What Stephen King Teaches Us About Writing.

In my blog of October 2025, I made a commitment to you to produce a series of posts regarding some of the authors I admire. You will recall Kurt Vonnegut opened this ledger. The second instalment on Haruki Murakami was curtailed, as it was published in a journal – the wonderful Jimmy Hornet Magazine. Hence it is only now that I’m getting things back on track with this brief profile of Stephen King. Let me know what you think.

Stephen King has been called many things over the years:

·         the master of horror

·         America’s storyteller

·         a best seller machine

A more recent book cover of King's first successful novel "Carrie", published in 1974. (Source: Goodreads)

None of these really capture the writer that King has become. Beneath the mythology sits an example far more useful to working writers: a craftsman with a stubborn commitment to clarity, momentum, and emotional depth.

Whether you love the monsters in his horror novel or avoid them entirely, King’s approach to writing offers a toolkit worth paying attention to. He is a writer who has sold and estimated 350-400 million books. This spans more than 50 novels and numerous short stories – an incredible career (so far) by anyone’s count.

To limit your view to King as the “master of horror” ignores his success in other genres. He is, after all, the author “The Green Mile” and “The Shawshank Redemption”, both of which have been translated into Hollywood blockbusters.

The "Shawshank Redemption", nominated for seven Academy Awards (Source: Goodreads)

At the heart of King’s work is a belief that stories should move the reader. Not rush, not dazzle, not contort themselves into clever shapes just emotionally engage and move them. His prose is famously unadorned, a style he once described as “writing with the windows open.” One of his tips for budding writers is ironically “never use emolument when you mean tip”!

His effect is deceptively simple: sentences that feel like someone talking to you across a kitchen table, pull you into the next line before you’ve realised you’ve been hooked. For emerging writers, there’s a lesson here about trusting the story rather than the performance.

King also understands character in a way that often gets overshadowed by the supernatural trappings. His most critically acclaimed novels: Misery, The Body (a novella) and the awkwardly titled 11/22/63, aren’t really about the monsters at all. They’re about ordinary people pushed into extraordinary corners. He writes with a deep affection for the flawed, the frightened, the stubbornly hopeful. Even his villains are rarely caricatures; they’re recognisable, sometimes uncomfortably so. It’s a reminder that emotional authenticity is the real engine of narrative tension.

The great author himself, a fierce advocate for books and writers. (Source: Google)

Then there’s his work ethic, which has become its own kind of folklore. King writes every day, even on Christmas Day and holidays. Even when, to sue his words “the world is falling apart”. But the point isn’t the word count—it’s the habit. The ritual. The discipline. The willingness to show up for the story even when inspiration is sulking in the corner. For writers juggling day jobs, families, and the general chaos of modern life, King’s discipline can feel both intimidating and strangely liberating. You don’t need a perfect writing day; you just need to be writing every day.

A wall of bestsellers from the pen of Stephen King (Source: Reddit)

Perhaps the most generous thing King offers the writing community is transparency. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft remains one of the most accessible books on the craft of writing out there, not because it promises shortcuts, but because it demystifies the process.

He talks openly about failure, rejection, addiction, and the long, slow work of getting better. There’s no pretence in his genius—just persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to revise.

In the end, Stephen King’s greatest contribution to the writing world might be his insistence that stories matter. Not because they win awards or impress critics, but because they connect people with those primary emotions fear, wonder and connection. And that’s something every writer, regardless of genre, can carry into their own work.

Let me know if you have a favourite author you'd like me to consider in a future post.