Why I don't like Stephen King's writing
Things I don’t like about Stephen King’s writing style.
I’ve never been a fan of King, but I hear such great stuff about him from people who seem to otherwise have good taste.
I’ve now read 7 novels* from him, just trying to give him another chance, but I keep getting disappointed. Normally an author gets one chance if they are utterly unreadable, two chances if they aren’t good, three chances if they either show promise or are well praised. King always read like he had promise to me, but not quite anything that really hit me. I read It and Dream Weaver first and didn’t care for either one of them. I wasn’t going to buy another book from him, but my mom gave me a free one “Hearts in Atlantis”.
Hearts in Atlantis is one of the best books I have ever read. Just amazing.
I then read a short story by him in a compilation book called LEGENDS (also where I was introduced to the great George R. R. Martin). The story was about Roland, the gunslinger. He fought off a town of mutant-zombies. So I bought the first full novel he wrote about this Roland character. It was great. The second book was only okay. The third was the same. The fourth... I’m still trying to force myself through it.
Anyway, so I’ve pinpointed what I don’t like about the man’s writing.
-Uses parenthesis as an aside far too often. It’s overdone and starts to annoy me after a while.
-Most of his books have a phrase or three that are repeated constantly throughout. Like the parenthesis, it’s overdone. These are always cool at first, but get really annoying later on. Especially when it relates to the story because it just seems so patronizing.
-His chapter lengths are constantly sporadic. One chapter will be a page and a half, the next will be 20+ pages. While I believe that style is just as important as the story itself, there needs to be some structure, even if it’s a structure unique to the story. Chaos, does not count as a structure.
-He goes into unnecessary detail. Do we really need to read about the time the character had a boner when he was younger? He’s not getting paid by word count, is he? (That’s what ruined Dickens IMO, because Dickens had TALENT, but that’s another thread for another time.)
Anyway, that about sums it up. It's all of those things at once. I can say that Gunslinger and Hearts in Atlantis proved that he has the talent, proved that he could be amazing. He just keeps falling short for me.
*Dream Weaver, It, Gunslinger I-IV, and Hearts in Atlantis
I’ve never been a fan of King, but I hear such great stuff about him from people who seem to otherwise have good taste.
I’ve now read 7 novels* from him, just trying to give him another chance, but I keep getting disappointed. Normally an author gets one chance if they are utterly unreadable, two chances if they aren’t good, three chances if they either show promise or are well praised. King always read like he had promise to me, but not quite anything that really hit me. I read It and Dream Weaver first and didn’t care for either one of them. I wasn’t going to buy another book from him, but my mom gave me a free one “Hearts in Atlantis”.
Hearts in Atlantis is one of the best books I have ever read. Just amazing.
I then read a short story by him in a compilation book called LEGENDS (also where I was introduced to the great George R. R. Martin). The story was about Roland, the gunslinger. He fought off a town of mutant-zombies. So I bought the first full novel he wrote about this Roland character. It was great. The second book was only okay. The third was the same. The fourth... I’m still trying to force myself through it.
Anyway, so I’ve pinpointed what I don’t like about the man’s writing.
-Uses parenthesis as an aside far too often. It’s overdone and starts to annoy me after a while.
-Most of his books have a phrase or three that are repeated constantly throughout. Like the parenthesis, it’s overdone. These are always cool at first, but get really annoying later on. Especially when it relates to the story because it just seems so patronizing.
-His chapter lengths are constantly sporadic. One chapter will be a page and a half, the next will be 20+ pages. While I believe that style is just as important as the story itself, there needs to be some structure, even if it’s a structure unique to the story. Chaos, does not count as a structure.
-He goes into unnecessary detail. Do we really need to read about the time the character had a boner when he was younger? He’s not getting paid by word count, is he? (That’s what ruined Dickens IMO, because Dickens had TALENT, but that’s another thread for another time.)
Anyway, that about sums it up. It's all of those things at once. I can say that Gunslinger and Hearts in Atlantis proved that he has the talent, proved that he could be amazing. He just keeps falling short for me.
*Dream Weaver, It, Gunslinger I-IV, and Hearts in Atlantis
Labels: dark tower, hearts in atlantis, king, review
posted by donteatpoop at 3:34 AM
5 Comments:
I haven't read any of the Kings that you have. But when King and I were both much younger, I read a lot of his stuff: Salem's Lot, The Stand, Christine, The Dead Zone, The Shining, and others, including the short-story collection Night Shift. All really good.
In recent years I read Talisman and its sequel, Black House. They're tied to the Dark Tower stories, but enjoyable on their own.
King has idiosyncrasies as a writer, true. Some of that is what gives him his own voice. None of it bothers me as much as, say, JK Rowling's abuse of ellipses. She can't write a page without two or three of them, it seems. But I still like her books.
I admired how you were able to use "Dickens" and "Boner" in the same blog entry.
Two thumbs up.
I suppose I should mention that I am almost finished reading "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon". It's pretty good. He hasn't gone over board with anything save the parenthesis, but that petered off as the story progressed. He used a recurring radio jingle that was stuck in the girls head, but as she was alone in the woods, it made sense to be repeated throughout. Not quite done yet, but it's a solid story.
All I can say as someone who doesn't think highly of Stephen King as a writer, pray you'll never read Lisey's Story.
I have the same problem in not liking Kings writing. But I can't put my finger on it. Each book I read I have the same problem. I walk away going that was a really good bad book. I don't know what to do!!!!!!!!!!!! Is it the cliche nature of his characters, the way everything in the plot conveniently falls in place. I just can't seem to enjoy them as fully as others seem to.
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