The King and I in Adventures From Prison

Since I was a child, I have had one constant idol, Stephen King. Now I’m sure most of you are thinking, “What business did a child have reading an author who creates nightmares and frequently uses the word “cocksucker” in his novels?” Truth is I probably didn’t have any. But in fifth grade, on one of our weekly trips to the library, I wandered out of the Children/Young Adult section and into the New Release shelves. It was there I found one of the thickest and heaviest books I’d ever seen and on its cover was not some landscape or scene from history, but a simple street grate and a few reptilian fingers emerging from the darkness beneath. The title was also far different than Dr. Dredd’s Wagon of Wonders, Bunnicula or the Black Cauldron, it simply read It.
Knowing it might be too long to hold my attention, but curious anyway, I added it to my stack and took it to the counter.
The librarian started stamping the books with their due dates and paused when she saw It. My heart skipped a beat, wondering if I was about to get into trouble, but instead she just picked up the short-term loan stamper, hit the book and moved on.
I hid it under my bed. Some little boys hide National Geographics to stare at Amazonian boobs, I hid a 900 page pictureless horror novel. (I think that says a lot about who I am). I don’t know why I hid it. No one in my family really ever censored my life as many parents do. To find me reading a horror novel probably would have raised an eyebrow or two in curiousity (more from wondering if I understood it than at its content) but punishment? Never.
That night I hoisted it out. The damn thing was too big and heavy to read like a normal book so I smooshed my pillow down under my chest, laid the tome flat in its place and started to read.
It was my awakening.
For the first time in my life, I felt connected to another person’s mind. His choice of words, his description, his characters sparked in me a familiarity. They weren’t my words or my stories but their spirit and depth resonated with a future me that I’d never before knew existed: I could do what he did, no, I HAD to do what he did. (I want to make it clear that this was far from the first book I’d read. At that point in my life I’d already been fully indoctrinated in my family’s voracious reading habits. What It did was turn reading into a fully immersive experience. I no longer saw words but pictures as my eyes moved across the page, like a part of consciousness was transported into the book.) To me, what King had done was pure magic on a scale not even David Copperfield could perform. And I needed to learn how to do it.
I’d dabbled before this point with writing fun and childish stories that walked a straight line from A to B, but after reading It I became aware that these characters could be so much more. They could be alive, doing things that weren’t overtly written on the page. The idea that characters could have depth is what changed everything for me. No longer were the “age appropriate” books enough to sate my curiosity. I wanted to get into the characters minds instead of just watching from the sidelines. I wanted to learn the secrets of adulthood. So I read more King and more King learning as I went. I tried other genres, but nothing else worked outside of horror. They just grabbed me.
Dean Koontz was my next discovery followed soon after by Michael Crichton. The darker and more fantastic the better.
In my adulthood, I’ve thought a lot about why I’m so drawn to horror. Any one who knows me finds this odd as I am a very lighthearted, thoughtful and happy person, so reading my stories tends to be a very shocking and discomforting experience for my friends and family. (And believe me, a few have even shocked me after reviewing them years later). So why this fixation on such darkness?
The answer is in the body and structure of the horror story. Every good horror story begins with a firm grounding in reality. Without this everything that follows lacks punch and the story becomes nothing more than a twisted fantasy. As the story progresses, the characters are forced to understand and then confront something outside of their reality and the world they have created for themselves. They are forced to develop into something more, and that’s what I loved. Most people I don’t understand, no matter how well I know them. (It’s one of my quirks) But in these stories people finally made sense.
Now, let’s go back to me as a boy. I lived a pretty blessed life. The most traumatic things to happen in my childhood being my parents (mostly amicable) divorce and watching a toad get slowly squished by the tire of my grandparent’s camper trailer. I had no real connection to the harshness of adulthood, therefore much of the depth of character in other genres was lost to me. But in horror that ignorance didn’t matter. The characters in a good horror story are forced into situations where the pasts and skills matter very little. They are forced to learn and adapt to this new threat just as a child would, making it imminently accessible to my youthful self. For me a good horror novel isn’t about the death and gore, it’s about the discoveries they make about the world and the secrets hiding in the shadows. A good thriller can do something similar, but for me the discovery of the killer and his earthly motives is just too simple. As a reader I want to be wowed by something larger than what exists in the world. I want to get into the head and motives of things inhuman or, at the very least, highly abhorrent to “normal human” thinking.
And at that, King is the master.
What’s more, is that the more of his books (and author commentary) I read, the less strange I feel. He thinks and creates stories like I do. In his newest book, he describes a short story like a cup being made. Sometimes, in the creation process, you get ideas that are poignant but incomplete (a cup without a handle) and no matter what you do it sits there, usable but unfinished, until one day the missing piece (the handle) literally just pops into existence out of nowhere, turning your cup into what it was meant to be. It’s a clunky metaphor (by his own admission) and I’ve slightly modified it, but the idea is the same. Many times this is exactly as I feel when writing. Knowing that what I’ve written is better than what most people could ever hope to write, but still not done. Most of the world sees something that holds liquid and doesn’t leak but I’m not happy without that last bit. I think it is that which has held me back from publishing my work. I keep waiting for that last bit. For some reason, lately, I’ve been finding it. And for the stories that haven’t found their handle yet, well recently I read another tidbit of King’s that clicked, “Until a writer retires or dies, the work is unfinished; it can always use another polish and a few more revisions.” Just because a story makes it to print doesn’t mean it can’t be changed. Duh. Knowing he feels the same as I do has given me the confidence to move forward. If a story doesn’t quite jibe with my readers, well then I can change it. And, more importantly, not everyone needs a cup with a handle to be happy.
So I am giving it a go. My friends and family are pushing me forward (in the best possible way) and I’m now likely only months away from my first short story collection going up on Amazon. (I know I said it was going to happen in 2015 but circumstances prevented the time Mom needed to help me prepare. This year she and my friends are as determined as I am to make it happen). The preparation, on my part, is one of the reasons I haven’t written here as much lately. I have one last story to tell for this collection and it’s consuming much of my time. I’m also editing my first novel and writing my second while simultaneously co-writing another. (I’m nothing if not ambitious). Soon there will be a lot of stuff for you to read, so hang on for a bit longer. The pay off will be good, I promise.
Who knows, maybe someday Stephen King will read one of my stories or books and will enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed his. That to me would be the coolest thing ever. To give back a little bit to the man who unknowingly has made me the reader and writer I am today. It’s not much, but to me it would be everything. Fame and fortune are both a little horrifying to me and truly not my goal. I’d happily accept both if they meant I could do nothing but write and still live well, but really I’m in this for the stories and the “Wow” factor they give my readers. I think more than most, King would understand this motivation and approve.
Maybe someday I will find out.