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Edgar Pena

Mr. Vigil

British Lit/Comp

7 February 2018

The King of Horror

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, It, and The Shining, are only a small number

of the great horror novels written by the well-known author, Stephen King. His novels are known

around the world for their suspense, mystery, and horror. Several have been adapted to the movie

screen and have brought forth many classic, award-winning, movies, such as Rita Hayworth and

Shawshank Redemption, being adapted into The Shawshank Redemption, arguably one of the

best movies of all time. In total Stephen King has published 54 novels, that have sold more than

350 million copies. King has also written around 200 short stories, most of them full of horror

and suspense. It could be argued that Stephen King is one of the greatest writers of horror stories,

and mastered the art of using suspense and mystery to pull the reader in until the last page. There

is a reason why King is known as the king of horror. It is known that King’s specialty is writing

tales of horror, but it is also important to know what drove him to focus his writing on horror,

and if any certain events in his life had an effect on his choice of writing. The short stories

named “The Raft” and “1408” will be used to show the connection between the life of Stephen

King, the events he has gone through, and his form of writing, and why he writes these tales of

horror and suspense.

When an individual hears of a writer of horror stories, one of their first questions is, what

drove this person to write horror stories? In a Radio interview in Texas in the Late 1970’s,
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Stephen King himself, when asked if he liked being asked the question of what drove him to

write horror stories. He said that he “found the question uncomfortable, because the same

question would not be asked to somebody who writes other types of stories, but it’s asked to

horror story writers because it’s “unusual” to love to write about horror and monsters” (king).

The answer to this question is not going to come from Stephen King himself, that is why it’s

important to know the history of “the king of horror.” Stephen Edwin King was born in

Portland, Maine in the year 1947. At a very young age, when he was a toddler, his parents

separated. He went on to be raised with his brother, David, by their mother. King spent his

childhood moving from one state to another, from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Stratford,

Connecticut, all the way back Durham, Maine. It was in Maine where King graduated from high

school and went on to attend the University of Maine at Orono. In college, King wrote for the

school’s newspaper, and published his first short story. King Graduated with a degree in English,

but was unable to find a position as a teacher. He went on to have small jobs, but during this time

he kept writing stories in his spare time. In 1971, King finally began working as an English

teacher and that year he married his wife Tabitha Spruce. King’s first major novel was Carrie, it

went on to be published and was a major success, this allowed King to leave teaching and focus

on writing full-time. In the years following his first novel, King’s mother passed away due to

cancer. Now working as, a fulltime writer, King and his family constantly moved from, different

houses in Maine, to Colorado, to even some time in England. Every time they moved King

would write a new novel including, Salem’s Lot, and The Stand. In the following years King

wrote many of his most popular novels including, The shining, Cujo, and IT. Due to the fear that

the public would not accept more than one book from an author in one year, he wrote four novels

under the alias, Richard Bachman. Stephen King is known for how fast he writes his novels; in
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his primes he usually wrote several books a year. Stephen King is now one of the most well-

known authors, especially in terms of writing horror stories. Many of his novels are best-sellers

and are read around the world. Many of his novels are also the basis of many movies, and TV

shows. In recent years, King spends time with his wife, and three children, some who are also

writes. They live mainly in Maine but also spend a good amount of time in Florida. King still

writes novels and short stories and released several in the last couple of years. He also helps out

on several projects such as TV shows based on some of his novels. Recently the movie IT, was

remade and has turned out very popular. Stephen King will always be remembered as one of the

best writers of horror stories and will live on as the “King of horror.”

When an individual thinks of Stephen King, they would think of all his great novels such

as IT, Carrie, or the Shining, but he is also a great short story writer. King has written over two

hundred short stories and novellas, most of them being part of collections. These short stories are

just as interesting and contain just as much suspense as King’s novels. These short stories show

King’s skills as a writer because he is able to write an interesting, mysterious, story, but with a

sort of page limit. This page limit does not allow King to add as much detail as he could with his

long novels. The end-product is still an interesting story that pulls in the reader just like his

famous novels. Stephen King has written many great short stories, but the short stories named

“The Raft” and “1408” directly demonstrate Stephen King’s own “style” that makes his stories

so interesting. “The Raft” was published by King in 1983 in “The Twilight Zone Magazine.”

This story takes place in a remote Pennsylvania lake during Autumn. It is about four college

students named, Randy, Deke, Rachel, and LaVerne. They decide to go in a swim in this lake

and they all swim to a raft out in the middle of the lake. When they are on the raft a mysterious

sort-of oil slick appears in the water beneath them. Rachel attracted the colors of the “blob”
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decides to touch it, what happens next can only be described in the words of Stephen King

himself:

The black, viscous substance ran up her arm like mud . . . and under it, Randy saw her

skin dissolving. She opened her mouth and screamed. At the same moment she began to

tilt outward. She waved her other hand blindly at Randy and he grabbed for it. Their

fingers brushed . . . Then she fell outward and splashed into the water. The black thing

flowed over the spot where she had landed (King. 372).

After witnessing what just occurred everybody was confused and in a panic. Deke decides he

can make it to shore but right when he is about to jump in, his foot slips through a crack and

monster grabs him and dissolves him slowly. Randy and LaVerne are the only ones left alive and

they take turns looking out for the monster. For some reason, the two of them decide to have

sexual intercourse, but LaVerne’s hair falls through the cracks of the raft and the monster

dissolves her. Randy is the only one left alive and the story ends with him on the raft wondering

if the monster will ease his pain. This short story was later adapted as a segment in a horror

movie named “Creepshow 2.”

“1408” by Stephen King was included in his 1999 audiobook collection named “Blood

and Smoke.” It was then included a couple other collections of King’s stories. This story is about

Mike Enslin a best-selling author that writes books about haunted places and the paranormal. It is

revealed that he feels guilty because he does not believe in the paranormal. While doing research

for one of his new books, Enslin stayed at Hotel Dolphin in New York City in the infamous

room 1408, which has been vacant for 20 years and has caused a total of 42 deaths. The hotel

manager, Mr. Olin, insists there is “something” that is in that room that causes terrible things to

happen, and insists that Enslin rethinks what he is doing. Right when Enslin enters the room he
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experiences hallucinations, the paintings are changing pictures, he sees a menu that changes to

different languages. After some time Enslin cannot handle it anymore, he needs to get out of the

room, he tries to get the phone and call for help. What happens next is the climax or turning

point of the story:

As he put the handset of the phone against his ear, he heard a series of clicks as the dial

spun back to its original position. There was no ring in his ear. Instead, a harsh voice

simply began speaking. "This is nine! Nine! This is nine! Nine! This is ten! Ten! We

have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six! Six!” Mike listened with

growing horror, not at what the voice was saying but at its rasping emptiness. It was not a

machine-generated voice, but it wasn't a human voice, either. It was the voice of the

room. The presence pouring out of the walls and the floor, the presence speaking to him

from the telephone, had nothing in common with any haunting or paranormal event he

had ever read about. There was something alien here (King. 2).

Enslin finds some matches, and lights himself on fire to break the spell of the room so that he can

escape. In the hallway there is another guest getting ice that sees Enslin and extinguishes the fire.

The hotel guest looks into the room and something attracts him to enter, but Enslin warns him

that it’s haunted and the door slams shut. After this incident it is said that Enslin gives up

writing, and has several problems from that night in the room such as having to sleep with the

light on and removing all phones.

Authors always have a connection with what they are writing, that brings them back to

keep writing more and more stories. This connection can be as small as that they like a certain

genre, or as big as a memory or event that drove them to write the way they do. When asked

about what drove them to write the way they do, certain authors tell-all. Stephen King is not one
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of those authors, what drove him to horror is a sort of mystery just like many of his great stories.

The question of what drove King to write horror stories has intrigued many people for years. Mr.

King does not really talk on the topic, in an interview early in his career, he said that he does not

like being asked why he writes horror stories. When doing research, there was only theories on

why he wrote horror stories but nothing definitive from King himself. There is one theory about

an event in Stephen King’s life that may be the closest thing to the truth. This event would be

explained in King’s own words:

The event occurred when I was barely four. According to mom, I had gone off to play at

a neighbor’s house – a house that was near a railroad line. . . It turned out that the kid I

had been playing with had been run over by a train while playing on or crossing the

tracks. My mom never knew if I had been near him when it happened. But I have no

memory of the incident at all, only of being told about some years after the fact. (king)

Experiencing such a tragic event at a young age just like King did can have major effects on an

individual. King was such in shock that he did not even remember what had happened that day.

The real question is that could this have driven Stephen King to write horror stories. Learning of

this theory, Kind rebutted it by saying, “I believe this is a totally specious idea – such shoot-

from-the-hip psychological judgements are little more than jumped-up astrology." The question

still continues to be unanswered and the only person who can answer it is Stephen King himself.

In terms of Stephen King’s connection to his skillful, horror, writing, it is mostly

unknown what drove him to write his stories. Of course what drove him is not as important as

compared to his final products. Stephen King will always be known as one of the best horror

writers that have lived. His skill in writing interesting stories that are full of suspense and

mystery is unmatched by other authors. His literary works attract readers from around the world
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and not only from one age group but people of all ages. One of Stephen King’s most impressive

skills is seeing ordinary things, getting inspiration, and writing best-selling novels from that

inspiration. Stephen King himself said that he got inspiration for IT from crossing a wooden

bridge and thinking about a troll and looking over the bridge. Stephen King is author to some of

the greatest novels to ever be written that are known as literary classics. Many of his works have

also inspired many great movies and TV shows. Stephen King is one of the most achieved

authors and deserving of the title, “The King of Horror.”

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Works Cited

1. https://www.bustle.com/articles/185093-where-does-stephen-king-get-his-ideas-here-are-the-

jjjjjj-origins-of-10-terrifying-tales

2. http://vt.co/entertainment/film-tv/truth-behind-literary-icon-stephen-king-started-writing-

jjjjjjhorror-stories/

3. http://americanindian.net/stephenking.html

4. http://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/334540

5. http://stephenking.wikia.com/wiki/1408_(story)

6. https://www.stephenking.com/the_author.html

7. https://www.biography.com/people/stephen-king-9365136