I already know what the literary world thinks of Stephen King, and I mostly agree with Harold Bloom. But that's not the point, really, as I am trying to learn to write horror that people would like.
I thought it'd be best to start studying Stephen King's works to find out what he does that makes him sell by the gazillions. I read through wikipedia synopsis of his books and picked one that interested me - The Girl Who Liked Tom Gordon.
Pic related is the first two pages of the same. I read the first two chapters and it is all like one big useless infodump. I am not even sure if I want to continue.. is this because I am not American /lit/? I just wanted to reach into the book and slap the shit out of the author and tell him to get to the point. Yet, I hear all the time he is the greatest storyteller, if not the greatest writer.
From the representative sample of pic related, can you tell me what you like or dislike about it? Why is it that from finding the synopsis interesting I went all the way to nope after the first forty pages or so in a damn 150 page novel. I just wanted to learn how to scare readers effectively, keeping them gasping for breath. That's all.
>>7784600
It's a big booku with characters being lengthily introduced and fleshed out and interacting, isn't it? Not a creepy short story which are usually better anyway unless all that fleshing out makes things more horrific.
>>7784617
Where does your pic come from?
>>7784635
tumblr
>>7784600
Who is this literary world you are talking about apart from Harold Bloom?
I have yet to find any better horror than "The Yellow Sign." Everything else just provokes superficial feelings. Where is all the real horror? Who has accurately portrayed the essence of true terror and dread? Who has spun stories around the real horrors of reality? Who has glimpsed the universal horror that pervades all sentient life? Is there anyone who has put the true horror of reality into words?
>>7784664
>www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/YellSign.shtml
Is this what you're talking about? Lemme read and get back.
OP is a faggot and a sell-out.
I didn't read that one. And I don't think I've ever been scared by SK, except when I was 12 and read The Shining. But I'm not expecting to be scared by any of his stuff anyway, just to have fun. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
Maybe you would like a different book of his.
I think siding with Bloom is what's blocking you from "understanding" horror and why King is so successful at doing what he does.
Lovecraft was panned and/or ignored by the Blooms of his time much like King is now, and yet now we hail him as the father of modern horror.
>>7784600
Read Lovecrafts "Supernatural Horror in Literature", Ann Radcliffe's "On the Supernatural in Poetry" and Kant's "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime".
>>7784723
Lovecraft's*
>>7784600
I've read that one, it's more of a novella than anything else. As a rule, King's short stories are much better than his longer works. He doesn't know how to rein himself in. Even in his shorter stuff, as you've noted, he doesn't condense as much as he could. That is how Stephen King writes. It's the thing he's criticized on the most and he's shown repeatedly over the years that he doesn't care. Stephen King is not the end-all-be-all of horror lit. If you don't like him it doesn't mean that you don't like horror, it means you don't like Stephen King. Go read something else.
There is something very American about his work. In OP's book, I don't understand why anyone would care about all the details of baseball teams. Baseball is not even popular outside USA. The title of the work is after an actual baseball player - non-Americans wouldn't know that. Even the chapter titles are baseball-based. King is basically the chronicler of white middle class America. Suburb-bred white middle class Americans read him because he gives an almost folklore-like spin to their ordinary lives. Typically of Americans, he doesn't bother to explain what he's talking about for the foreigner (unlike writers from other cultures). I see the same thing in Joyce Carol Oates.
But somehow this defect isn't present in Saul Bellow, Steinbeck or Toni Morrison. I guess that is why the latter have an enduring, universal quality that these writers don't. Some guy from the Nobel Committee did say that Americans won't get the prize because they were insular and don't read enough. Stephen King makes it apparent.
>>7784869
>this defect
It's a benefit imo
>>7784869
>the Nobel Committee did say that Americans won't get the prize because they were insular and don't read enough.
Haters gonna hate.
I read The Dreamcatcher from Stephen King a long time ago and have no intention of ever reading anything from him again.
>>7784869
Pretty spot on
>>7784690
Don't get me wrong, I've read the some so-called literary horror as well. John Fowles' The Collectors and Magus, Faulkner's Rose for Emily and a few others. They just don't sell.
