful things. I look at the great animated Disney movies or Picasso's art. These works are the result of someone honing their art to perfection and while there is still experimentation, there is also an understanding of their format.

This leads me to my second point.

2. King compares writers to dogs. The analogy is: Dog bites child ergo dog is bad despite what others may say. In the same vein: Writer writes bad ergo writer is bad writer.

And there's the problem. King leaves out an important fact: the dog is the product of it's upbringing. The dog may be a stray or owned, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that when that dog bit the child, it was biting the child because it was threatened, hungry, or aggressive. Again, it does not matter why the dog bit but what led up to this attack.
 If you own a dog you know that dogs imitate their masters. My two beagles are lazy bums, why? Because I don't go exercise. I mostly sit around all day playing my games, read, watch TV, or get on the computer. If I walked more my dogs would do the same, especially if I walked them.
The point? Dogs are the results of their upbringing. In the same way, written works are the result of the writers. If a book is bad, it's because the writer is bad. What needs to be done is that the writer needs to train to get that work (dog) into shape. Unless abused constantly, dogs can be retrained. In the same way, written works can be redone and improved upon.