Stephen King - The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

FICTION :

Carrie

Salems Lot

The Shining

Night Shift

The Stand

The Dead Zone

Firestarter

Cujo

Different Seasons

Cycle of the Werewolf

Christine

Pet Sematary

IT

Skeleton Crew

The Eyes of the Dragon

Misery

The Tommyknockers

The Dark Half

Four Past Midnight

Needful Things

Geralds Game

Dolores Claiborne

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Insomnia

Rose Madder

Desperation

Bag of Bones

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Hearts in Atlantis

Dreamcatcher

Everythings Eventual

From a Buick 8

Cell

Liseys Story

Duma Key

Just After Sunset

Stephen King Goes to the Movies

Under the Dome

Full Dark, No Stars

11.22.63

Doctor Sleep

Mr Mercedes

Revival

Finders Keepers

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower

The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel

By Stephen King as Richard Bachman

Thinner

The Running Man

The Bachman Books

The Regulators

Blaze

NON-FICTION

Danse Macabre

On Writing (A Memoir of the Craft)

www.hodder.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright Stephen King 2015

The right of Stephen King to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Hardback ISBN 978 1 473 69888 8

eBook ISBN 978 1 473 69890 1

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.hodder.co.uk

Some of these stories have been previously published, but that doesnt mean they were done then, or even that theyre done now. Until a writer either retires or dies, the work is not finished; it can always use another polish and a few more revisions. Theres also a bunch of new ones. Something else I want you to know: how glad I am, Constant Reader, that were both still here. Cool, isnt it?

SK

I shoot from the hip and keep a stiff upper lip.

AC/DC

Contents

I ve made some things for you, Constant Reader; you see them laid out before you in the moonlight. But before you look at the little handcrafted treasures I have for sale, lets talk about them for a bit, shall we? It wont take long. Here, sit down beside me. And do come a little closer. I dont bite.

Except weve known each other for a very long time, and I suspect you know thats not entirely true.

Is it?

Youd be surprised at least, I think you would be at how many people ask me why I still write short stories. The reason is pretty simple: writing them makes me happy, because I was built to entertain. I cant play the guitar very well, and I cant tap-dance at all, but I can do this. So I do.

Im a novelist by nature, I will grant you that, and I have a particular liking for the long ones that create an immersive experience for writer and reader, where the fiction has a chance to become a world thats almost real. When a long book succeeds, the writer and reader are not just having an affair; they are married. When I get a letter from a reader who says he or she was sorry when The Stand or 11.22.63 came to an end, I feel that book has been a success.

But theres something to be said for a shorter, more intense experience. It can be invigorating, sometimes even shocking, like a waltz with a stranger you will never see again, or a kiss in the dark, or a beautiful curio for sale laid out on a cheap blanket at a street bazaar. And, yes, when my stories are collected, I always feel like a street vendor, one who sells only at midnight. I spread my assortment out, inviting the reader thats you to come and take your pick. But I always add the proper caveat: be careful, my dear, because some of these items are dangerous. They are the ones with bad dreams hidden inside, the ones you cant stop thinking about when sleep is slow to come and you wonder why the closet door is open, when you know perfectly well that you shut it.

If I said I always enjoyed the strict discipline shorter works of fiction impose, Id be lying. Short stories require a kind of acrobatic skill that takes a lot of tiresome practice. Easy reading is the product of hard writing , some teachers say, and its true. Miscues that can be overlooked in a novel become glaringly obvious in a short story. Strict discipline is necessary. The writer has to rein in his impulse to follow certain entrancing side paths and stick to the main route.

I never feel the limitations of my talent so keenly as I do when writing short fiction. I have struggled with feelings of inadequacy, a soul-deep fear that I will be unable to bridge the gap between a great idea and the realization of that ideas potential. What that comes down to, in plain English, is that the finished product never seems quite as good as the splendid idea that rose from the subconscious one day, along with the excited thought, Ah man! I gotta write this right away!

Sometimes the result is pretty good, though. And every once in awhile, the result is even better than the original concept. I love it when that happens. The real challenge is getting into the damned thing, and I believe thats why so many would-be writers with great ideas never actually pick up the pen or start tapping away at the keys. All too often, its like trying to start a car on a cold day. At first the motor doesnt even crank, it only groans. But if you keep at it (and if the battery doesnt die), the engine starts runs rough and then smooths out.

There are stories here that came in a flash of inspiration (Summer Thunder was one of those), and had to be written at once, even if it meant interrupting work on a novel. There are others, like Mile 81, that have waited their turn patiently for decades. Yet the strict focus needed to create a good short story is always the same. Writing novels is a little like playing baseball, where the game goes on for as long as it needs to, even if that means twenty innings. Writing short stories is more like playing basketball or football: youre competing against the clock as well as the other team.

When it comes to writing fiction, long or short, the learning curve never ends. I may be a Professional Writer to the IRS when I file my tax return, but in creative terms, Im still an amateur, still learning my craft. We all are. Every day spent writing is a learning experience, and a battle to do something new. Phoning it in is not allowed. One cannot increase ones talent that comes with the package but it is possible to keep talent from shrinking. At least, I like to think so.