Poll of the Day > Why are Stephen King's characters always so awful

(+) Yeah! (+)

I like the guys books but I mean damn every time the characters just suck so bad

I dont even know how to describe it, I want to say theyre two dimensional but I feel like thats not quite it. The way they talk to each other just seems so unnatural

Im watching the Mist series and it is so very bad, not sure how involved he was with the writing though
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He's not a great writer by any means, he just comes up with stories good for movies/shows.

He is a smart dude though.
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i stopped reading his books because they're so full of boring banal crap that serves no point
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Mead posted...

Im watching the Mist series

do you mean last year's SPIKE series that got canceled after 1 season? I dont think he had anything to do with it. the movie from like 10 years ago is better

Dude Pet sematary has very likable characters (they change as the book goes on a bit). The Body has likable characters, The Stand...
Hell his world building and characters are probably hiis strong points.

The Stand is pretty much my favorite book, but I just feel like his characters are always the same
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Oh, thought this was about his characters being unlikeable >_>

shadowsword87 posted...

He's not a great writer by any means, he just comes up with stories good for movies/shows.

Pretty apt description.

likehelly posted...

i stopped reading his books because they're so full of boring banal crap that serves no point

How deliciously pretentious.
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Mead posted...

Im watching the Mist series

Well there's your problem. Like 80% of King's non-book media is pretty lousy. But yeah, the dude still suffers from "I write way too much" syndrome and goes for quantity over quality.

His casual foul language and sexual dialogue is weirdly off-putting
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I'd say his characters are a big part of why I like his books. They're rarely very scary, and there is always a lot of overly-descriptive bits.
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Zeus posted...

How deliciously pretentious

sorry if I don't want to read 17 pages on the intricacies of a dude taking a shit
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The only book of his that I actually liked was The Shining. I tried really hard to read "It" before the movie came out but I just couldn't get into it. Some of his short stories are pretty good though. The Monkey, Children of the Corn and Survivor Type are all well-written.
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His stuff before the accident was great, havn't really been a fan after that.

The stand is awesome, and the mini-series as well (love the sound track).

Firestarter (the book) was great. Max overdrive was a good movie and the Shining of course (move over book in that case).

Favorite short novellete is The Long Walk by him, which is all about building characters.

In his early years he was amazing at building characters and creating a story with them.

He got so freaking angry and the dude that hit and runned him though, that it seeped into everything he wrote afterwards, although admittingly I have not read that many of them recently (I gave up).
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Anti-religious message
bullies
rednecks
the alcoholic writer
the adulterer
the child psychic

in Maine!
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GanglyKhan posted...

Mead posted...

Im watching the Mist series

Well there's your problem. Like 80% of King's non-book media is pretty lousy. But yeah, the dude still suffers from "I write way too much" syndrome and goes for quantity over quality.

Completely untrue, especially given that the films are often better than the books. Christine is a pretty good case-in-point.

And his original mini-series Rose Red was great.

Keebs05 posted...

Some of his short stories are pretty good though. The Monkey, Children of the Corn and Survivor Type are all well-written.

I also prefer his short stories to his novels. "The Reaper's Image" in particular doesn't even read like a SK story, although probably because it was one of his earliest stories.
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