Stephen King Needs An Editor

His writing has always been bloated, dear.

His early novels were tight.

OP types 1989.

I hate when he calls himself 'Uncle Stevie.'

Okay, here's the story. When King was still young and willing to listen, he had one of the best editors editors in the business, a guy named Alan Williams. Williams was simply a genius as an editor and shaped King's prose perfectly.

At some point, around Christine, I think, King decided he didn't need Williams any more. He eventually went off to Scribner, where the editors there were far too afraid of him to do any editing (they might do things like, in a 500 page manuscript, say something like, "Oh there's a typo on page 421, perhaps you might correct that." Otherwise they just let his increasingly flat and dead prose style succeed.

This is why King's early books, especially Salem's Lot and The Shining, seem to be so much better than his later books.

Is there more gossip about him? He seems like such an odd man.

Wasn't he sexually abused by his dad?

R5, I love you! Thank you for that, and if you have any more literary dish, please feel free to create a thread for it.

His books got to be too bloated with random side plots and characters that were irrelevant and made his books a chore to read.

For example the protagonist buys a six pack of beer at a liquor store, and now we’re following the life of Betty, the cashier, and her alcoholic husband.

Who cares.

The original version of The Stand was perhaps his best novel, until he insisted it be republished without the edit. It then almost doubled in size and became impossible to read. Boring as hell, too.

Tried reading it multiple times. Too tedious.

When does The Stand air?

"The woman who gave birth to the original writer of this thread has a body that is swollen from too many years of pork rinds and other grease soaked foods purchased at whatever traveling carnival was passing through her dismal hamlet on a night when she wasn't staring blankly at the television set showing whatever "real" housewife was currently throwing a hysterical shrieking fit while upending a table festooned with the watered down martinis of some "swank" eatery."