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Stephen King: Difference between revisions
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{{examples|Stephen King's books, in order, are:}}
* ''[[Carrie]]'' - [[Scrapbook Story]] about [[Butt Monkey|an abused girl]] with [[Psychic Powers]] who takes a terrible revenge after a [[Prank Date]] to the prom. King's wife stopped him from throwing the manuscript out and convinced him to finish it. Made into a movie by [[Brian De Palma]] that received two Academy Award nominations (for acting), which later received [[The Rage: Carrie 2|a sequel]] and a [[Made for TV Movie|made-for-TV]] [[The Remake|remake]]. It was also made into an infamously terrible musical that has become a byword for "flopped on Broadway".
* ''[['Salem's Lot]]'' - [[Our Vampires Are Different|Vampires]] in a small town in Maine, and the efforts of a few to get rid of them. Made into two TV miniseries. King's first visit to the Creepy Small Town, which he keeps coming back to, under a variety of names and states. Notable that his publisher advised him NOT to have this as his second book, lest he be pigeonholed as a horror novelist. Guess they got over it.
* ''[[The Shining]]'' - Winter spent in a haunted hotel. Cabin fever taken to the extreme. Twice adapted as movies; first a loose adaptation by [[Stanley Kubrick]], which King was not very satisfied with, then a more faithful TV miniseries scripted/watched over by King himself. The arguments about which version is "better" have been [[Broken Base|long and passionate]].
* ''[[Night Shift]]'' - Anthology of short stories, several of which have been adapted into movies:
** ''[[Children of the Corn]]''
** ''Cat's Eye'' -- Featured three Stephen King stories including two from this anthology, "The Ledge" and "Quitters, Inc."
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** ''[[The Lawnmower Man]]'' -- '''Very''', very loosely...
** ''Graveyard Shift''
* Dollar Babies -- King helps out independent filmmakers by selling the rights to use his short stories for a dollar and a VHS copy of the film. The rights revert back to him. Many of King's short stories have been filmed as Dollar Babies.
* ''[[The Stand]]'' - [[After the End]], good and evil clash as a [[Loads and Loads of Characters|dozen characters]] journey across the land. The unabridged version of ''The Stand'' could probably [[Doorstopper|be used as one]]. Made into a TV miniseries, with a new feature film in the works, as well as a tie-in [[Comic Book]] series.
* ''[[The Dead Zone]]'' - The protagonist is plagued by visions of a terrible future. Made into a movie starring [[Christopher Walken]], and then served as loose inspiration for a TV series. Notable as a prominent American novel containing {{spoiler|the "lone gunman" assassin figure as the main hero/protagonist}}.
* ''[[Firestarter]]'' - Andy McGee and his daughter Charlie are on the run from the [[Government Conspiracy]], which wants to use their psychic powers for their own nefarious uses. The father is a known factor, but they have no idea what Charlie is capable of. The story may have invented the psychic power of "pyrokinesis". Made into a movie starring [[George C. Scott]] and a young [[Drew Barrymore]].
* ''[[Cujo]]'' - Mother and son trapped in [[The Alleged Car]] by the titular rabid dog. Made into a movie by Lewis Teague, who would go on to direct ''Cat's Eye''. By this point, King's substance abuse was so bad that he ''cannot remember'' writing this book.
* ''[[The Dark Tower/The Gunslinger|The Dark Tower]]'' - First in ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' series starring a protagonist that embodies that [[The Gunslinger|exact trope]], searching for the ultimate truth.
{{quote|The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.}}
* ''Different Seasons'' - Anthology of four novellas with [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming|Idiosyncratic Episode Subtitling]]
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* ''[[Pet Sematary]]'' - Sometimes the dead walk. Sometimes, [[Came Back Wrong|dead is better.]] Made into a movie.
* ''[[Cycle of the Werewolf]]'' - A small Maine town is menaced by a [[Our Werewolves Are Different|werewolf]] over the course of a year. A sort of combination short novella and [[Graphic Novel]], featuring illustrations by Bernie Wrightson (of ''[[Swamp Thing]]'' fame). Made into a movie, ''Silver Bullet''.
* ''[[The Talisman]]'' - Epic quest across America and its dimensional cousin, co-written with Peter Straub. A proposed movie adaptation has been in [[Development Hell]] since 1985 (with such names as [[Will Smith]], [[Michael J. Fox]], and [[Steven Spielberg]] being connected with the project at various times), but may now finally see light as a 2012 miniseries.
* ''Skeleton Crew'' - Anthology of short stories that leads off with the recently adapted ''[[The Mist]]''.
** ''The Mist'' deserves some mention, as it has gone on to influence a number of likewise highly influential games, such as ''[[Half Life]]'' and ''[[Persona 4]]''. Made into a movie starring Thomas Jane.
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* ''[[Misery]]'' - Author held prisoner by deranged fan. King said that ''Misery'' is a metaphor for substance addiction, which he was struggling with at the time. Made into an Academy Award-winning movie (for acting).
* ''[[The Dark Tower/The Drawing of the Three|The Dark Tower]]'' - Second ''Dark Tower'' book. The gunslinger calls his [[True Companions]], and boundaries of worlds are crossed.
* ''[[The Tommyknockers]]'' - A flying saucer slowly mutates a town's populace into aliens. Really stupid aliens...with absurdly advanced technology (as the book puts it, they're Thomas Edisons rather than Albert Einsteins). It's not a good combination. Like ''Misery'', another excellent metaphor for addiction and co-dependency. In ''On Writing'', King states that he did not intend the story to be a metaphor, but that his subconscious probably did. Made into a miniseries.
* ''[[The Dark Half]]'' - A writer's pseudonym comes to life, and he's not happy. Yet another substance addiction metaphor, as explained by King in the introduction. Written just after King was "outed" as the man behind Richard Bachman, and inspired a little bit thereof. Made into a movie starring Timothy Hutton and directed by George Romero. Also, made into a [[Video Game]] nobody remembers anymore.
* ''Four Past Midnight'' - Anthology of four novellas:
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* ''[[Desperation]]'' - AU version of ''The Regulators''. Travelers get caught in the wrong desert, in the wrong little town, at the absolute worst time. Made into a TV movie featuring [[Ron Perlman]] as the crazy demon-possessed sheriff.
* ''[[The Dark Tower/Wizard and Glass|Wizard and Glass]]'' - Fourth [[The Dark Tower]] book, mainly revolving around Roland's former [[True Companions|ka-tet]] and his personal [[I Let Gwen Stacy Die]].
* ''[[Bag of Bones]]'' - A grieving widower returns to his old vacation home since his wife's death only to realize it's nestled in a [[Town with a Dark Secret]]. Made into a two-part movie aired on A&E.
* ''[[The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon]]'' - A little girl gets lost in the Appalachians...with no supplies...for weeks. Made into a pop-up book.
* ''[[Hearts in Atlantis]]'' - Vietnam-era story anthology. First story was made into a movie.
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* ''Dr. Sleep'' - A forthcoming sequel to [[The Shining]].
Aside from his own work, King also wrote a number of novels under the [[Pen Name]] of Richard Bachman:
* ''[[Rage (novel)|Rage]]'' - A kid commits a school shooting and has a strange discussion with his classmates. Written long before the events at [[Columbine]] High School. No longer in print by King's request.
* ''[[The Long Walk]]'' - In a dystopian alternate version of 1980s America, the government runs a contest every year: 100 teenaged male contestants, selected from thousands of entrants nationwide, are sent on the titular journey down the Eastern Seaboard. The rules are simple: Walk. Do not leave the road. Maintain a speed of at least 4 miles per hour. Fall under that speed and draw a warning. Fall under that speed with 3 warnings and you are shot. Last walker alive wins his heart's desire. The story follows one year's group of 100, [[It Got Worse|with predictable results]].
* ''Roadwork'' - The planned demolition of a man's home for a highway extension sends him on a seemingly irrevocable path of self-destruction.
* ''[[The Running Man (novel)|The Running Man]]'' - Lower-class worker trying to pay daughter's medical bills in dystopian USA enters a game show designed to test the effectiveness of the police state. They hunt him, he evades them. If caught, he ''will'' be killed. Halfway through, {{spoiler|he discovers that the game is rigged}}. Ends with wife vilified and murdered and daughter dead, but it's okay, because at the very end {{spoiler|he crashes a plane into the skyscraper where the game show host is working}}. The plot of [[The Running Man (film)|the movie adaptation]] (with [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]]) does not bear very much relation to this description; it handles some of the same elements, but plays them as parts of a glitzy [[Game Show]] rather than the more straight dystopian nightmare of the book.
** These first four were originally released individually, and then reprinted in an omnibus titled ''The Bachman Books''.
* ''[[Thinner]]'' - Obese lawyer is hit with a [[Gypsy Curse]], causing him to rapidly lose weight. Adapted into a movie.
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* ''Danse Macabre'' - An examination of horror and science fiction based on King's personal experience, including his personal [[Nightmare Fuel]] and a rant about horror movies not influencing people to commit real world horrors.
* ''Faithful'' - A collaboration of lighter mood than his fiction that follows the 2004 Boston Red Sox to their first World Series win in eight decades.
* ''On Writing'' - An autobiography and a how-to for up-and-coming authors.
King has also written the screenplays for several TV miniseries:
* ''Golden Years'': An elderly janitor at a top-secret research base gets caught in an accidental explosion and begins [[Merlin Sickness|reverse-aging]].
* ''[[Rose Red]]'': Haunted house tale where the manse in question [[Malevolent Architecture|literally has a life of its own]]...[[Bizarrchitecture|and won't stop growing]].
* ''[[Storm of the Century]]'': An evil wizard arrives on a small Maine island during the titular storm; if the townsfolk give him what he wants, he'll go away...
* ''[[Kingdom Hospital]]'': Eerie goings-on at a Maine hospital. An Americanization of Lars von Trier's ''[[Riget]]'', combining supernatural horror with [[Medical Drama]] and a touch of [[Black Comedy]].
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He is also part of a rotation of featured columnists in ''Entertainment Weekly'' magazine.
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{{tropelist|This author's work includes examples of:}}
* [[Action Survivor]]
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* [[Bench Breaker]]: "The Gingerbread Girl", from the collection ''Just After Sunset'', features a version of this. The protagonist is duct taped to a chair by a psycho who will return in a little while to kill her. She's unable to get free of the tape, so she ends up breaking the chair instead to free herself. This later comes in handy when the psycho returns, as she's able to use the splintered remains of the chair to fight him off.
* [[Big Friendly Dog]]: Cujo starts out as one.
* [[Bigger Bad]]: With the [[Canon Welding]] mentioned below: {{spoiler|the Crimson King}} becomes this.
* [[Billed Above the Title]]: You will never have any doubt whether Stephen King is the author of a book or not, because you can't miss the words "'''STEPHEN KING'''" taking up almost the entire front cover. With a little tiny spot at the very bottom for the actual title of the book.
* [[Bitter Almonds]]: Subverted in ''Paranoid: A Chant'' when the protagonist believes ''arsenic'' smells like bitter almonds.
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* [[Cozy Voice for Catastrophes]]
* [[Creator Cameo]]: King often makes cameo appearances in the film adaptations of his works; his high point probably being his portrayal of the eponymous hick in the ''[[Creepshow]]'' segment "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill."
* [[Creator Provincialism]]: The majority of his stories are set in his native Maine. When he started spending part of the year in Florida, he started setting some of his stories there. Several books were set in or around Boulder, Colorado, when he lived in Colorado for a while. And all of them are set in the U.S. (except the ones set in fantasy worlds) and his entire body of work has only two notable non-American characters, the English Nick Hopewell in ''The Langoliers'' and the German Kurt Dussander in ''Apt Pupil'' (the latter is because a Nazi concentration camp commander can't be American).
* [[Cthulhu Mythos]]: King is a great admirer of [[H.P. Lovecraft]], and as detailed below, has included both overt and subtle homages in his own work.
* [[Deal with the Devil]]
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** Mrs. Carmody in ''[[The Mist]]'' is also particularly nasty (even more so in the movie).
* [[Giant Spider]]: King is an admitted [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|arachnophobe]] so these tend to show up.
* [[God Before Dogma]]: Religious characters who are not [[The Fundamentalist]] tend to favor this. Interviews with King confirm this to be his own worldview.
* [[Gone Horribly Right]]
* [[Groin Attack]]: Frequently of the non-comedic variety.
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* [[Homage]]: The short story "Jerusalem's Lot" from ''Night Shift'' is a [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]] pastiche, written in epistolary style with sprinklings of [[Purple Prose]], and contains a [[Shout-Out]] to that ''other'' [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]] from the Cthulu Mythos, ''De Vermis Mysteriis''.
* [[Homicide Machines]]
* [[I Just Write the Thing]]: If ''On Writing'' is any indication, he usually starts out with characters and a premise, then works out from there what the characters would do and what would happen in response to their actions, [[Writing by the Seat of Your Pants|with only a little thought of where the story will ultimately go]]. This means both that a character who's been heavily developed for 200 or so pages can get eaten on page 201 (see {{spoiler|''[[Dreamcatcher]]'', ''[[The Mist]]''}}), and that a character who was intended to die can wind up surviving through application of a previously-established resourcefulness ({{spoiler|''[['Salem's Lot]]'', ''[[Misery]]''}}.) There have been exceptions where he tried to fit a story into a particular path, but the only one he [[Creator Backlash|still likes]] is ''[[The Dead Zone]]''.
** This really comes to light in ''[[The Green Mile]]'', where an aged Paul Edgcomb writes the first few chapters as though Coffey ''did'' murder those girls, despite the main plot point in the last half being the fact that he's actually innocent. He wrote the novel [[Serial Novel|in installments]], and admitted in the foreword of the first book that he himself may not even know how this thing ends.
* [[In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It]]: Strangely [[Averted Trope|averted]]. All the most famous and successful adaptations of his films - especially the non-horror ones - avoid drawing attention to the fact that he wrote the original novel or short story.
** Syfy fixes this by making damn sure that every title is paired with his name religiously.
*** Pointedly averted with ''The Lawnmower Man'', which used his name but only the barest elements of one scene from the story. King sued and won the right to take his name from the film.
* [[Inherited Illiteracy Title]]: ''Pet Semetary''
* [[Infant Immortality]]: You would think children and babies are safe just like in any horror show, right? [[Subverted Trope|Oh no, absolutely not!]]
* [[Insufficiently Advanced Alien]]: The titular beings in ''The Tommyknockers''.
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* [[Take That]]: Often toward ignorant right-wingers or educated snobs.
* [[Teens Are Monsters]]
* [[Teleporters and Transporters]]: King's short story "The Jaunt" combines teleportation with [[And I Must Scream]].
* [[Theme Initials]]: R.F.
* [[Town with a Dark Secret]]: The titular 'Salem's Lot might be the best (worst?) offender. Other towns that repeatedly pop up are [[wikipedia:Derry (Stephen King)|Derry]], [[wikipedia:Castle Rock (Stephen King)|Castle Rock]], and Tarker's Mills (''Cycle of the Werewolf'', mentioned in ''Under the Dome'')
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* [[Unconventional Formatting]]: To varying, subtle degrees in several of his novels and stories.
* [[Undeath Always Ends]]: This shows up in several novels, especially '''Salem's Lot'' and ''Pet Sematary''.
* [[Unintentional Period Piece]]: Tends to happen a lot with his earlier novels. He himself has said he's sometimes "too much a writer of the moment."
* [[The Verse]]: A good 80-90% of his stories mention or feature locations, characters, or events from his other stories, and a number of those are tied into [[The Dark Tower]] which ties them into the universes of some of his otherwise unconnected stories.
* [[Villains Want Mercy]]: In ''The Deathroom'', the protagonist thinks that "in the end there might only be one way to tell the thugs from the patriots: when they saw their own death rising in your eyes like water, patriots made speeches. The thugs, on the other hand, gave you the number of their [[Swiss Bank Account]] and offered to put you on-line."
* [[Weirdness Magnet]]: He has referred to himself as one. Citing a time a fully dressed gin drinking Ronald McDonald sat next to him on an airplane during his first book tour.
* [[Went to the Great X In the Sky]]: In ''The Library Policemen'', the town's resident drunk, Dirty Dave, is said to have gone to the "great ginmill in the sky".
* [[A World Half Full]]
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