In his nonfiction book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, King discusses his writing style at great length. King believes that, generally speaking, good stories cannot be called consciously and should not be plotted out beforehand, they are better served by focusing on a single "seed" of a story and letting the story grow itself. King often begins a story with no idea how it will end. He mentions in the Dark Tower series that halfway through its nearly 30-year writing period a terminally-ill woman asked how it would end, certain she would die before the series's completion. He told her he did not know. King believes strongly in this style, stating that his best writing comes from "freewriting." In On Writing, King stated that he believed stories to exist fully formed, like fossils, and that his role as a writer was to excavate the fossil as well as he could. When asked for the souce of his story ideas in interviews, however, he has several times, including the appearance on Amazon.com's Fishbowl, answered, "I have the heart of a small boy......and I keep it in a jar on my desk." (This quote is most often attributed to Robert Bloch, author of Psycho.)He is known for his great eye for detail, for continuity and for inside references; many stories that may seem unrelated are often linked by secondary characters, fictional towns, or off-hand references to events in previous books. Read as a whole, King's work, which is centered around his Dark Tower series, creates a remarkable history that stretches from present day all the way back to the beginning of time (with a unique cosmogony). Many of the settings for King's books are in Maine, though often fictional locations).
King's books are filled with references to American history and American culture, particularly the darker, more fearful side of these. These references are generally spun into the stories of characters, often explaining their fears. Recurrent references include crime, war (especially the Vietnam War), violence, the supernatural and racism. Many of King's books have one or more characters make a reference (almost always offhand) to being in the military or in "the war."King is also known for his folksy, informal narration, often referring to his fans as "Constant Readers" or "friends and neighbors." This familiar style contrasts with the horrific content of many of his stories.King has a very simple formula for learning to write well: "Read four hours a day and write four hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer." He also has a simple definition for talent in writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented."
Shortly after his accident, King wrote the first draft of the book Dreamcatcher with a notebook and a Waterman fountain pen, which he called "the world's finest word processor."King's writing style throughout his novels alternates from future to past, characters, and setting in each chapter leaving a cliffhanger at the end. He then continues this process until the novel is finished.When asked why he writes, King responds: "The answer to that is fairly simple - there was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That's why I do it. I really can't imagine doing anything else and I can't imagine not doing what I do."
Influences
King has called Richard Matheson "the author who influenced me most as a writer."[citation needed] Both authors casually integrate characters' thoughts into the third person narration, just one of several parallels between their writing styles. In a current edition of Matheson's The Incredible Shrinking Man, King is quoted: "A horror story if there ever was one...a great adventure story—it is certainly one of that select handful that I have given to people, envying them the experience of the first reading."King is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft and refers to him several times in Danse Macabre. Lovecraft's influence shows in King's invention of bizarre, ancient deities, subtle connections among all of his tales and the integration of fabricated newspaper clippings, trial transcripts and documents as narrative devices. King's invented trio of afflicted New England towns--Jerusalem's Lot, Castle Rock and Derry-- are reminiscent of Lovecraft's Arkham, Dunwich and Innsmouth. King's short story Crouch End is an explicit homage to, and part of, Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos story cycle. Gramma, a short story made into a film in the 80's anthology horror show Tales From the Dark Side, mentions Lovecraft's notorious fictional creation Necronomicon, also borrowing the names of a number of the fictional monsters mentioned therein. I Know What You Need from 1976's anthology collection Night Shift, and 'Salem's Lot. also mention the tome. Another tribute to Lovecraft is in Kings short story 'Jerusalem's Lot', which opens King's book Night Shift. King differs markedly from Lovecraft in his focus on extensive characterization and naturalistic dialogue, both notably absent in Lovecraft's writing. In On Writing, King is critical of Lovecraft's dialogue-writing skills, using passages from The Colour Out of Space as particularly poor examples.
Edgar Allan Poe exerts a noticeable influence over King's writing as well. In The Shining, the phrase "And the red death held sway over all" hearkens back to Poe's "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all" from "The Masque of the Red Death." The short story "Dolan's Cadillac" has a theme almost identical to Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," including a paraphrase of Fortunato's famous plea, "For the love of God, Montresor!" In The Shining, King refers to Poe as "The Great American Hack".King acknowledges the influence of Bram Stoker, particularly on his novel ’Salem's Lot, which he envisioned as a retelling of Dracula. Its related short story Jerusalem's Lot, is reminiscent of Stoker's Lair of the White Worm.King has also openly declared his admiration for another, far less prolific author: Shirley Jackson. Salem's Lot opens with a quotation from Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Tony, an imaginary playmate from The Shining, bears a striking resemblance to another imaginary playmate with the same name from Jackson's Hangsaman. A pivotal scene in Storm of the Century is based on Jackson's The Lottery. A character in Wolves of the Calla references the Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle.