You’re Not Stephen King, And That’s A-Okay
July 30, 2024 | Shannon Winton
“Stephen King did it,” is a common retort from new authors who haven’t learned how to take criticism yet.
Examples:
“You’ve got this trifecta of chapters right before the climax that explains the magic system and how all the characters got involved in the mystery. Maybe that should be spread out over the book instead so it won’t halt pacing.”
“I’m not going to change that because Stephen King did it.”
***
“Hey, there’s a lot of exposition at the beginning that comes across as ramble. The first half of the book follows around twelve characters in their day-to-day lives, but only two of them show up in the last half of the book when the monster arrives. I wouldn’t have even known this was going to be a horror story if you hadn’t told me first. Maybe it needs to get tightened up.”
“Maybe you just can’t read. Stephen King did it, and people loved it.”
***
“I’m just not sure a publisher will pick up a two-hundred-thousand-word novel for mass publication, especially since it’s just a setup for Book II where the real story begins.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. It happened to Stephen King.”
***
If you’ve ever done this, I would like you to know that using Stephen King as a trump card to shut up your well-meaning and likely thoughtful critique partner or beta reader is not the power move it might feel like in the moment. Because, and I say this with kindness and grace, you are not Stephen King. Stephen King is not you, bucko.
One of the things to remember about Stephen King is he became popular at a very different time in publishing, and even Stephen King wasn’t Stephen King back then. He didn’t start off with the 467,812-word uncut edition of The Stand. He started by publishing Carrie, which is a diminutive 60,581 words. Even though he had been a prolific writer even in his teens, most of his early works were short fiction (emphasis on short). His first book would be considered on the low end for length in horror even now (https://www.tomeworksedits.com/blog/why-word-count-matters). You don’t get your foot in the door with a publisher by throwing a cinderblock-sized manuscript through their window. In 1974, before Stephen King sold Carrie, not even he would attempt that type of shenanigan.
Presumably, you want your manuscript to be published, either traditionally or in the self-publishing marketplace. And you do that because you want it to be read and enjoyed by others. So, it makes perfect sense why you would want to align yourself with one of the genre greats. However, because Stephen King is so legendary in the horror genre, and because his career has spanned fifty years, he’s uniquely unsuitable as a model for your career path. The publishing industry in the ’70s was crowded by white men, the internet hadn’t been invented yet, the pay was livable for even medium-successful authors, and you could be a success even if you were a raging coke addict if you knew the right people. Even now, if you want to try to bank off King’s readership, he’s so ubiquitous as a brand, it’s hard to follow any marketing strategy. If you want to appeal to Stephen King’s fans, should you focus your marketing on Twitter/X, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram? Who knows, he’s all over. He’s an empire already, built by half a century of old-school marketing and unfair advantages you cannot emulate.
So what’s an author to do? Especially if you really do like Stephen King’s style and enjoy writing slow burners with ominous overtones?
First, take a breath, and go read in your genre.
You might have grown up with Stephen King, but remember, the way we tell stories evolves and has probably evolved since you were reading, presumably at a precariously early age, his books and loving them. Can you find books that have the same tone, have the same pacing, have story-building elements you like that extend across the newer successes from other authors? If so, great! That tells you the market is still engaged. If you’re not seeing what you love, you’re going to need to ask yourself if it’s something you feel is part of your individual style or something you realize doesn’t really work. Remember, not everything Stephen King does needs to be emulated. One time he got charged with petty larceny because he beat up and then ran off with a traffic cone.
Then, remember your critique partners and beta readers are there to help.
True, not everyone is great at giving feedback, but really sit down and listen. Remind yourself that you and your manuscript are not the same thing, and being told about issues in the manuscript is not equivalent to insulting you. If it’s better to receive feedback in writing so you can respond to it in stages, go for it.
Here are some common criticisms I see of Stephen-King-ish writers. If you’ve ever heard these in reference to your writing, it will help you become a better craftsman to think deeply about them and what they really mean:
Your introduction is too slow: what this means is, even if you think you’ve set tone and allure, something is stopping your readers from getting your come hithers and sitting in the gloom with your characters for the build. This could be something as simple as not hitting the right words at the line level to be immersive or not dropping clear breadcrumbs to lure the reader in. It could be something much bigger like starting the story in the wrong place or just having unfocused writing that is hard to follow and interact with emotionally. Regardless, recognize the problem is that your readers are having a hard time “getting into” the story, and center your efforts on what’s not working and figuring out how to fix it.
The plot meanders: this one can be a little harder to come to terms with, especially if you are emotionally invested in your side characters and their experiences. This is one of the times it’s beneficial to do a reverse outline or a plot breakdown to see where your main plot and your subplots occur in the book as well as when they converge. Recognize that if the main plot and a subplot minimally interact or never come together, that might be a sign you should cleave the subplot sections and save them for a future book or use them as a loss lead or freebie for your readers.
However, Stephen King tends to revel in mundane tales with the goal of showing just how horrible regular life is. Considering he grew up destitute, moved numerous times in his childhood, and had a single mother who wasn’t able to be there for her kids, he lived through a lot of the miserable experiences his early books are flavored with. However, authors who emulate him don’t always understand the nuance of how he was able to emotionally hook readers with that content and end up in long explanations and rambles about terrible childhoods, the histories of locations, and other minutiae without really hitting the same note. Even if they do, there is an element of trust readers unconsciously give to Stephen King they won’t extend to other authors. I agree, this is not fair. However, until you're established as a dependable writer to your audience, you’ll have to factor that into your writing.
The takeaway here is that if the backstories and subplots aren’t serving the main plot, then they’re in the way, and you’d be better off removing them and saving them for another purpose.There is too much exposition. This one is also a bit tricky because Stephen King actually doesn’t do a bunch of exposition, but he does do vignettes and day-in-the-life chapters as discussed above. However, authors emulating his style often do tend to be a bit wordy with their exposition with the goal of setting tone. If you are getting told you have too much exposition, it’s likely you’re doing too little with a lot and the writing has likely wandered off the trail instead of getting to the point. This isn’t hard to determine, but it can be hard to fix. You will need to go line by line, sometimes sentence by sentence, to clean out the brambles. Good things to ask yourself are: does this sentence have content or only texture? Does this paragraph have action, transition or evolution? If not, it might need to be cut. If you’re finding difficulty in this process, go back and read some of King’s shorter works like Carrie, The Running Man, or The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. Study how he manages to be evocative and build these speculative realities with fewer words, and see if you can take any of these lessons back to your own writing.
Lastly, remember Stephen King didn’t do anything alone.
He had help at almost every step, from his brother having a printing press for his early writings or his wife fishing the manuscript for Carrie out of the trash and demanding he keep working on it, he had a support system. No book is produced in a true vacuum. It is important to be able to discuss your books, even uncomfortable realities about them, with others and build your support network. If you ignore feedback by saying, “Stephen King did it,” you’ll be pushing away the people who will work to help you. Instead, you should learn how to get the most out of your beta readers (https://www.tomeworksedits.com/blog/get-the-most-from-your-beta-readers) by learning to take criticism well (https://www.tomeworksedits.com/blog/responding-to-critique). This, more than anything else, will help you become a better writer.
Want feedback from one of our professionals? A manuscript evaluation is just the thing to uncover the most pressing issues are in your manuscript.