Why Do You Think Stephen King Is So Famous?

Celia Cyanide

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I think he's the bomb. I like his writing. But what do you think it is about Stephen King that has given him such great name recognition for SO LONG, even among those who are not that interested in literature?
 
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The words SO LONG are part of it, I believe. His career longevity makes him recognisable even to people who don't read his books.

I've probably read more than I remember, but his writing doesn't shine for me. However, I'm an admirer of his tell-it-like-it-is attitude, and his work ethic.
 

Bracken

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I think he's both talented and relate-able; he appeals to and connects with the masses in a way that more "literary"- and perhaps even more talented- authors don't and can't.

I first read a number of his books in middle school- Christine, Carrie, IT, Cujo, Pet Cemetery, some anthologies of short stories- and I understood them, for the most part, even at that age. I understood them well enough to get the crap scared out of me, which is the whole point!

If a 13 year old kid can basically understand and relate to his stories (and I was no genius; just an average bright kid) and so can a college-educated adult, then he's really on to something. He's got an incredibly broad appeal.
 
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Jamie Stone

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You know, I've been thinking of reading some of his books as I've never read any of them before. I always assumed that he was like a lot of the authors that put out dozens of books a year, and that the quality suffered for the quantity. What would you guys recommend as his best works? I'm not big into horror per se, but I have liked the movies of his work I've seen like Creepshow 2, Misery, Shawshank Redemption, the Shining, and Nightmares and Dreamscapes... I was thinking of picking up The Gunslinger.
 

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Exactly what Bracken said. I think his appeal is the fact he has had a long career, lots of books out there, and they are appealing to people from ages 10 to 100. I read Needful Things when I was 9 (I was a precocious child) and loved it. He's the reason I really skipped YA and went on to adult before I knew what I was doing. Of course, now that I'm in my 20s and trying to write for teens I read YA, but I still buy anything and everything that Stephen King comes out with. It's not the best writing per say, but that's not important when it's good storytelling.
 

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I think he came around at the right time for horror. Much of the horror written before him was rather B-quality double creature feature type stuff, and he focused a lot on creating believable characters whom a lot of people could relate to. He prided himself on telling human stories that just happened to have supernatural elements, and it was the characters who mattered the most to him.

I want to say that he legitimized horror into the mainstream market. You could argue that Lovecraft and Poe did horror better, but King's horror was more accessible.
 
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SPMiller

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It's not complicated. He was one of the best horror writers of the 70s-80s, and horror as a genre was more relevant in those Cold War days. Because King's novels were unusually filmable, his stories were introduced to massive audiences via the silver screen. That's all.
 

Jehhillenberg

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I agree Cybernaught.

King is cool and inspired me long ago to write horror. But yes, his long career contributes to his popularity. I'm sure it took him some time to get to where he is (like back in the 70's perhaps). A lot of his books and short stories get turned into movies, series, miniseries and since he's the regarded author he is, he's gets a say and even makes an appearance on the screen inspired by his works. I enjoy his stuff.
 

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I'm not a fan of his work (not really a fan of horror books, in general), but I think understand the appeal because it's so relateable: the family car, the family dog, the little girl down the lane the girl next door, clowns, a Good Samaritan. Many things that might seem harmless and taken for granted are suddenly the basis of our fears and turned inside out (sometimes literally?). True fear and horror can be easily disguised and will strike when we least expect it. Easily filmable is just a by-product of the popularlity of his work; I don't think the publishers had that in mind when they first picked up Carrie.
 

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Lets not forget his agent/agents...

I am sure he/she/they had a big part in branding the SK name to publishers and the Hollywood set.
 

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I think Stephen King is one of the best prose stylists in the English language. He also has very tight character-driven plots. My favorites of his are "Salem's Lot" and "Pet Sematary" (the latter of which has four or five pages of what may be his best work, contained in a flashback sequence).
 

Xelebes

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It's not complicated. He was one of the best horror writers of the 70s-80s, and horror as a genre was more relevant in those Cold War days. Because King's novels were unusually filmable, his stories were introduced to massive audiences via the silver screen. That's all.

Basically sums it up.
 

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Because he's a great storyteller. Whatever else you may think about him, he's downright easy to read, without being simplistic.

And he found the sweet spot between mass appeal and writing which is complex enough to interest people for whom plot is not enough. But most of all, voice. It appeals to so many different people, but why that is the case is is unknowable.

He is occasionally clumsy sometimes, but it you write five hundred books of a thousand pages each, you're going to have the occasional bumble.

But he's also a skilled technician, despite those lapses. In IT, he manages five or six different viewpoints, skipping backward and forward in time with each one. It's hard to pull that off and make the story even comprehensible, much less interesting. Try it sometime.

And yet, it's not confusing in the slightest. It's done so skillfully that the average reader doesn't even notice it.

Also, I have it on good authority that he made a deal with the devil.
 

DeleyanLee

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I think he's the bomb. I like his writing. But what do you think it is about Stephen King that has given him such great name recognition for SO LONG, even among those who are not that interested in literature?

1. He writes damned good stories that lots of people want to read. Consistently. For many years.

2. He has name recognition not only for his books, but for his work in movies, TV, awards, controversy, getting hit by a van and surviving, etc. Translated, he's made the inter/national news often enough that even if you don't read that much, you've run into his name.
 

Bracken

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1. He writes damned good stories that lots of people want to read. Consistently. For many years.

2. He has name recognition not only for his books, but for his work in movies, TV, awards, controversy, getting hit by a van and surviving, etc. Translated, he's made the inter/national news often enough that even if you don't read that much, you've run into his name.

True dat.
Especially back in the 1980s, he was a sort of media celebrity, in a way that authors, however popular, rarely are.
How many authors would be widely recognized on sight, the way he is/was?
This had to do with the fact that he made cameo appearances in most of his own movies, and also gave a lot of interviews and just generally appeared in public a lot.
He has a distinctive appearance and a (possibly cultivated) eccentric personality which made him perhaps more entertaining than the average writer.
In this regard, he reminds me of another prolific "celebrity author" of the 1980s- Jackie Collins.
Not that their work was at all similar, beyond being wildly popular, but their celebrity status was similar.
 

Celia Cyanide

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In this regard, he reminds me of another prolific "celebrity author" of the 1980s- Jackie Collins.
Not that their work was at all similar, beyond being wildly popular, but their celebrity status was similar.

I see the similarity, certainly. However, the comparison only proves to me that King has something that she does not.

I've read very little of his fiction, but I am utterly sold on him from his non-fiction. Any time I read his column in Entertainment Weekly, The Pop Of King, I would be referencing it for years when a subject he spoke about came up in conversation. The only thing I say more often than, "I read this Stephen King essay about that" is, "Did you see the South Park episode about that?"
 

Cybernaught

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Let's not forget his stellar directorial debut with Maximum Overdrive. On second thought, let's just forget that.
 

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1. He writes damned good stories that lots of people want to read. Consistently. For many years.

2. He has name recognition not only for his books, but for his work in movies, TV, awards, controversy, getting hit by a van and surviving, etc. Translated, he's made the inter/national news often enough that even if you don't read that much, you've run into his name.
How much he loathes Stephenie Meyer's writing...

Oh, yeah. I went there. Booyah!
 

blacbird

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I think he's the bomb. I like his writing. But what do you think it is about Stephen King that has given him such great name recognition for SO LONG, even among those who are not that interested in literature?

1. He's a very talented writer.

2. He hit on a poorly-mined resource of story genre, at the right time.

3. He's energetic and prolific.

4. He's a damn good personal salesman. He's appeared as an actor in several movies based in his work.

caw
 

Ari Meermans

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1. He writes damned good stories that lots of people want to read. Consistently. For many years.

2. He has name recognition not only for his books, but for his work in movies, TV, awards, controversy, getting hit by a van and surviving, etc. Translated, he's made the inter/national news often enough that even if you don't read that much, you've run into his name.

I think that second point sums up what makes him famous apart from his writing.

But when it comes to his writing, King is quite simply a master at foreshadowing and creating imagery, especially haunting imagery. Many use "simplistic" or "simple" to describe his writing style. It is and it isn't. He uses simple language, true. But no other author can set me down on a quiet small-town street under a cloudless sky and make me feel as chilled by a glint of sunlight on the fender of a bicycle. I sense the menace but I'm never quite sure why I do . . . yet.
 

nighttimer

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You know, I've been thinking of reading some of his books as I've never read any of them before. I always assumed that he was like a lot of the authors that put out dozens of books a year, and that the quality suffered for the quantity. What would you guys recommend as his best works? I'm not big into horror per se, but I have liked the movies of his work I've seen like Creepshow 2, Misery, Shawshank Redemption, the Shining, and Nightmares and Dreamscapes... I was thinking of picking up The Gunslinger.

I prefer Stephen King in his early-to-middle years in the late Seventies through the Eighties. I believe that was his prime time as a writer. The Shining, Salem's Lot, Different Seasons and even The Stand (which is not a good starting point unless you're into length and at times overlength).

The fall-off of King in the Nineties is pretty steep as he hacked out some of his worst books in his drug addiction and post-near fatal accident phase (Dreamcatcher with it's "ass weasles" aliens is probably rock-bottom King with From a Buick 8 almost as pointless)

I kicked my King habit for good after Cell and have no interest in investing any more of my beer money in his books. If I catch one for half-price somewhere I might, but I'm not going out of my way looking for it.

The secret to King's success is as others have said; he showed up at the right time when horror had faded in prominence. He's a simple writer without much in the way of flourish even if he does have his pretensions. King has compared his writing style to McDonald's hamburgers: tasty, if not exactly gourmet.

His unadorned style lends itself to Hollywood and that's done nothing to lessen his popularity. I admire King without always being impressed by him. He's given me a fair share of scares and I've given him a fair share of my cash. Seems like a fair trade.
 

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1. He writes damned good stories that lots of people want to read. Consistently. For many years.

2. He has name recognition not only for his books, but for his work in movies, TV, awards, controversy, getting hit by a van and surviving, etc. Translated, he's made the inter/national news often enough that even if you don't read that much, you've run into his name.

Yes! Very true!
 

firedrake

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For anyone interested, there's a King interview at the Paris Review site. Might be worth a read even for those who aren't a fan. It's always interesting to hear someone like King talk about his writing career.

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5653/the-art-of-fiction-no-189-stephen-king

Good interview.

I'm not a fan of his work (not really a fan of horror books, in general), but I think understand the appeal because it's so relateable: the family car, the family dog, the little girl down the lane the girl next door, clowns, a Good Samaritan. Many things that might seem harmless and taken for granted are suddenly the basis of our fears and turned inside out (sometimes literally?). True fear and horror can be easily disguised and will strike when we least expect it. Easily filmable is just a by-product of the popularlity of his work; I don't think the publishers had that in mind when they first picked up Carrie.

That's what I like about King, the small everyday things that can turn into something unspeakable. I like his portrait of small town life and small town minds.
His writing just flows easily for me. I haven't liked everything he's written and I agree with Nighttimer that his best stuff was in the 70s and 80s. He's gone through peaks and troughs, written stuff I hate and stuff I love, but when you produce that many books not every one is going to be universally adored.