Why Stephen King Is the King

I am a person who really does not have a taking to horror. I have tried picking up a Stephen King book and getting through it, but it was a horrible experience where I had nightmares that were constant. I had to immediately rush to the nearest library and throw the book into the return slot and never thought about it again. Now, you might be asking me, how do I know that he is the best horror novelist out there? Well, for starters, he has sold 350 million copies of his books and he has written at least 88, and any author can tell you that is a lot of books to write. However, I was taking a class for creative writing and one of my profs, whom I admire to this day, has told me that if you are going to read any book, it must be Stephen King's On Writing:A Memoir of the Craft. So I bought it at Value Village and I started reading. He starts off with his childhood and how we grew up. There was a story of when he got an ear infection, and every little detail of the sounds of what he felt made it seem so agonizing and real, that I understood why he wrote horror. He took a simple childhood story and he turned it into a horror story of the ear infection. That's what made me realize that anyone can be a writer, anyone can be a horror writer. You take a simple story, and bit by bit, you add parts and words that make it terrifying—and there you go, you have a book.

Other than life stories, there are also some good pieces of advice to those who want to be a writer. He says that good writers are avid readers and that is very true. All writers learn to write from reading other authors and exploring different genres. I would be a much better writer by now if I had starting liking reading at a much younger age. When I was attending university, I was reading night and day and that was a huge part that I miss about school, and possibly the only reason I want to go back.

His next piece of advice is practice, practice, practice. I have heard this advice many times before from my parents when I had math class, but I was not understanding the concept. All I had to do was practice the same type of problems over and over again, but it hurt my head to do so. I do practice writing. I consider writing these articles good practice, not only practice for good writing, but practice for rejection and that is what an author needs to take.

Symbolism. In many books and in English classes symbolism is a very well talked about subject. Especially in high school, but for authors such as Stephen King, symbolism is very rarely considered. It usually happens by accident. You can look at your own life and almost see symbolism in it. Especially when considering your personality and who are. For example, if you walked into a store and stole something, but then you came back and returned it, it could have been a symbol for your growth or maturity.

Agatha Christie is a a very well-known novelist and she has written more books than anyone ever has—she is the queen of mystery. To be a king of horror is honestly more impressive to me, because once writing characters that are meant to be creepy, those characters become alive in your mind and you study how they move and how they think, and you express that in writing. I have tried writing horrors myself, but I end up freaking myself out and going to bed with the light on. It is something that not all of us can handle, and the fact that Stephen King can makes him the king of horror novels.