"Andreas" <[email protected]> Es wurden Grafiken aufgrund ihrer Größe entfernt Stephen King the undisputed Master of horror fiction Table of contents 3 ................................... Introduction 4 ................................... Biography 7 ................................... King as actor 8 ................................... Writing skills Four of his books 9 ................................... Salem's Lot 11 .................................. Pet Sematary 14 .................................. Firestarter 16 .................................. Carrie 18 .................................. List of books 2 Introduction Stephen King is known around the world as today's most successful author of horror fiction. It has been written that "...King could write out his laundry list and have it published." Though there is truth to this, the quality of King's work has never wavered, from his early short stories, to Wizards and Glass, the recently released and long awaited book of the Dark Tower Series. King worked hard to be where he is today. Rejections (and there were many in the beginning) failed to dishearten him. He was a story teller at heart, and built his obsession with writing into an amazingly successful career. "There is only one way to learn how to write," King said in an article I read some time back, "that is to write and write and write... there is no other way." 3 Biography( Stephen King as writer) Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21, 1947 at the Maine General Hospital in Portland Maine. His parents were Donald Edwin King and Ruth Pillsbury King. Stephen being the only natural born child in the family and his older brother David having been adopted at birth two years earlier. The Kings were the typical family until one night when Donald King said he was stepping out for cigarettes and was never heard from again. At this point Ruth took over raising the family with help from other relatives of the family. They traveled throughout many states over several years finally moving back to Durham, Maine in 1958. Stephen King began his actual writing career in January of 1959 when David King and Stephen decided to publish their own local town newspaper named Dave's Rag. David bought a mimeograph and they created a paper that sold for five cents an issue. Stephen King attended Lisbon High School, in Lisbon, Maine in 1962. Collaborating with his best friend Chris Chesley, in 1963 they published a collection of 18 short stories called People, Places, and Things-Volume I. King's stories included "Hotel at the End of the Road", "I've Got to Get Away!", "The Dimension Warp", "The Thing at the Bottom of the Well", "The Stranger", "I'm Falling", "The Cursed Expedition", and "The Other Side of the Fog." A year later King's amateur press Triad and Gaslight Books, published a two part book titled "The Star Invaders". Stephen King made his first actually published appearance in 1965 in the magazine Comics Review with his story "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber." The story ran about 6,000 words in length. In 1966, Stephen King graduated from high school and took a 4 scholarship to attend the University of Maine. Looking back on his high school days, King recalled that "my high school career was totally undistinguished. I was not at the top of my class, nor at the bottom." Later that summer King began working on a novel called "Getting It On", about some kids who take over a classroom and try unsuccessfully to ward off the National Guard. During his first year at college, King completed his first full length novel, "The Long Walk." He submitted the novel to Bennett Cerf/Random House only to have it rejected. King took the rejection badly and filed the book away. Stephen King made his first small sale with his story "The Glass Floor" for the amount of thirty-five dollars. In June 1970, Stephen King graduated from the University of Maine with a Bachelor of Science degree in English and a certificate to teach high school. King's next idea came from the poem by Robert Browning, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." He found bright colored green paper in the library and began work on The Dark Tower saga. But due to his lack of income he was unable to further pursue the novel at great length and it too was filed away. King took a measly job of pumping gas earning $1.25 an hour. Stephen King then began to earn money for his writings by submitting his short stories do men's magazines such as Cavalier. On January 2, 1971, Tabitha Jane Spruce and Stephen King were married.And in the fall of 1971, King took a teaching job at Hampden Academy earning $6,400 a year. He wrote on weekends and evenings, still managing to produce short stories and novels. None of the novels were accepted for publication until the spring of 1973... 5 The Kings then moved to Hermon, a town west of Bangor, Maine. Stephen King than began work on a short story about a teenage girl named Carietta White. After a completing a few pages, King decided it was not a worthy story and crumpled the pages up and tossed them into the trash. Fortunately for Stephen, his wife Tabitha took the pages out and read them. She encouraged her husband to continue the story. He did. In January 1973, King submitted Carrie to Doubleday. In March, Doubleday bought the book. On May 12, Doubleday sold the paperback rights of Carrie to New American Library for $400,000. Based on the book contract, Stephen King would get half of that.Carrie was a huge success, and following it were a long list of novels that soon made Stephen King a name known in households the world over. King quit his teaching job to pursue writing full time. And the rest, as they say, is history. Since then, King has had numerous short stories and novels published and movies created from his work. Stephen King is called the "Master of Horror". His books have been translated into 33 different languages, published in over 35 different countries. There are over 300 million copies of his novels in publication. He continues to live in Bangor, Maine with his wife where he writes out of his home. 6 Stephen King as Actor Stephen King has played roles in some of the movies based on his stories. His roles have been: • Band Leader - Stephen King's The Shinning (May 1997) • Dr. Bangor-Pharmacist - THINNER (1996) • Tom Holby-Head Chairman of the Board - THE LANGOLIERS (1995) • Teddy Weizak-Boarder guard/Nadine's ride - THE STAND (1994) • Cematary Caretaker - SLEEPWALKERS (1992) • Bus Driver - GOLDEN YEARS (1991) • The Priest - PET SEMATARY (1989) • Truck Driver - CREEPSHOW II (1987) • Guy swearing at ATM - MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (1986) • Jordy Verril/Truck Driver - CREEPSHOW (1982) • Hoagie Man - KNIGHTRIDERS (Directed by George Romero) 1981) 7 Writing skills Stephen Edwin King is one of today’s most popular and best selling writers. King combines the elements of psychological thrillers, science fiction, the paranormal, and detective themes into his stories. In addition to these themes, King sticks to using great and vivid detail that is set in a realistic everyday place. Stephen King who is mainly known for his novels, has broadened his horizons to different types of writings such as movie scripts, nonfiction, autobiographies, children’s books, and short stories. While Stephen King might be best known for his novels The Stand and It, some of his best work that has been published are his short stories such as "The Body" and "Quitters Inc". King’s works are so powerful because he uses his experience and observations from his everyday life and places them into his unique stories. 8 Salem's Lot 'Salem's Lot was King's second published novel, and it came to be one of the first to award King the title "Master of Horror." Situated firmly between the telekinetic girl of Carrie and the haunted hotel of The Shining, 'Salem's Lot's vampires stands as one of the scariest novels ever written. It concerns a small town in Maine named Jerusalem's Lot (shortened to 'salem's Lot) and the pervasive evil that comes to inhabit it. The town knows horror, of course. Years before the main events of the novel take place, we learn that a man named Hubie Marsten (prisoner of psychosexual disorders he can't control) commited a murder- suicide and now his house stands empty, seeming to watch over the town. The Marsten House becomes the symbol of evil in the novel, a central place in which terror and death come from. The Bad Place motif will be used countless times in later King fictions. Introduced to the small town of 'salem's lot are three strangers: a writer named Ben Mears who used to live in the town when he was young; a young boy named Mark Petrie, a kid obsessed with monsters and horror movies; and the mysterious figure known as Mr. Barlow, who opens up a shop in town (quite an obvious precursor to Needful Things' Leland Gaunt). But Barlow himself doesn't make an appearance in the novel until more than halfway through. His assistant, Mr. Straker, takes care of Barlow's business while Barlow takes care of the town's business. Following the arrival of these strangers, a young boy is found dead. Then, after the funeral when darkness falls on the town, the boy emerges from his coffin. His father's command becomes prophecy. Death invades the town, but it is not really death that grips it: it is the much worse undeath of vampirism. By the time Ben Mears, Mark Petrie and their friends discover the truth, the town is almost unsalvagable.