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Stephen King started writing at the early age of eight years old, me, influence by his work, started writing my own stories thirty years later, I think we share the same passion for writing. The trick is to know fear on every angle. Through the next years and during all my life, I have analyzed every single work of Steve and I’ve come to the conclusion, that we all become his fans, that Steve is the king of the literature of psychological terror.
Stephen King is such a smart man who knows people very well and their insides. If Steve hadn’t been a writer, he would probably have been a psychiatrist. Or at least, that’s what I think. His first stories are the ones that get most of our attention. His stories written with feeling and a high grade of fantasy, the same as his first books. My stories are a tribute to the king and an acknowledgment of what he could have found in that lost manuscripts’ box that belonged to his father Donald Edwin King, which contents were never revealed. ¿Could it be that little Stevie, with thirteen years old, chose some of these stories to re-write them? Of course not, but he was influenced by them and that marked his life forever. When I was thirteen years old, the anthology of stories “Night Shift” fell into my hands and I was totally affected by it. After reading the whole book, I started writing my own stories, influenced by the master King every single step of the way. I guess that means that probably, I am the fan number one of Stephen King. O maybe, it means that I am just another fan of Stephen King.
King himself has recognized so many times that he has written stories and novels based on someone or thinking in someone. That is the case of “Dolores Claiborne”, which he wrote thinking about the actress Kathy Bates. He pictured how that woman would react if her favorite writer had stopped writing about her favorite character. King thought about her. And I think of King when I write, it’s an impulse, I can’t shake it off.
Stephen King was masterfully influenced by the 50’s DC’s comics. Besides, he was fascinated by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bardbury and even Richard Matheson. He was marked by them. By their stories, by their narrative, by their style. And the movies, those were an influence on him too. Little Stevie wrote his own version of the movies when he got back home. I started writing when I read “Gray Matter”, “Strawberry Spring” , “I Know What You Need” o “The Mangler”, every single one belonging to the book “Night Shift”. I was fascinated by his stories just like him by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. And he could be also influenced by other writers like Clive Barker (“Books of Blood”) who Stephen King also admires.
Influences and the incontrollable Richard Bachman, a person who’s not willing to accept the society in which he was meant to live. A society that was, according to him, annoyed. Stephen King always wrote under his influence and in his specialty to show us the dark side of things and the people, inside fear and paranoia with two different names.
I’m not the only one writing based on him. In the year 2003, Ridley Pearson, friend of Stephen King, wrote the screenplay “The Diary of Ellen Rimbauber”. It’s not an exception, is just another example. Stephen King himself got inspired by a Hotel in which he stayed, called The Montressor Hotel. And the Montressor is a clear reference of an Edgar Allan Poe’s story called “The Cask of Amontillado”. And this worked for him for what he was writing.
He was very much marked by death too. En the year 1967 he sold his first story “The Glass Floor” in which a woman dies in a room. And he was marked by fear too, If you don’t believe me, look at the bad experience he went through when he saw an scene in the Bambi movie, in which the character is surrounded by fire. It happened the same to me when I saw “Carrie” for the first time. The final revenge on the prom stage, in which Carrieta White unleashes her anger that freaked me out.
And then, it came ”The Shining”. That’s the reason why I write terror stories and novels, and with this stories I want to pay tribute to the King, forgive the redundancy. Is it paradoxical to do this? I don’t want to apologize for mixing our so separated lives. Is it absurd to write this book? That I’m taking advantage of his influences to be able to publish my stories? No. he’s a part of me since many years ago, just like so many other readers of King, but my passion took me a farer. Way farer.
Claudio Hernández.