stephen king c/d?

I finished reading _The Wind Through the Keyhole_ tonight and now have finished reading all of the Dark Tower novels. I liked this one better than some (_Song of Susannah_ is the most entirely unmemorable thing I have read this year).

Two reasons I thought it worked better than some of the other books in the series: 1. in terms of the series, it comes before the annoying part where he writes himself in as a character and 2. I liked the structure of a story within a story tucked into the main story.

Repeating myself, but only to make a point, I read his short stories a lot as a kid, but what novels of his I read probably came after seeing the movies: Carrie, Salem's Lot, Christine. I never read The Shining, but I did read Pet Sematary. Anyway what continues to throw me for a loop is On Writing, which is simply one of the best books about writing ever written. Stephen King may or may not be a good writer, but he is undoubtedly good at writing, maybe even great at writing. There are crap bestseller writers out the ass, but most never come close to King, despite all his flaws. Which is so weird, because I really don't think, again, that he is a good writer. Just really good at churning them out, but thanks to hard work rather than strict hack work, No cynical hack would ever cross the 400 page mark as much as this dude does.

Reminds me, loosely, of Upton Sinclair. When There Will Be Blood came out, I recall looking into Sinclair, thinking, huh, I know The Jungle and nothing else, let alone Oil! It turns out that Sinclair wrote something like 90 books, and many of them were bestsellers! And yet, a century later, most people can only name one of them. King, I imagine, will fare a lot better than that, though I have no idea under what auspices. Certainly as a gateway to genre, or a teen/tween slightly less than transgressive talisman/tamizdat, passed down from sibling and peer to sibling and peer.

the annoying part where he writes himself in as a character

This is seriously the worst thing he ever did in forty years of writing novels, and I've read

Insomnia

meant to italicize that not quote it obviously

Agree with all above on the important point that Full Dark No Stars is an entirely unexpected late-period masterpiece, his best book post-1980 I think

^ will read, as i've been out of touch for far too long

No cynical hack would ever cross the 400 page mark as much as this dude does.

george r.r. martin begs to differ

nah, that's cruel

but like every lousy "epic fantasy" hack to thread

i dunno, maybe terry brooks is an unsung master

Donaldson, erikson

donaldson seems to get his due, erikson i know nothing about, sounds intriguing

I've been re-reading a lot of King over the last year. Currently tackling The Tommyknockers.

Cujo was much better and less slight than I remembered it to be. The Talisman is still great, and I would love someone to really adapt it as a miniseries on cable. It would need to be a period piece set in the 80s, because like so much of King's work it just FEELS very much of its time. He is (or was) such a keen chronicler of the brand-name laden specifics of a certain kind of American life that his novels take on the character of the decade they come from.

Fantasy dudes don't count as hacks, because they pretty much deal in volume. By hack I'm thinking more of folks like, dunno, Dan Brown, who seems to be an objectively bad writer. Or ... Dean Koontz? Who is the dude who hires other people to write his books?

god?

God only assigns on spec.

James Patterson.

Tom clancy

Clive Cussler

James Patterson! Totally that dude is who I was thinking of.

James Patterson admits he is simply more proficient at dreaming up plots than crafting sentence after sentence. He often credits his ghostwriters as “co-authors” on his covers.

BTW:

Patterson has written 95 novels since 1976.[3] He has had 19 consecutive No. 1 New York Times bestselling novels, and holds The New York Times record for most bestselling hardcover fiction titles by a single author, a total of 76, which is also a Guinness World Record.[4] His novels account for one in 17 of all hardcover novels sold in the United States; in recent years his novels have sold more copies than those of Stephen King, John Grisham and Dan Brown combined

2010 article on Patterson and the way his operation works.

The way it usually works, Patterson will write a detailed outline — sometimes as long as 50 pages, triple-spaced — and one of his co-authors will draft the chapters for him to read, revise and, when necessary, rewrite. When he’s first starting to work with a new collaborator, a book will typically require numerous drafts. Over time, the process invariably becomes more efficient. Patterson pays his co-authors out of his own pocket. On the adult side, his collaborators work directly and exclusively with Patterson. On the Y.A. side, they sometimes work with Patterson’s young-adult editor, who decides when pages are ready to be passed along to Patterson.

triple-spaced!!!

As long as 50 pages, triple-spaced.

As long as 25 pages, double-spaced.

As long as 10 or so pages, single-spaced.

A Post-It note, but in very small handwriting.

We all know he must hire people to write his outlines, right? He just leans back in a recliner and dictates to whomever is within earshot.

"Take a memo: a police detective tracks down a serial killer, who is trapped ... in his mind."

"Two police officers race to solve a series of crimes that turn out to be a twisted scavenger hunt devised by a serial killer."

"A detective is called out of retirement to solve a strange murder ... on the moon!"

"One dark and stormy night, a small town is beset by lightning. Ghost lightning. Like, the lightning is haunted. Anyway, you'll figure it out."

I've never read James Patterson.

You weren't far off.

James Patterson books always have really large print too, I guess to make ppl go "this has 500 pages but I read it in an hour, it must be a real page-turner!" He is the worst. Bet king has praised him tho

SPECULATIVE TITLES OF FUTURE THRILLERS BY JAMES PATTERSON.
BY MATT SULLIVAN, mcsweeneys.net
- - - -
The Farmer In The Dell
Gently Down The Stream
Jack Be Nimble
…Was His Name-o
Skid-a-Marink
His Wife Could Eat No Lean
Hush, Little Baby
On Top Of Spaghetti
…May Break My Bones
Hi-ho, The Derry-o
The Cheese Stands Alone
His Name Is My Name, Too
And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon

Somebody who’s a terrific writer who’s been very, very successful is Jodi Picoult. You’ve got Dean Koontz, who can write like hell. And then sometimes he’s just awful. It varies. James Patterson is a terrible writer but he’s very very successful.”

ugggggggggggh James Patterson

Oh you know what, if that's from his Paris review interview I've actually read him saying that! He does rep for some shite tho xp

From a USA Today interview, I think.

No, maybe that was the Guardian?

Anyway:

What do you like to read when you’re not writing?

I read a lot of weird stuff…like Thomas Merton’s letters. I got hooked on Merton a long time ago. Somebody just sent me his letters. I read a lot of kids’ stuff. I have very catholic taste. It’s really all over the map. Oh, and Stephen King. I read his stuff. I like breaking his balls by saying positive things about him.

Do you ever talk to him?

No, he’s taken shots at me for years. It’s fine, but my approach is to do the opposite with him—to heap praise.

He cant even fuckin write a bad review ffs

Back in the pre-Harry Potter era when SK was the most popular writer in America, someone of note (I can't recall who) said, "As a country, we could have done a lot worse than Stephen King being our most popular writer" and boy was that person right.

if only we'd listened :(

that was dfw, i'm almost certain

i mean, who else of note would say that

yeah there's writers who are as or more prolific, who also wind up with their work becoming 'airport novels' -- but guuuuh so many of them are SUCH dreck. my husband's uncle used to travel for business, and would buy like, 5 airport novels for a trip and blow through them - once a year he'd give us this box literally overflowing with James Patterson et al. So much blandsville

at least King can write a halfway decent story.

Ardent defenders of shit are almost as good as Amazon reviews of classics that are all "One star, this was depressing, why would anyone read it?"

You know, I can honestly say that he doesn’t see what is good about Stephenie Meyer. I think she is a great writer… You don’t have to use every single vivid word in the english language in order to be a great writer. It takes emotion and love for the characters you write. She writes in first person, which in itself can make or break your career. She pulls it off so well! I love all her books and I can’t wait to see what else she has to give us.
In all honesty, I’m not the biggest fan of King. I tried to read his novel, Desperation, but couldn’t get into it. Sure, I may be a teenager but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what a good book is. For me, if I’m not drawn to a book so much that I’ll sit for hours reading it at a time, it isn’t very good. And I couldn’t do that with his novel. I love Harry Potter and Twilight. I also love the Inheritence Cycle by Christopher Paolini… I’ll read anything including the classics.
I’m confused as to why King feels its alright to bring Meyer’s writing down when he writes around the same level she does, of course he has more experience than she does. He shouldn’t judge an author who hasn’t been in the business as long as he has.
Also, he shouldn’t judge a novel the way he has hers when it is GETTING KIDS TO READ!!!! I feel you should support any novels that get kids and teenagers to read. I’ve always loved reading but I have friends that don’t like it, but they’ve read Twilight and loved it. As long as it is drawing kids to literature, it has to be good!

She writes in first person, which in itself can make or break your career.

She writes in first person, which in itself can make or break your career.

She writes in first person, which in itself can make or break your career.

When Dean Koontz is on, he fucking rocks fyi.

As long as it is drawing kids to literature, it has to be good!

this sentiment always quickchanges me into harold bloom it's the worst feeling

xpost otm, there are a few Koontz books that are badass

I read one as a teenager, The Bad Place? I remember that one being really good

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/20/Phantoms.jpg/200px-Phantoms.jpg

I kind of do, but OTOH I worked with a woman who was dumb as a box of rocks, hadn't read a book since high school (if then), etc. - over the course of 2-3 months she worked her way through all the Twilights. That's some kind of win, imo.

That was an xp to feeling Bloomy.

phantoms is a blast, yeah, but it's also the only koontz i've enjoyed

lol koontz

Haven't read Koontz since I was a kid, but remember tearing through The Bad Place in a single day and loving the first half of Twilight Eyes (but not the second). The hierarchy of horror was definitely King > Koontz > John Saul.

Mine was King, then Peter Straub/Dean Koontz

never read Saul

No Clive Barker stans?