Creator / Stephen King

In the time it took for you to look at this picture, he
wrote another 1,500-page novel.

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut."

The currently dominant author of the horror genre — although he prefers not to pigeonhole himself in such a manner — Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine) has added much to its stock of tropes. He's known for being ludicrously prolific while producing far better writing than most people who pump out stories at his rate, and better even than many writers who take a lot longer about it, for that matter. Many of his works reference each other, building up a larger universe.

The beginning of King's career is a classic Rags to Riches narrative. Supporting his young family by working as a high school teacher and occasionally selling short stories on the side, King struggled to make ends meet, even choosing to have his phone disconnected to save money. Having written several novels but selling none, he began to write a story about a telekinetic teenage girl, which would eventually become Carrie. Ironically, King threw the first few pages of the manuscript (the shower scene) out at first, thinking that he couldn't realistically write a teenage girl. His wife Tabitha found the pages in the garbage, read them, and then convinced King that he was on to something and to finish the novel, saying that she wanted "to know what happens." Carrie was optioned for hardcover publication by Doubleday for a paltry $2,500 advance. But then, and much to his astonishment, the paperback rights were sold to NAL/Signet for $400,000 and King himself received $200,000, which lifted him and his family out of debt overnight.

King’s success did not come without hardship. During the ’80s, he fell into severe drug and alcohol abuse, to the point that he claims to have almost no memory of writing Cujo or directing Maximum Overdrive. However, he eventually got sober and has remained so ever since, and has incorporated the experience into many of his novels since then.

Many of King's works have been adapted into films or television series. A number of these are well regarded, while many others are not. In the latter case, this is often due to a combination of Special Effect Failure and/or the screenwriters or directors having no idea how to convey the stray thoughts and inner monologues of King's characters (which often affect their situations just as much as their actions) into workable scenes.

While calling King a "horror writer" grossly understates and undervalues much of his career and work, he undoubtedly remains one of the most important authors in that genre. Many consider him to be the heir to the legacy begun by Edgar Allan Poe, passed down to H. P. Lovecraft and then to King, with no apparent successor in sight (as yet). King has also referred to himself in the past as "ABLB", short for "America's Best-Loved Boogeyman," a title he sees as originating with Alfred Hitchcock, then passed on to Rod Serling, and then to him. Long typecast as a horror novelist, the success of films like The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, among others, have finally earned King some credit as a good writer both within the horror genre and outside of it.

King's entire family has a literary streak, with his older son Joe Hill^note Joe used his middle name as a pen name, to avoid being initially known as "Stephen King's son" — it's well known now, but Hill is established on his own enough that it doesn't matter having authored several well-received works of horror and suspense, including a few collaborations with his father. His other son Owen is primarily a writer of literary short stories, although he too collaborated with Stephen to write Sleeping Beauties. His wife Tabitha King is an established author in her own right, whose novels couple elegant, poetic prose with unflinchingly realistic subject matter. Even Naomi King, a Unitarian minister who largely avoids the family's literary limelight, has an award-winning sermon to their credit.

King also played in a charity rock band called The Rock Bottom Remainders with a shifting lineup of his fellow authors (including Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Matt Groening, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, and Mitch Albom), and is purportedly the inspiration for the G.I. Joe character Crystal Ball (his son Owen is the namesake for the character Sneak Peak).

Not to be confused with Stephen Hawking, or with right-wing former Iowa Congressman Steve King (the very-much-a-liberal Stephen is very insistent on that last one).

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Stephen King's works (in order)

Novels, novellas, and short stories

• Carrie (1974) — Scrapbook Story about an abused girl with Psychic Powers who takes a terrible revenge at the prom. King's wife stopped him from throwing the manuscript out and convinced him to finish it. Made into a 1976 movie by Brian De Palma that received two Academy Award nominations (Best Actress for Sissy Spacek and Best Supporting Actress for Piper Laurie), which later received a sequel, made-for-TV remake, and a cinematic remake. It was also made into an infamously terrible musical that has become a byword for "flopped on Broadway", though a 2011/12 revival did modestly well and even produced a cast album.
• 'Salem's Lot (1975) — 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. Later tied with The Dark Tower saga.
• The Shining (1977) — Winter spent in a haunted hotel. Cabin fever taken to the extreme. Twice adapted as movies; first a loose adaptation by Stanley Kubrick starring Jack Nicholson as the father who goes Ax-Crazy, 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 long and passionate.
• Night Shift (1978) — Anthology of short stories, all of which have now been adapted into movies or TV series:
  • "Children of the Corn" — A couple ends up stranded in a town ruled by a degenerate cult of children. Inspired a film series. Adapted three times, Disciples of the Crow, Children of the Corn (1984) and Children of the Corn (2009), with the second film getting a bunch of sequels as well.
  • Cat's Eye — Featured three Stephen King stories including two from this anthology:
    • "The Ledge" — A mob boss forces a man to walk around the ledge of his apartment.
    • "Quitters, Inc." — A man goes to extreme measures to kick his smoking.
  • "The Mangler" — Demonically possessed industrial laundry machinery. Yes.
  • "Trucks" — A passing comet somehow brings automobiles to life, and they go on a rampage. Adapted twice, once as Maximum Overdrive (written and directed by King himself, though it turned out so bad he's never done it again) and once more-faithfully as Trucks
  • "The Lawnmower Man" — A bit of a special case. The 1992 film The Lawnmower Man was purported to be derived from the Stephen King story but had so little to do with it (even citing that there's a lawnmower in both stories is a stretch) that King actually took legal action to remove his name from it. The original title was Cyber God, and the Stephen King title was only brought on board to raise sales. Later adapted into a much more faithful Comic Book story.
  • "Graveyard Shift" — A young drifter gets hired at a dilapidated textile plant, and is picked by the Jerkass foreman for a team tasked to clean out the plant's basement. They find rats. A lot of rats...
  • "Battleground" — A man is attacked in his home by tiny soldiers. Adapted into a segment of the TNT miniseries Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King.
  • "The Boogeyman" (a man confronts his childhood fear of the Boogeyman) and "The Woman in the Room" (a man struggles with the desire to euthanize his terminally ill mother) were both adapted into short films (the former directed by Jeffrey Schiro, the latter by Frank Darabont [The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile]), and packaged into a 1986 VHS presentation entitled Stephen King's Nightshift Collection.
  • "Sometimes They Come Back" — A teacher is attacked by the ghosts of the delinquents that killed his brother when they were kids. Adapted into a 1991 TV movie starring Tim Matheson. Two sequels followed: Sometimes They Come Back...Again (1996) and Sometimes They Come Back...For More (1999). Neither sequel had anything to do with the characters or events of the original.
  • "Jerusalem's Lot" — In 19th century Maine, an aristocrat and his manservant explore a deserted village near his mansion with terrifying results.
  • "One for the Road" — A follow-up to 'Salem's Lot. Residents of a town just outside of Jerusalem's Lot try to save a man from the remaining vampires. A film version was announced for 2015; as of 2023, it has yet to surface.
• The Stand (1978) — After the End, good and evil clash as a dozen characters journey across the land. At over 1,500 pages, the unabridged version of The Stand could probably be used as a Doorstopper; there is also an 850-page abridged version. Made into a TV miniseries in the early 90's and again into a full season of TV in 2020, as well as a tie-in Comic Book series. Tied into The Dark Tower saga.
• The Dead Zone (1979) — The protagonist is plagued by visions of a terrible future. Notable as a prominent American novel containing the "lone gunman" assassin figure as the main hero/protagonist; King has stated that his original concept was, "Could you make Lee Harvey Oswald the good guy?" Made into a movie starring Christopher Walken (and directed by David Cronenberg, no less), and then served as loose inspiration for a TV series. Also notable as the only one of the few books where King planned out the whole story from the start rather than his usual Writing by the Seat of Your Pants where he liked the end result.
• Firestarter (1980) — 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 two movie adaptations, one in 1984 starring George C. Scott and a young Drew Barrymore, and another in 2022 with Zac Efron as Andy.
• Cujo (1981) — Mother and son trapped in The Alleged Car by the titular rabid dog. By this point, King's substance abuse was so bad that he cannot remember writing this book. Made into a movie by Lewis Teague, who would go on to direct Cat's Eye.
• The Gunslinger (1982) — First in The Dark Tower series starring a protagonist that embodies that exact trope, searching for the ultimate truth. The series has been in Development Hell for decades, with the current plan to turn it into a TV series with movies interspersed in. A film version came out in 2017.
• Different Seasons (1982) — Anthology of four novellas with Idiosyncratic Episode Subtitling:
  • "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (or, Hope Springs Eternal)" - Hope Springs Eternal, even in prison. Made into the number-one movie on the IMDb's Top 250.
  • "Apt Pupil (or, Summer of Corruption)" — A teenage boy learns about the Holocaust right from the source. Made into a movie starring Sir Ian McKellen.
  • "The Body (or, Fall from Innocence)" — Four young friends trek into the woods to see another boy's corpse. Made into a movie under the title Stand by Me.
  • "The Breathing Method (or, A Winter's Tale)" — A woman wants to keep her child, no matter what. Has never been made into a movie, and it would probably be really hard to do so.
• Christine (1983) — The Cool Car from Hell. Made into a film directed by John Carpenter.
• Pet Sematary (1983) — Sometimes the dead walk. Sometimes, dead is better. Filmed twice as a movie, in 1989 and 2019. The first version's screenplay was written by King and had a kick-ass theme song by The Ramones, personally commissioned by King; and it spawned a sequel movie, unconnected to King or his work, in 1992. Especially notable for being the one thing he's ever written that truly horrified himself, to the point that he sat on it for a year, assuming his publisher would never print it.
• Cycle of the Werewolf (1983) — A small Maine town is menaced by a 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 (1984) — Epic quest across America and its alternate-dimensional cousin, co-written with Peter Straub. A proposed film (and/or miniseries) 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. Tied into The Dark Tower saga.
• Skeleton Crew (1985) — Anthology of short stories, including:
  • "The Mist" — An eerie, impenetrable fog brings monsters into our world. It's gone on to influence a number of highly influential games, such as Half-Life and Persona 4; and was also one of only two King stories ever to be directly adapted into a video game of its own, though as an early text adventure that's largely forgotten today. Made into a movie starring Thomas Jane and also adapted into a Spike TV original series that shares the title and basic concept with the story, cancelled after one 10-episode season.
  • "The Raft" — Teenagers trapped on a wooden raft by something resembling a carnivorous oil slick. Adapted as a segment of Creepshow 2.
  • "The Monkey" — A man struggles to save himself and his family from a cursed toy monkey that took its toll on his family when he was a boy thirty years earlier.
  • "Gramma" — A child learns his invalid grandmother was a witch in the most hideous way imaginable. Adapted as an episode of The Twilight Zone (1985) and as a film staring Chandler Riggs in 2014 retitled Mercy.
  • "Word Processor of the Gods" — A man uses a kludged-together word processor to rewrite reality. Also adapted as an episode of Tales from the Darkside.
  • "The Jaunt" — Set 300 years into a future where teleportation is the primary mode of transport, the story examines the practical and metaphysical issues with the invention. Adapted into a Dollar Baby short film, and plans for a series have been announced.
  • "Survivor Type" — A disgraced doctor turned drug mule is stranded on a desert island after a shipwreck, and he will do anything to survive. Adapted as part of the Creepshow Animated Special.
• It (1986) — A small Maine city is infected by an Eldritch Abomination disguised as a Monster Clown, and only the children know. Made into a TV miniseries most notable for Tim Curry's horrifying portrayal of said clown, and a two-part film adaptation (released in 2017 and 2019 respectively) starring Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. Tied into The Dark Tower saga.
• The Eyes of The Dragon (1984) — Fantasy fairy tale of a king imprisoned, a brother on the throne, and the Evil Chancellor who might be just a tad familiar. Tied into The Dark Tower saga.
• Misery (1987) — 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 a movie in 1990, which won Kathy Bates an Oscar.
• The Drawing of the Three (1987) — Second Dark Tower book. The gunslinger calls his True Companions, and boundaries of worlds are crossed.
• The Tommyknockers (1987) — 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 starring Jimmy Smits and Marg Helgenberger. Tenuously tied into The Dark Tower saga (via connections with IT).
• The Dark Half (1989) — 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 (1990) — Anthology of four novellas:
  • "The Langoliers" — Passengers on a flight going through a storm get stranded in a dying, empty copy of their world, with a strange noise growing closer... Made into a TV miniseries.
  • "Secret Window, Secret Garden" — An odd tale about the price of celebrity, in a way. Made into a movie (Secret Window), starring Johnny Depp.
  • "The Library Policeman" — Everybody's worst childhood fears about what happens when you lose a library book, except real and happening to adults.
  • "The Sun Dog" — A prequel to Needful Things, about a Polaroid camera with a dark power.
• Needful Things (1991) — A shop with bargains galore, each at a terrible price. Made into a movie which starred Max von Sydow. It was originally intended to be the final story in the recurring setting of Castle Rock, but he's returned there a few times since.
• The Waste Lands (1991) — Third in The Dark Tower series. Roland's True Companions are completed, and travels through the decaying remains of a world that has moved on.
• Gerald's Game (1992) — Bondage gone wrong...as in, "husband dies of heart attack while wife is still handcuffed to the bed" wrong. In 2017, Mike Flanagan made this into a Netflix movie. First of the "abused wife" trilogy.
• Dolores Claiborne (1992) — "Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto." Made into a movie starring Kathy Bates (Rotten Tomatoes gives it 87%). Second of the "abused wife" trilogy (explicitly connected by a solar eclipse and weird empathy to Gerald's Game).
• Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993) — Anthology of short stories, some of which were adapted for cable TV in a miniseries of the same name.
  • The TNT miniseries adapted "The End of the Whole Mess," "Umney's Last Case," "Crouch End," "The Fifth Quarter" and "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band."
  • "The Night Flier" was adapted into a 1997 HBO film starring Miguel Ferrer.
  • "Chattery Teeth" was adapted into the second half of the 1997 FOX-TV film Quicksilver Highway, starring Christopher Lloyd (The first half was based on the short story "The Body Politic" by Clive Barker).
  • "The Moving Finger" was filmed as the series finale of the horror anthology Monsters (and starred Tom Noonan as Howard Mitla).
  • "Dolan's Cadillac" was made into a 2009 thriller starring Wes Bentley and Christian Slater.
  • The original script of "Sorry, Right Number," which was broadcast as an episode of Tales from the Darkside, appears in this collection.
  • "The 10 O'clock People", about a group of "sometimes smokers" that find they are able to see the Aliens Among Us when the smoke three or four a day. Noted for being very similar to John Carpenter's movie They Live! and being made into a 2015 movie.
• Insomnia (1994) — Elderly widower becomes involved in a struggle to determine the fate of the universe. No relation to the 1997 Norwegian movie thriller of the same title or its 2002 American remake with Al Pacino and Robin Williams. Has ties to the Dark Tower series.
• Rose Madder (1995) — Abused wife escapes her cop husband, starts over in a new city. Husband finds her, but not before she finds help from someone...or something. Third of the "abused wife" trilogy (subtly connected to Gerald and Dolores). Has tenuous ties to the Dark Tower series.
• The Green Mile (1996) — A man with healing powers is on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Made into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan.
• Desperation (1996) — 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. Has ties to the Dark Tower series.
• Wizard and Glass (1997) — Fourth The Dark Tower book, mainly revolving around Roland's former ka-tet and his personal I Let Gwen Stacy Die.
• Bag of Bones (1998) — 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 (1999) — A little girl gets lost in the Appalachians...with no supplies...for weeks. Made into a pop-up book.
• Hearts in Atlantis (1999) — Vietnam-era story anthology. First story was made into a movie, and has some connection to the Dark Tower series.
• Dreamcatcher (2001) — Four old friends get stuck out in the forest on a hunting trip, right when the aliens land. Made into a movie.
• Black House (2001) — Sequel to The Talisman, again co-written with Peter Straub. Has ties to the Dark Tower series.
• From a Buick 8 (2002) — Rural Pennsylvania police keep a car...or some thing shaped like one...secreted away from John Q Public. After finishing it, King was hit by a van while the driver was throwing meat to his dogs and nearly died. He worked the accident into the Dark Tower books that he had yet to write. Has ties to the Dark Tower series.
• Everything's Eventual (2002) — Anthology of short stories, including the following:
  • "1408" — An author attempts a stay in a haunted hotel room; things only get worse for him from then on out. Made into a movie starring John Cusack.
  • "Riding the Bullet" — A man trying to hitchhike to his dying mother's side hitches a ride with a terrifying man. Originally an eBook, also made into a film.
  • "Everything's Eventual" — A young man is hired by a shadowy individual to send emails that make the recipients commit suicide.
  • "The Little Sisters of Eluria" — A Dark Tower side story, where Roland meets some strange vampires.
  • "Autopsy Room Four" and "The Road Virus Heads North," both adapted as segments of the TNT miniseries Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King.
• Wolves of the Calla (2003) — Fifth Dark Tower book.
• Song of Susannah (2004) — Sixth Dark Tower book.
• The Dark Tower (2004) — Seventh and last (chronologically speaking) Dark Tower book.
• The Colorado Kid (2005) — Murder mystery that ends as unsolved as ever. Served as (extremely) loose inspiration for the Syfy television series Haven. Inspired by the real-life "Somerton Man" case.
• Cell (2006) — A cellphone-based Zombie Apocalypse. After a long period in Development Hell, a film adaption was finally made and released in 2016.
• Lisey’s Story (2006) — A love story with a horrific edge; King's examination of what his wife's life might have been like if he had been killed in the car accident. King's personal favorite.
• Duma Key (2008) — A man discovers his paintings can alter reality.
• Just After Sunset (2008) — An anthology of short fiction. Notable stories include:
  • "N." — A psychiatrist finds himself pulled into his dead patient's delusion. Adapted into a multi-part cutout-animated video series before publication.
  • "The Cat from Hell" — A professional hitman is commissioned to kill a demonic housecat. One of King's earliest short stories; it was adapted as part of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie.
• Under the Dome (2009) — A town comes apart at the seams after it's enclosed inside a mysterious barrier. Made into a TV series.
• Blockade Billy (2010) — A novella about a baseball player mysteriously erased from the record books... and for a pretty good reason. The trade hardcover makes it a double feature with Morality, a novella about an aged Presbyterian minister who wants to commit one serious sin before he dies.
• Full Dark, No Stars (2010) — A collection of four short stories.
  • "1922" - Father talks son into killing mother, life falls apart for both men. Adapted into a movie in 2017.
  • "Big Driver" - Mystery writer is violently raped, hunts down her rapist for revenge. Made into a movie in 2014.
  • "Fair Extension" - Cancer patient makes a deal with the devil, swapping his bad luck for a friend's (formerly) good luck in the process.
  • "A Good Marriage" - After over 25 years of marriage, a wife finds that her husband has a very dark secret, and she needs to find a way to put an end to it while keeping the secret from harming their adult children. Made into a movie.
• 11/22/63 (2011) — An English teacher travels back in time to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The results are... interesting. An adaptation in the form of a mini-series produced by J. J. Abrams and starring James Franco came out on Hulu in 2016. Has tenuous ties to The Dark Tower saga (via connections with IT).
• The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012) — The eighth book in The Dark Tower series, but serves as an interquel to Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla.
• Joyland (2013) — A coming of age story/ghost story/murder mystery that takes place in an amusement park.
• Doctor Sleep (2013) — A sequel to The Shining, following Danny thirty years later. A film adaptation was released in November 2019, starring Ewan McGregor as Dan.
• Mr. Mercedes (2014) — King's "first hard-boiled detective book" about an ex-cop tracking down a mass murderer. Marks the debut of Holly Gibney. Adapted into a series in 2017, starring Brendan Gleeson as protagonist Bill Hodges and Harry Treadaway as Big Bad Brady Hartsfield, replacing the late Anton Yelchin.
• Revival (2014) — Dark story of a former reverend obsessed with electricity and what happens when you play God.
• Finders Keepers (2015) — The sequel to Mr. Mercedes. An author's (stolen) unpublished works become a killer's obsession and a family's salvation...and then the two come together.
• The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2015) — A collection of short stories published in late 2015. "Blockade Billy" and "Morality" are reprinted in this book. "Drunken Fireworks" is slated to be adapted into a film, also starring James Franco.
• End of Watch (2016) — Third in the trilogy with Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers. Previously called "The Suicide Prince".
• Gwendy's Button Box (2017) — A young girl growing up in Castle Rock in the 1970s is given a mysterious box with deadly consequences. The first installment in the Gwendy trilogy, co-written with Richard Chizmar (who would write the second installment solo).
• Sleeping Beauties (2017) — A mysterious epidemic causes women not to wake up. Co-written with Owen King.
• The Outsider (2018) — A beloved pillar of the community is arrested for a brutal murder that numerous pieces of incontrovertible evidence tie him to... yet there's equally unbeatable evidence that he was miles away at the time. A continuation of the Mercedes saga. A miniseries adaptation starring Ben Mendelsohn, unrelated to the Mr. Mercedes adaptation, premiered in January 2020 on HBO.
• Elevation (2018) — Castle Rock resident Scott Carey looks healthy, but he's come down with a strange condition that appears to involve weight loss without physical change, and it soon becomes clear that Earth's gravity is having less of an effect on his body.
• The Institute (2019) — A group of psychic kids try to escape a sinister institution.
• The Fifth Step (2020) — Standalone short story about a man who is approached by a stranger who asks him to listen to his life story so that he can complete the fifth step of his AA program.
• If It Bleeds (2020) — A collection of novellas, one of which stars Holly Gibney from the Mr. Mercedes trilogy and The Outsider.
• Later (2021) — A young boy who can talk to dead people is enlisted by a detective to track a murderer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave. Has tenuous ties to The Dark Tower saga (via connections with IT).
• Billy Summers (2021) — A former Marine turned contract killer takes on the fabled "one last job", which requires him to go deep undercover as a struggling novelist in a small Southern US city. King's least supernatural novel written under his own name to date, though it does include several references to The Shining (also passingly references locations from The Stand and IT).
• Gwendy's Final Task (2022) — The final act of the Gwendy trilogy, once again co-authored by King and Chizmar. It features a late-middle-aged Gwendy, now a United States Senator, who takes a surprising trip as part of her final encounter with the button box.
• Fairy Tale (2022) — A return to dark fantasy, about a 17 year old boy who discovers a local recluse's locked shed hides a portal to another world.
• Holly (2023) — Featuring Holly Gibney as the main protagonist, as she uncovers decades of crimes in the home of a retired couple while searching for a missing girl.

Novels written as Richard Bachman

• Rage (1977) — 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 (1979) — In a dystopian alternate version of 1980s America, the government runs a grueling endurance contest every year, with a grisly end for those who can't finish. The story follows one year's Walk, with predictable results. After decades in Development Hell, in 2019 director Andre Ovredal was tapped to film an adaptation.
• Roadwork (1981) — The planned demolition of a man's home for a highway extension sends him on a seemingly irrevocable path of self-destruction. As with Long Walk, an adaptation was finally mounted in 2019.
• The Running Man (1982) — 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, 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 he crashes a plane into the skyscraper where the game show host is working. The plot of 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 (1984) — Obese lawyer is hit with a Gypsy Curse, causing him to rapidly lose weight. Adapted into a movie.
• The Regulators (1996) — AU version of Desperation. A suburban summer afternoon gets very deadly very fast. Best known for being absolutely batshit insane. One character described it best as "Alice in Wonderland but the Nine Inch Nails version." Has ties to the Dark Tower series.
• Blaze (2007) — A mentally deficient conman kidnaps a millionaire's child. Marketed as a "posthumous" work of Bachman; actually a rewritten and edited version of a lost King manuscript that predates even Carrie.

Non-fiction

• Danse Macabre (1981) — invoked 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.
• On Writing (2000) — An autobiography and a how-to for up-and-coming authors.
• Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction On the Craft of Writing (2000) — A collection of essays released in 2000 as a Book of the Month Club companion to On Writing.
• Faithful (2005) — A collaboration of lighter mood than his fiction that follows the 2004 Boston Red Sox to their first World Series win in eight decades.

TV screenplays and other works

King has also written the screenplays for several TV miniseries:

• Golden Years (1991) — An elderly janitor at a top-secret research base gets caught in an accidental explosion and begins reverse-aging.
• Storm of the Century (1999) — 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...
• Rose Red (2002) — Haunted house tale where the manse in question literally has a life of its own...and won't stop growing.
• Kingdom Hospital (2004) — 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. Ties to the Dark Tower.

King also wrote the screenplays for the 1985 film Cat's Eye and the 1992 film Sleepwalkers, collaborated with George A. Romero on the 1982 theatrical anthology film Creepshow (as well as its sequel Creepshow 2 and the sequel-in-all-but-name Tales from the Darkside: The Movie), and went behind the camera to direct the 1986 film Maximum Overdrive, adapted from his Night Shift story "Trucks", in which people are menaced by trucks and other vehicles that are brought to murderous life by radiation from a comet. Ironically, the story was later adapted again, rather more faithfully, under the original title.

He is also part of a rotation of featured columnists in Entertainment Weekly magazine.

In 2018 the Hulu original series Castle Rock features a Massive Multiplayer Crossover of his characters, with King serving as a producer along with J. J. Abrams.

Adaptations of Stephen King's works with their own pages

• Carrie (1976)
• The Shining (1980)
• Disciples of the Crow (1983): Based on "Children of the Corn" from Night Shift
• Children of the Corn (1984): Got a bunch of sequels.
• Tales from the Darkside (1984): The episode "The Word Processor of the Gods" is based on "Word Processor of the Gods" from Skeleton Crew
• Silver Bullet (1985): Based on Cycle of the Werewolf
• Cat's Eye (1985): First two segments are based on stories from Night Shift
• The Twilight Zone (1985): The segment "Gramma" is based on "Gramma" from Skeleton Crew
• Stand by Me (1986): Based on The Body from Different Seasons
• Maximum Overdrive (1986): Based on "Trucks''. Notably the only adaptation of his work he directed himself.
• Creepshow 2 (1987): The segment "The Raft" is based on "The Raft" from Skeleton Crew
• The Running Man (1987)
• It (1990)
• Graveyard Shift (1990): Based on "Graveyard Shift" from Night Shift
• Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990): The segment Cat from Hell is based on "The Cat from Hell" from Just After Sunset
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994): Based on Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption from Different Seasons
• The Night Flier (1997): Based on "The Night Flier" from Nightmares & Dreamscapes
• The Green Mile (1999)
• Carrie (2002): A Made-for-TV Movie; while more faithful to the novel than the 1976 adaptation, the ending features major Adaptation Deviation as the creators intended to follow it with a TV series, which wound up being rejected by the network.
• The Dead Zone (2002)
• Secret Window (2004): Based on Secret Window, Secret Garden from Four Past Midnight
• 1408 (2007)
• Children of the Corn (2009)
• Haven (2010): Based on The Colorado Kid (2005)
• Under the Dome (2013): Based on Under the Dome
• Carrie (2013)
• Big Driver (2014): Based on Big Driver from Full Dark, No Stars
• Mr. Mercedes (2016-2019): Season 1 is based on Mr. Mercedes; Season 2 is based on End of Watch; and Season 3 is based on Finders Keepers.
• The Dark Tower (2017)
• 1922 (2017): Based on 1922 from Full Dark, No Stars
• It (2017)
  • It: Chapter Two (2019)
• Doctor Sleep (2019)
• The Stand (2020)
• The Outsider (2020)
• Chapelwaite (2021): Based on Jerusalem's Lot from Night Shift
• Mr. Harrigan's Phone (2022)
• The Boogeyman (2023): Based on The Boogeyman from Night Shift

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This author's works (that don't have their own pages) include examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Shows up a LOT in his works, for both heroes and villains. They range from cold and distant to violent and even sexually abusive to outright villains.
• Action Survivor: King's protagonists are almost always (relatively) ordinary people unexpectedly thrust into supernatural or otherwise unpleasant circumstances, and do all they can just to survive.
• Addiction Displacement: He has described his writing as a substitute after his struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction and has said he now struggles to not write every day.
• The Alcoholic: Some of his main up in some of his works due to his own struggles with alcohol and drug addiction, most notably The Shining, its sequel Doctor Sleep, and The Tommyknockers.
• Aliens in Cardiff: In King's works, Maine is apparently America's very own Lovecraft State, what with all the Ancient Astronauts, Wendigos and Eldritch Abominations hanging out there.
• All First-Person Narrators Write Like Novelists: Various stories end as if it's someone writing up their memoirs.
• Anyone Can Die: Because King rarely starts out with a book's events graven in stone, no character is safe.
• Approval of God: Has gone on record to state that among his favorite adaptations of his works are Carrie (1976), Stand by Me, Misery and The Mist. He has also cited Storm of the Century as his favorite TV-related project.
• Attack of the Killer Whatever: He's written stories featuring killer clowns, killer dogs, killer cars, killer hotel rooms, killer army toys, and killer paintings.
• Author Appeal:
  • This shows up in several ways; as King himself has said, "write what you know." A lot of his stories are set in Maine. Many of his main characters are writers. Many have struggled or are struggling with addictions and/or marital problems. His characters, like King, have been janitors, teachers, writers, and laundry and textile-mill workers.
  • His love of rock music is also an incredibly pervasive element. If someone quotes a song, it's either very good, or very, very bad...
  • Baseball is also a recurring theme, whether directly or indirectly. At the least, virtually every Stephen King novel ever written mentions a character wearing a hat or t-shirt representing the local baseball team—even if it's a minor league team.
  • A somewhat bizarre case seems to show up not in his writing, but in the commentaries he does on the DVD versions of his mini-series. He always: 1) praises the mini-series format, and 2) bashes War and Remembrance for (according to him) single-handedly destroying the mini-series format.
  • Gary Hart is mentioned in a number of his works: becoming President in the short story "The Jaunt" and in an alternate universe in The Dark Tower (2004), and Paul Sheldon's car has a Hart for President bumper sticker.
  • King is a proud owner of a Welsh Corgi named Molly The Thing of Evil. The dog itself actually shows up in The Dark Tower series. More amusingly, a fictional corgi nearly saves the day in Under the Dome, though a human screws up the corgi's gift.
  • In an interview, King once mentioned he writes a lot about children, particularly when his kids were kids.
  • King is known for writing about things that scare him personally.
• Ax-Crazy: His favorite type of villains seem to be ones who are just frothing, sadistic lunatics. Even if they start out stable and polite on the surface, they often devolve into this by the end.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Characters often get what they wanted but with some serious caveats.
• 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. Ironically, many non-horror films adapted from his work, including "Stand by Me," "The Shawshank Redemption," and "Dolores Claiborne" (in other words, the best of them) have avoided using his name for the simple reason that consumers would mistake them for horror films when they were not.
• Bittersweet Ending: In most of his books (though not all; see the page The Bad Guy Wins for more on this), the good guys win... but always with big losses.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Several of his characters enjoy peanut butter and onion sandwiches.
• Black Comedy: Happens in the form of both grotesquely hilarious death and situations, and also when characters can't stop themselves from gasping in horrified laughter.
• Body Horror: Gruesome disfigurements and mutations pop up in several of his books. The Tommyknockers provides a shining example of the latter, as the alien spaceship's radiation gradually causes the townsfolk in Haven to lose teeth, develop waxy translucent skin, and their genitals transform into tentacles.
• Bookworm: As one would expect from a writer, he's a massive one and views it as essential to writing, even famously saying that if you don't have time to read, you don't have time to write.
• Bully Brutality: Part of his Signature Style. If a character is a bully or was one in his youth, expect him to be a sadistic villain, or at the very least absurdly Jerkass. They also are often Asshole Victims.
• By the Eyes of the Blind: If a character is deaf, blind, mute, in a coma, or intellectually impaired, you can be sure they'll have some kind of supernatural ability. Perhaps the ultimate version comes in "The 10 O'Clock People," when it turns out that only a very, very specific group of people (those who are trying to quit smoking but who ingest only a tiny amount of nicotine during their 10 o'clock smoke break) are capable of perceiving aliens.
• Central Theme: Despite most of his books being centered in the supernatural horror genre, childhood and the darker side of the human psyche seem to be two of the most common themes.
• Cluster F-Bomb: In On Writing, he cites his frequent use of foul language as an example of writing what you know.
• Continuity Nod: Many books make brief, casual, and often vague references to characters and/or events from previous King novels that may or may not have anything to do with the current novel, but that fans who have read those novels would be able to recognize. This flowchart is a good place to start.
• Cool Old Guy: In his seventies and still absurdly productive and as cool and witty as ever.
• Cozy Voice for Catastrophes: King is acclaimed for his folksy, down-home prose, often compared to a someone telling a stories around a campfire. He uses a lot of slang, a lot of pungent metaphor, and makes frequent reference to pop culture.
• Crapsack World: A recurring setting in many of his books: Even before the intervention of any kind of supernatural force, the main characters are usually portrayed having miserable lives in awful places were they are constanly abused and tormented. And if anything, the supernatural only serves to make things to go From Bad to Worse for them.
• Creator Cameo:
  • King often makes cameo appearances in the film adaptations of his works.
  • He'll also occasionally have characters in his novels mention some hack author up in Bangor who writes horror books.
  • In the books that were originally published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, characters will comment that events seem like something out of a Stephen King novel.
  • In Song of Susannah, King writes himself into the novel as a character. (He doesn't show up for long, and the other characters do not find him impressive.)
• 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).
• Deadpan Snarker: Often in his narrations as he is one in real life.
• Deal with the Devil: While rarely the literal devil, a recurring question in King's work is "how far will you go to get something you really, really want?", culminating in Needful Things, where this question becomes the major theme.
• Determinator: When it comes to his commitment to writing. His output is prodigious because he views writing as his job, he works at it every day, and rarely if ever takes a day off from writing. King is on record as stating that any writer who can't put out at least one book a year is spending too much time fucking around.
  • In a 2017 discussion forum with George R.R. Martin, King said that he commits himself to writing at least six pages a day, every day, but did admit that sometimes life does get in the way of it in the form of other things that require his attention. Even still, he does try to produce six pages. Incidentally, the question that prompted this discussion came from Martin himself: "How the fuck do you write so many books so fast?"
  • For years, King told interviewers that there were only three days in the year where he didn't write: Christmas, the fourth of July and his birthday. He later admitted that was a lie — he writes on those days too.
• Disappeared Dad: Appears in several of his works. His own father left his family when King was two.
• Doorstopper: He acknowledged this tendency of his in the author's note to one of his short story collections. "Every story wants to be a novel, and every novel wants to be approximately 3000 pages long." He once described himself as suffering from "Diarrhea of the word processor".
• Earn Your Happy Ending: He will occasionally give his characters a happy ending. He'll just put them through hell, possibly even literally, prior.
• Eldritch Abomination: A number of his works feature references to Lovecraftian Cosmic Horrors. Randall Flagg, a character from the The Dark Tower and The Stand, is directly compared to Nyarlathotep. All of the monsters in The Mist as well as the titular being from IT are other examples.
• Emotion Eater: Many of the supernatural monsters in King's stories are this. Pennywise is the most notable example as it feeds on the emotions of its victims, particularly their fear. The Scary Librarian from The Library Policeman also feeds on children's fear.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: If the villain in a story communicates at all, it's almost guaranteed that it's going to be constantly cracking jokes that are both tasteless and unfunny. And even if it doesn't, expect the protagonist to have an inner voice that keeps taunting them with gleefully inappropriate comments.
• Evil Is Petty: Many of his villains aren't just evil in a "destroying the world" way. They often go out of their way to be awful in an everyday way for no other reason than that they can.
• Faux Affably Evil: His villains can be very charismatic, with Randall Flagg, Pennywise and Leland Gaunt being standouts. If someone in a King story seems sinister but has good manners, it's a pretty safe bet that they REALLY shouldn't be trusted.
• A Fête Worse than Death
• Flanderization: The fantasy and drama elements to his novels are often downplayed in favor of his conventional horror influences. He himself has stated that he never saw himself as a horror writer.
• For the Evulz: Quite a few of his villains do what they do for no reason other than sheer sadism.
• From Bad to Worse: Big time.
• Giant Spider: King is an admitted 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: If an outlandish scheme actually works out in a King story, you can bet it won't be in the way the characters had hoped.
• Greater-Scope Villain: With the Canon Welding: the Crimson King becomes this.
• Groin Attack: Frequently of the non-comedic variety.
• Hate Sink: If the central villain or anti-hero is too sympathetic or charismatic or just too entertaining to truly hate or it's a supernatural entity or creature just following its instincts, he's usually happy to provide someone else to take the reader's vitriol, Percy Whetmore being a perfect example.
• Haunted Technology: Sometimes the technology is literally haunted (as in "The Mangler"), sometimes the force is more mysterious and magical (as in "The Word Processor of the Gods"), and sometimes ordinary technology simply has unforeseeable and horrific results (as in Cell).
• Homage: "A man's life is five dogs long." This quote plays a peculiar homage to Ernest Hemingway in the novella "UR".
• Humanity Is Insane: He's fond of this trope.
• I Am Not Spock: invoked Discussed in the afterword of Different Seasons. King recounts how around the time of his second and third books, his agent was fretting that he would be stereotyped as a horror writer, and King decided the hell with it and to go ahead and play into the stereotype. It seems to have worked out okay for him.
• 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, 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 Dreamcatcher, "The Mist"), and that a character who was intended to die can wind up surviving through application of a previously-established resourcefulness ('Salem's Lot, Misery.) There have been exceptions where he tried to fit a story into a particular path, but the only one he 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 in installments, and admitted in the foreword of the first book that he himself may not even know how this thing ends. The resolution to the subplot with Mr. Jingles the mouse was added at the last minute when his wife asked what happened to him; King himself had completely forgotten he'd written a seemingly immortal mouse into the story.
• In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: Strangely 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, even though the Pan and Scan Laserdisc version still has it labelled and presented as "Stephen King's 'The Lawnmower Man'".
• Kill the Cutie: Irrevocably linked with Anyone Can Die above. King is not above killing off the cute kid (as exemplified in Cujo and Pet Sematary, or the only nice character in the whole book.
• Lovecraft Country: This trope may as well be called "King Country" for how many of his stories have been set in New England (especially Maine).
• Lovecraft Lite: For all the nasty things going on, King's heroes often manage to defeat the Eldritch Abomination, sometimes by The Power of Friendship, sometimes by telling it "I'm not afraid of you", and sometimes just by punching out Cthulhu.
• Magical Negro: King has admitted in interviews that he tends to overuse this trope, attributing it to his own White Guilt.
• Mature Work, Child Protagonists: Many of his works have children at the center of the story, but a children's author, he ain't. His juvenile characters are at no less risk than his adult ones for having all sorts of nasty things to happen to them; while they do stand a better chance at living to the end than the adults, that doesn't always save them.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Many of his lead characters are themselves writers, to the point that it's a surprise when they aren't.
• Murder by Inaction: In one book a young boy's father has a heart attack in the woods, and he tells the boy to run to the house and get his pills. But on the way to the house, the boy starts thinking about all the horrific sexual abuses his father has inflicted on him, and starts running slower and slower until he's at a leisurely walk. And what do you know, he’s too late.
• New England Puritan: Comes up frequently in his work. Some notable examples:
  • Carrie: Margaret White is a fundamentalist to the extreme, believing sex even within marriage is wrong and routinely going door to door to evangelize. This results in her and her daughter being outcasts in their own town.
  • The Mist: Mrs. Carmody is primarily known around town for her rabid faith. However, she ends up getting a following after a mysterious mist envelops the town, trapping the survivors in a supermarket.
  • Under the Dome: Lester Coggins, pastor of the Christ the Holy Redeemer church. He engages in self-flagellation and believes the Dome is a sign from God. It looks like he's being set up as an antagonist like Margaret White and Mrs. Carmody. He turns out to be a Red Herring, though, as he gets killed by Big Jim less than a third of the way through the book, when he tells Jim he feels that he must confess to the congregation that they've been running a meth lab.
  • Cycle of the Werewolf: Lester Lowe is the town's Baptist minister. He's also the werewolf that's been terrorizing the town. While at first he doesn't realize this, once he finds out he's a werewolf, he uses his faith to justify his actions.
• Next Sunday A.D.: Many of his books are set a few months after publication.
• Odd Friendship: One of his closest friends is humorist and professional booger-joke writer Dave Barry.
• Orifice Invasion: Occasionally a cat, rat, or other creature would enter someone's body, usually through the mouth. Those that die from it are the lucky ones.
• Pen Name: Richard Bachman, who "wrote" some of King's most pointedly cynical, brutal, and balls-to-the-wall insane works.
  • In a reissued collection of the "Bachman" books, King wrote a very long introduction giving various reasons why he chose to use a pen name for some of his stories. It seemed to boil down to "because I felt like it". However, in recent years, he stated that he wanted to see if his books were selling well just because of his name or because they were actually good. He has stated that the Bachman stories tend toward a much more pessimistic and cynical view of the world (both from the characters' and the writer's perspective) and are much more likely to end on a downer note, often with the death of the protagonist.
  • Another reason for the pen name was, because he was putting out so many books within a short timespan, his publishers were concerned that this would overwhelm his fans and readers in general and lessen sells. They suggested a pen name for some books to balance things out.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Almost all of his human, non-supernatural villains (and even then some of the nonhuman, supernatural ones) are racist, sexist, or homophobic to some degree.
• Psychic Powers: A great number of his books at the very least touch some manifestation of psychic phenomena, which is called "the Shine" in his Verse.
• Riddle for the Ages: Mr. King loves (in his short fiction, at least) to drop something that just shouldn't be right in the reader's lap and then refuse to explain how or why. Examples include the long, long finger coming out of the drain in "The Moving Finger," the big feline lounging around in an elementary school's bathroom in "Here There Be Tygers," the carnivorous "car" in "Mile 81," and, in a more obscure little tale, "The Reploids," just where Edward Paladin came from and where Johnny Carson went to. As he states in the "Notes" section of Nightmares & Dreamscapes:
  My favorite sort of short story has always been the kind where things happen just because they happen. In novels and movies (save for movies starring fellows like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger), you are supposed to explain why things happen. Let me tell you something, friends and neighbors: I hate explaining why things happen, and my efforts in that direction (such as the doctored LSD and resultant DNA changes which create Charlie McGee's pyrokinetic talents in Firestarter) aren't very good....In short stories, the author is still sometimes allowed to say, "This happened. Don't ask me why."
• Rule of Symbolism: He discusses his own use of it in On Writing.
• Science Is Bad: His books frequently contain passages where the characters or narration scoff at science and decry scientists and people who put too much stock in them as Know-Nothing-Know-It-Alls. The truth is invariably found in folk wisdom, lived experience and (occasionally) religion.
• Shades of Conflict: Morality can sometimes change depending on the book. Sometimes its traditional Black-and-White Morality, sometimes its Grey-and-Grey Morality, and sometimes even Black-and-Grey Morality.
• Shout-Out: Has named some characters after real-life colleagues. Example: In the Castle Rock stories, the devious Verrill family is named after King's agent, Chuck Verrill.
• Shown Their Work: The solar eclipse that connects the three books of the "abused wife" trilogy was a real solar eclipse that happened in 1963.
• Simultaneous Arcs
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Varies from book to book. The Stand and The Dead Zone rank on the idealistic side. Cujo, Pet Sematary and The Mist are far, far on the cynical. Books like The Shining and It are in the middle. Halloran's quote from the end of The Shining sums things up.
  The world's a hard place, Danny. It don't care. It don't hate you and me, but it don't love us, either. Terrible things happen in the world, and they're things no one can explain.
  The world don't love you but your momma does and so do I. You're a good boy.
  See that you get on. That's your job in this had world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on.
• Small Town, Big Hell: A recurring element in his novels, where small town open secrets and tensions are often exploited by dark, supernatural figures:
  • 'Salem's Lot: The close-knit town of Jerusalem's Lot, where everybody knows everybody and gossip spreads quickly via the town party line. Unfortunately, they almost all quickly fall under the sway of the vampire king Kurt Barlow.
  • Needful Things: The sinister Leland Gaunt sets up shop in Castle Rock, and begins turning up the simmering personal and religious tensions between the townsfolk.
  • Storm of the Century: King's "novel for television." With all of the shared secrets and rumors between the people of Little Tall Island, it's amazing they didn't start killing each other BEFORE Andre Linoge comes to town to set them against each other.
• Southern Gothic Satan: Recurring villain Randall Flagg — a quasi-immortal dimension-traveling, time-traveling mystery man also known as the Walkin' Dude, the Man in Black, the Ageless Stranger, Walter o'Dim, Marten Broadcloak, and many more, possibly including Needful Things' Leland Gaunt. Flagg first appeared in The Stand as a post-apocalyptic Evil Overlord based in Las Vegas, was pursued by Roland as the Man in Black in The Gunslinger, and returned to his old name of Flagg in The Eyes of The Dragon.
• Spoilers: King is notorious for revealing character deaths and other plot twists much earlier in a narrative than most authors would.
• Squick: Invoked in Danse Macabre when King describes his method.
  I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.
• Supernatural Hotspot Town: Castle Rock is a small Maine town that's the setting of several of his novels, thus serving as a hotspot for the supernatural and paranormal. From the devilish Leland Gaunt setting up a novelty shop that's actually a malevolent charm designed to drive its customers into murderous insanity in Needful Things, a twelve-year-old girl given a strange box capable of improving her life and causing tragic events across the world from a mysterious stranger in Gwendys Button Box, a young boy being visited by the titular Man in the Black Suit who happens to be the devil to strange, unexplainable events happening to a house in the town, which seems to be taking a life of its own in "It Grows on You" and so on.
• Take That!:
  • Often toward ignorant right-wingers or educated snobs. (Ignorant left-wingers are usually Too Dumb to Live and never get the chance to be parodied.)
  • Several books also contain more-or-less friendly jabs at Dean Koontz.
  • Danse Macabre, King's overview of the horror genre from 1950-1980, is loaded with them, ranging from playful jabs to injurious wallops. Among others, Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Amityville Horror (both the book and the 1979 film), Kolchak: The Night Stalker and the novels of John Saul all take hits.
• Teens Are Monsters: Ranging from simple bullies to complete psychotics.
• Theme Initials: R.F.
• Tom Swifty: He has a low opinion of Swifties, if his comment about them in his memoir/manual of style On Writing is any indication.
  When debating whether or not to make some pernicious dandelion of an adverb part of your dialogue attribution, I suggest you ask yourself if you really want to write the sort of prose that might wind up in a party game.
• Town with a Dark Secret: The titular 'Salem's Lot might be the best (worst?) offender. Other towns that repeatedly pop up are Derry, Castle Rock, and Tarker's Mills (Cycle of the Werewolf, mentioned in Under the Dome)
• Unconventional Formatting: To varying, subtle degrees in several of his novels and stories.
• 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.
• Weirdness Magnet: He has described himself using this exact term (when telling Conan O'Brien a story about a guy dressed as Ronald McDonald taking the seat directly next to him on an airplane).
• White Guilt: King has admitted in interviews that this is likely behind his tendency to overuse the Magical Negro trope.
• Workaholic: The man seems incapable of not writing for any extended period of time and has even described it as an addiction.
• Working-Class Hero: Many of King's protagonists tend to be working-class or come from such a background.
• A World Half Full: Some people are horrible, some are wonderful, some are somewhere in between. There will be senseless tragedies, and there will be unearned miracles. Making peace with life being a mixed bag is a frequent theme.
• Would Hurt a Child: Children are frequently the targets of King's villains, and not only do many meet gruesome ends, the villains often enjoy it to no end. Yes, you read that correctly.

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