Today in Entertainment, we speak to well-known American horror writer Stephen

King, who has just released his new novel, “Blaze”.

The author of over 50 best-selling horror novels, such as “Carrie”, “The Shining”

and “Dreamcatcher”, Stephen King has also written novels outside the horror

genre, such as “The Green Mile” and “The Shawshank Redemption”. Many of his

books have been made into films.

Stephen King has won 23 major book awards and has sold hundreds of millions of

books around the world, making him a household name. His name is known in

virtually every house around the world.

His latest book, “Blaze”, is about a man called Clayton Blaisedell Junior, who is a

mentally disabled man. He decides to kidnap a baby to get a $1 million ransom.

But ‘Blaze’ eventually grows to love the child as if it were his own. It’s not a

horror novel like many of King’s other books, so does Stephen believe most

writers can switch, like he can, between styles or genres?

Stephen King

I don’t necessarily and I don’t think that it’s a given that you can write many different things. I

think that you're drawn in certain directions. You know in some ways I’m in a really good

position because I’ve seen an arc of critical approval for my work build over the years, which is

a lot better, believe me than starting out with a big bank of critical approval and then frittering it

away. 

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Andrea: Stephen says that it’s not a given that you can write lots of different things. ‘A given’

is something certain or definite. Not all writers can switch between styles. He

believes that all writers are drawn in certain directions – they are good at writing

certain stories over others. In his case, he was drawn towards writing horror stories.

He’s happy though, that slowly over the years he’s had more and more critical

approval. He’s had good reviews over the years, and that’s a lot better than getting

good reviews at the beginning of your career and then losing the ability to keep it up.

He talks about ‘frittering away’ your reputation. That means losing it, wasting it.

Instead, he has enjoyed his gradual acclaim.

So how did Stephen King become one of the world’s best-selling horror writers?

Stephen King

That label has been put on me and I never put it on myself. More importantly in my head, I never

said ‘It's time to write another horror novel’. I would just say, ‘I have an idea it’s time to write a

book’. I’ve been able to tell stories from tales of outright horror like “Pet Cemetery” to stories

like “The Shawshank Redemption” and a lot of time people don’t believe that I had anything to

do with writing that, so, I wear different hats.

Andrea: Stephen says that he didn’t choose to be known as a horror writer. He didn’t choose

that label. If you’re labelled, people choose to see you in a certain way. They label

you. But Stephen feels that he is much more than just a horror writer. People

sometimes don’t believe that he wrote stories like “The Shawshank Redemption”.

But he likes to write different things. He talks about ‘wearing different hats’. He

likes to be different people and write a variety of things.

Unfortunately in 1999, Stephen King almost gave up his writing career. He had a

terrible car accident.

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Stephen King

I was walking and a guy came along in his van and I was where I belonged which was off on the

side of the road. The last piece of memory that I have is of the top of his van coming over the hill

and then I was in the ditch with my lap on sideways. I was pretty well shattered from the collar

bone, ribs broken, skull fractured, spine chipped in two or three places, hip, pelvis, thigh, knee,

shins, so it was all busted up all down one side, boom.

Andrea: Stephen describes how he was hit by a van while he was walking on the side of

the road. His last piece of memory, the last thing he remembers, was the van

coming over the hill. He was very badly injured from head to toe. He uses the

American expression ‘busted up’. He was broken into lots of pieces and badly

hurt. But he’s back now with his new novel and hopes it will do well.

 

Let’s recap the language we’ve heard in the programme today.

 

drawn in a certain direction

a given

critical approval

frittering it away

to be labelled

to wear different hats

last piece of memory

busted up