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The Impact of the Past, Passion for Reading, and Life Experiences on Stephen King’s Writing

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Stephen King writes not only science-fiction and horror tales, but also a few novellas and non 7 fiction books. His horror books have ore depth than that apparent at first glance, thought Misery is one of the many fictions by Stephen King, but not many people know that it was inspired by a different short story, “The Man who Loved Dickins”, by Evelyn Waugh (Welcome to StephenKingrom). Many other books by the King of Horror have also been swayed. His past, his passion for reading, and his experiences throughout life have influenced Stephen King to write his chilling books. Stephen King’s pas has been reflected in his writing by showing the childhood frights he faced. His apprehension started at a young age, so Stephen King expresses his fright through his writing.

When King was 12, he witnessed one of his friends die on train tracks. In his book The Body, a group of boys are searching for the missing body of a young boy on the railroad (“Stephen King” Web). Another thing echoed throughout most of his books is the town of Castle Rock, Maine. This is a fictional town King created, but it wasn‘t fully randomt Castle Rock is a chapter of Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, which was one of King‘s favorite books growing up Maine isn‘t random either; King lived half of his life there. Another connection to his life is that most dominant male characters in his books are writers, like he (Imbd.com)t The reason King even started writing in the first place is he found a box of old horror and sci—fi books in his aunt’s house, He says this was his first encounter and interest in horror (“Stephen King” Detroit).

Firestarter, one of King’s works, is in memory of his friend, Shirley Jackson. Firestarter is about a little girl who, when she didn’t get her way, set people to fire with her mind (Beahm). Stephen King loved reading as a kid; most likely why he became a writer — but he became a horror author because of his love of reading classic horror tales, Authors King says have inspired his writing most are Richard Matheson, H.P, Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, and JrR.Rr Tolkien (“Stephen King” Web) Although most of the books, short stories, and poems that influence King are scary, King states that the Bible is one of the biggest influences on his writing. He is very critical of organized religion in his books. At least three of King’s pieces have been based off of the works of the well-known Poe. One of King’s bestsellers, The Shining, is seemingly similar to Edgar Allen Poe‘s The Masque ofthe Red Death.

The second is Gerald’s Game, which is based off of the poem by Poe, The Raven. Dolan’s Cadillac is a retelling of Poe’s The Cask ofAmontillado (“Stephen King” Print), The Talisman and The Stand are based off of Lord ofthe Rings, one of the books King says he wishes he had written (“Stephen King” Detroit). Dr. Suess is credited in King’s works McElligot’s Pool and The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (Beahm) Salem’s Lot is said to be a contemporary version of Bram Stoker‘s Dracula. The Pet Semalry is based on W,W. Jacob’s short story “The Monkey’s Paw” (“Stephen King” Detroit). Things that happened to Kin more recently have also had an astounding affect in his writing. King has always been a fan of baseball; especially helping out with his son’s little league team, cheering on the Red Sox, and writing about it. The nonfiction novella, Head Down, is about the time spent with his son, Owen on the field as a assistant coach and how great it was to be with him (Beahm).

When Stephen King was an alcoholic, he wrote The Shining, about an insane and alcoholic father who kills his family while snowed-in a hotel.

He wrote this book when he and his wife were staying in one of the ‘most haunted’ hotels known to man, The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado He had imagined kids running down the halls, and that night dreamed of the very idea of the book (“Stephen King: Web), While driving on a motorcycle through a seemingly empty town, King came up with the story, Desperation King says, “My first though was, ‘The sheriff killed them all!”’. Of course this was such an impromptu opportunity to write a horror story and the little wheels in his brain started turning, When King‘s daughter’s cat died, he though of the idea of Pet Sematary which is about a cat who dies, but comes back to the house the next day with a whole new, but haunting, demeanor (Welcome to StephenKing.com) . In 1999, King was hit by a car on his daily run and nearly died; of course stories came out of this apparatus.

Since he was so badly injured from the accident, he said it was painful to sit and type for a while, so he used a tape recorder to enumerate his thoughts, which is portrayed in 1408‘ The book by King, The Dreamcatcher, written after his accident, has the main character get hit by a car in it, and he suffers the same injuries King did King thinks of his writing all the time. He says “It[Misery] came to me as l dozed off on a New York — to — London Concorde flightnr” (Welcome to StephenKingrcom) As long as he has a pen and paper, ideas are flowing in and out of his head, weaving together horror stories that win award for their brilliance His cleverness isn‘t always his own idea though; his ideas are provoked by the everyday activities in his life, He used all of his ordeals to come up with his haunting stories and his grand vocabulary and knowledge of how to write from reading so much has really impacted him positively, Stephen King’s stories all have a second meaning to them, finding them just takes a bit of reading between the lines.

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The Impact of the Past, Passion for Reading, and Life Experiences on Stephen King’s Writing. (2023, Jun 27). Retrieved from https://samploon.com/the-impact-of-the-past-passion-for-reading-and-life-experiences-on-stephen-kings-writing/

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