Without doubt, Stephen King is the master of horror storytellers.
He is at his best when writing supernatural horror as in “The Shining”, however his psychological horror tales, “Misery”, “Insomnia”, “The DarkHalf aren't far behind.
Although King's plotting skills and command of the language are awesome, the thing that sets him apart from other horror writers is the pacing of his stories.
The terror in King's stories, even the innocuous “Carrie” and the slow moving “Insomnia” never let up.
King throws the reader in a pressure cooker with horror upon horror steaming him to screaming point. Reading King's stories is an exercise in fear with each new twist another boom, boom, boom of terror.
Though the reader is safe in his cozy cocoon of den or bedroom, the terror seems to pound from the walls just as it does for the Torrance family trapped inside the “Overlook hotel.
The interesting thing about King's use of words is that his stories are relatively free of profanity. There is the occasional four-letter word, but it is so much a part of the character's reaction to the horror he is in that the word loses its profanity.
King saves the profanity for the truly profane horrors: a tumor growing inside a good woman's brain, both “The Green Mile” and “Insomnia”.
It is interesting to note that the only character in “The Green Mile” that lets loose with gutter talk is Melinda Moores. The reader willingly excuses such trash talk, knowing that it is the tumor talking, not Melinda herself.
Melinda's discourse did not make it into the movie. If you want to know what she said, you will have to read the book.
King saved the profanity for the extreme profanity, that of executing an innocent man. Four-letter words cannot describe that horror.
There is more profanity in “Misery” than in other King novels. This profanity is mild as it results from Annie's misuse of words which is a conscious ploy on her part to hide the madness gnawing at her soul.
Again King saves the profanity for the extreme profanity of a truly, mad, evil person.
King's characters are well fleshed out. They are real people who will remain in the reader's memory, along with the horror they experience.
In his book on Writing: A Memoir of the Craft King explains that “good stories cannot be called consciously and should not be plotted out beforehand, they are better served by focusing on a single seed of a story and letting the story grow itself.”
Good article..thanks for sharing.