Stephen King And His Impact On The World Of Literature
Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine. He graduated from the University of Maine and later worked as a teacher while establishing himself as a writer. Stephen King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, and fantasy novels. His books have sold more than 350 million copies, many of which have been adapted into feature films, television series, and comic books. After King sold his first novel Carrie, The book did extremely well and allowed him to become a full time writer and start his career. After the book came out his career skyrocketed and all of his books after that were read and became best sellers. When writing it is important to make the reader feel emotional, King had perfected the ability to do this. King has a very unique sense of writing which is why his books are so interesting for readers, his stories are never similar to a story they have read before. King’s writing has impacted the world of literature because his writing is so unique and authentic.
King is a very interesting person that anyone can learn a lot from, he has a unique and fascinating craft of writing that many people find has made him the great author he is today. King once got into a really bad car accident he said in an interview in the year 2000 'Obviously, it has given me some new things to write about and some new experiences to put in stories, and I've already begun that procedure,' (King 2000) he explained. 'Given a choice, if somebody had walked up to me and said, 'Well, Steve, you can continue to live the same old, boring, healthy life and you won't have any real, new experiences and you can retire at 55, or you can go for the car accident: You can get hit by the van and put in the hospital, and you'll get some new experiences and you can write until you're 60.
Which do you choose?' And immediately I would say, 'Give me the boring life. I'll stop at 55. ' So I do have some new experiences, and I probably will write some other things and go on for a while' (King 2000). King uses his real life experiences in his fiction novels and builds on the ideas. This method of writing is extremely useful when trying to write a creative piece because not everyone can come up with random ideas out of the blue, but by using an experience that has happened to yourself and then building on it is the best way to write a story. King used this to his advantage and was able to expand his life stories with great detail that made every single story a best seller.
King struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction in the 80’s and he claims to have no recollection of writing some of his novels during that period of time. Writing did help him escape the terrors of his mind; however, it did not stop King’s obsession with drinking alcohol and using drugs. Stephen King was married to Tabitha King, who dealt with his agonizing addiction for many years. After one of the many times that she woke up to Stephen laying in a puddle of his vomit, she decided it was time for a change. Following this event, Tabitha raided his office for any paraphernalia and threw it away.
Afterwards, family and friends gathered for an intervention about Stephens habits. King realized he needed to make some life changes, and has been sober ever since. Stephen King once said “The tommyknockers is an awful book. That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act. And I’ve thought about it a lot lately and said to myself, ‘There's a really good book here, underneath all that spurious energy that cocaine produces, and I ought to go back. `The book is about 700 pages long, and i'm thinking, ‘there's probably a good 350 page novel in there’” (King 2001). This quote clearly states that king had a drug and alcohol problem because he is giving credit of the spurious energy written in one of his books to cocaine. This is him blatantly mentioning his knowledge of how the quality of his work was significantly worse when he was under the influence. This quote also states he had a drug problem because he is bashing his work, calling his novel awful because he wrote it while on drugs, by acknowledging that weakness, his work became significantly better when he wrote sober.
Stephen King is one of the most influential authors of today. King has impacted the world of literature specifically in the horror genre. He is so unique and authentic because of how different his writing style is with horror. “It’s not just a gory scare, he toys with your brain, which is what horror is really about in my opinion,” said Mary di Buono ’20. “He is also amazing at describing the setting, the people and everything that’s going on so as you’re reading you can easily see everything playing out in your head with vivid details” (King 2011). This shows how much King’s writing has influenced the world of literature because he has formally created his own style in the horror genre. This quote mentions how descriptive King gets in his stories, and how his details go beyond trying to frighten his readers, he knows how to manipulate the readers thoughts, which creates his own twist on the stories.
By King introducing such a unique style of writing, he has influenced the world of literature to a deeper meaning of horror. With his unique style, he has created a more psychological twist, influencing more authors to open their minds to writing things more out of the ordinary. King has opened a door that has changed the way horror used to be portrayed. He has made psychological thrillers a topic of interest in today’s society.
In conclusion, King is such a unique writer because of his personal experiences, unique abilities, and challenges in his life. As a result of all these factors, King is known as one of the most authentic writers in the literature world. He will be remembered and praised for his spectacular pieces of work for the rest of time. If one is looking for a unique and fascinating read, Stephen King is highly recommended.
