Steven King Essay, Research Paper

Stephen King often called; “Master of Horror” is a well-known author for his horror stories, and science fiction novels. He had many influences on how has written his books. King has also faced many hardships within his life.

King was born in Portland, Maine on September 21, 1947 to Nellie Ruth King and Donald Edwin King at the Maine General Hospital. Stephen was the only natural born child in the family, as his brother David was adopted at birth in 1945.

The Kings were your average family until one night when his father Donald said he was going out for a pack of cigarettes, and never returned home. Stephen at the time was only three years old. His father had a large collection of science fiction novels in which Stephen read growing up. By the time Stephen was seven years old, he wrote his first short story. He also was a fan of the 50’s horror movies, which inspired him to write in the science fiction field. Stephen’s stories were also influenced by the nineteenth century gothic tradition, especially the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. King as a teenager, joined the football team, played in a rock band, yet still had two of his short stories published.

King started his actually writing career in January of 1959 when he and his brother David decided to publish their own local newspaper. So David bought a mimeograph and they called their paper Dave’s Rag, and it sold for 5 cents and issue.

King attended high school in Lisbon, Maine at Lisbon High School in 1962. Him and his best friend Chris Chesley published a collection of 18 short stories called People, Places, and Things-Volume I. A year later King and Gaslight Books published a two part book titled “The Star Invaders.”

King made his first published appearance in 1965. His story, “I Was a Teenage Grave Robber”, which was only about 6000 words in length. The story was published in a magazine named Comics Review.

In 1966, King graduated from high school and took his scholarship from the University of Maine at Orono. He received a bachelor’s degree in English and a certificate to teach high school in June 1970. He then married Tabitha Jane Spruce on January 2, 1971.King accepted a teaching job at Hampden Academy as an English teacher, and so they moved to Hermon.

King started to write and submit novels to publishing companies, but had not luck. He was rejected numerous times in the next few years. Then he started to write a story about a teenage girl named Carietta White. After writing a few pages, he decided it was not worth his time to keep writing on, so he tossed it in the trash. His wife Tabitha took the pages out of the garbage and began to read them. After reading the crumpled pages she encouraged her husband to continue on with the story. So he decided to take her advice and in January 1973, he submitted Carrie to Doubleday. In March Doubleday bought King’s novel. Then on May 12, Doubleday sold the paperback rights of Carrie to New American Library for $400,000. Stephen received half of the money because his contract stated so, and he quite his teaching job to pursue a writing career.

King then pursued to have a family where he received three children, Phillip, Joseph, and Naomi. They decided to stay in live in Maine where they then moved to Bangor and still lives there today in his 25 room mansion.

On June 19, 1999 at 51 years old, Stephen King was involved in an accident. He was struck by a blue 1985 Dodge Caravan driven by Bryan smith, 42, was headed to town from his camp to load his cooler. When his dog Bullet started to get into the cooler Smith turned around to stop him and his van went off the road and hit Stephen.

King remained conscious as an ambulance raced him to the hospital to be treated for his severe injuries. He sustained a shattered hip and pelvis, fractured thigh- bone and broken ribs. He was then flown to the trauma center at the state hospital in Lewiston by helicopter, where he underwent six surgeries in the next three weeks. He received physical therapy for several months to treat his injuries.

Kings lawyer, Warren Silver, bought the Dodge van from Smith for $1,500 to keep it out of the hands of the wrong people such as someone looking for a souvenir. He also bought the Dodge van so that King could destroy the van. King used a sledgehammer as soon as he was able to destroy the blue Dodge van, which silver had not doubted because of his knowledge of King.

Today King is still writing out of his home in Bangor, Maine and has a lot to show for his hard work writing novels and short stories. He is said to be the richest author in the world. Some of his writings have even been created into movies. King has even appeared in his movies. King’s books have been translated into 33 different languages, and published in over 35 countries. He has sold over 100 million copies of his books, but has never won a single writing award.

So despite King’s rough times in his life and his struggles, he has become a big success in his writing career. Maybe some of his influences weren’t the best ones, but he didn’t let it affect him.