Stephen King, a name synonymous with the horror genre in books and films, boasts a long list of horror works starting with Carrie in 1974. Fans of his works would be surprised to know that many of his early works didn’t originate from long hours of boundless imagination. King revealed that back in the day, he had to pay his bills and had to create these stories out of sheer desperation.
Whether from a place of desperation or not, Stephen King’s books won over countless readers. When King eventually decided to sell the rights to his stories for motion pictures, he also became a favorite among moviegoers. King continues to scare his audiences, with the latest creation from the author being Holly.
Stephen King’s Stories Came Out Of Desperation Rather Than Imagination
Stephen King was already ‘shining’ bright due to lucrative movie deals in Hollywood when he made an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. King graced his presence on the show to promote his book Fire Starter and answered several questions from David Letterman related to his stories. One of the host’s questions pertained to the inspiration behind his stories, whether his creations resulted from the imaginative thoughts inside him or if he was doing it only for the money.
King shared that he was interested in supernatural elements from a very young age. During the early 1970s, he began writing horror stories for certain magazines. However, life was far from glamorous, as he was employed at a laundry, was a newlywed, and faced mounting bills. His wife, Tabitha King, would urge him to promptly come up with horror stories to pay bills, which resulted in some of his most iconic stories. The Misery author shared with Letterman:
“In the early 70s, I was writing stories for those magazines where if you hold them up by the side a picture falls out that you don’t show your mother. That kind of thing and getting anywhere from 100 to 200 to 300 dollars for stories. My wife and I were just married, I was working in a laundry and she would say, ‘Hurry up and think of a monster,’ whenever the bills came due. So I did the best I could.”
Some of Stephen King’s best works came during this era of desperation, including Carrie, The Shining, and The Dead Zone. The product of King’s poor financial situation emerged as some of the classics in modern English literature.
Stephen King Was Not Entirely Satisfied With The Shining Movie
Letterman further discussed The Shining, which was adapted from King’s novel, and was released around that time. The Gerald’s Game author lavished praise upon Jack Nicholson’s performance, yet it appeared that King was not fully satisfied with the movie as a whole. While he described many aspects of the movie as flawless and beautiful, he felt that director Stanley Kubrick downplayed certain other parts. King told Letterman:
“I feel both ways. I got to see it four times because of commitments in one place and another. There are an awful lot of things about that movie that I think are flawless and beautiful and uh just marvelous. Then, there are other times when I feel as though uh I’d given Stanley Kubrick a live grenade and he heroically threw his body on it.”
When asked about the degree of control he exercised over the movie adaptations of his stories, King replied that he rarely interfered in the movies. King also jokingly added that this approach allowed him to claim credit if it succeeded while denying responsibility if it flopped. In 2000, King published the non-fiction book, On Writing, which unveiled many of his writing secrets.
