Talk:Stephen King

Philanthropist

I think this deserves to be mentioned in the lead, if not the infobox. MOS:ROLEBIO has been cited; I don't think his philanthrophy is a "sundry" role. In Maine he is primarily known for his philanthropic work these days; he is categorized in Category:Philanthropists from Maine which is itself categorized under Category:People from Maine by occupation. Philantropists by state is also categorized under Category:American people by occupation by state so I think philanthropist can indeed be an occupation. 331dot (talk) 12:57, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

King has done lots of things, including musician, entrepreneur, broadcast owner, and philanthropist. Listing all of these in the infobox and in the lead is contrary to MOS:ROLEBIO. He is primarily known as a writer. We need a consensus to make an exception. Sundayclose (talk) 12:59, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't propose listing all of those things, nor do I think he is primarily notable as a musician, entrepreneur, and broadcast owner. 331dot (talk) 13:01, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

And I don't propose listing anything other than author, which is his primary occupation and for which he is known. If you ask the average person, "What does Stephen King do?", the answer will almost always be writer or author, not philanthropist. Musician, entrepreneur, and broadcast owner are just as much a part of his bio as philanthropist. The point is, we only list his primary occupation. Again, this requires consensus to single out one activity over all others. Philanthropy and other activities can be discussed in the article, but not in the infobox or lead. Sundayclose (talk) 13:07, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

His philanthropy makes national news (LA Times, USA Today, CNN) and clearly is not something that he does on the side. If that's not an "occupation" for the infobox, okay, but there is no reason not to mention this in the lead. 331dot (talk) 14:01, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Which, if "philanthropist" is not an occupation, I might suggest that you nominate some categories for deletion or renaming. 331dot (talk) 14:02, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I can selectively scour the internet to find "national news" about his other activities. In the past, I have seen news reports on national TV about his musical activities, but he's not primarily a musician. But that's sidetracking the real issue, which is notability for anything in addition to writing. And I think you missed one of my points. I'm saying that "philanthropist" should be in neither the infobox nor the lead. As for categories, feel free to nominate for deletion or renaming as you wish. That's not my concern. My concern is that the lead and infobox should only contain his primary activity, which is writer, per MOS:ROLEBIO. Any exception requires consensus here. Many famous and/or wealthy individuals such as actors have philanthropic activities, but you don't see it in the infobox or lead. As just one example, Barack Obama has been involved in numerous philanthropic activities but does not have "philanthropist" in his infobox. There are many, many other examples. Sundayclose (talk) 15:05, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I didn't miss your point, I'm trying to compromise with you and reach WP:CONSENSUS. I don't think Barack Obama is an appropriate comparison as his political career outweighs pretty much everything else he has done. I don't think that's the case here. My only point with the categories is that this can be considered an occupation. 331dot (talk) 15:43, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any compromise because any inclusion of philanthropist requires an exception to MOS:ROLEBIO. And Obama is as good an example as King. King's writing career outweighs everything else he has done. But again I think you miss the point. Obama is just one of many examples. Anyway, unless you can come around to accepting the limitations of MOS:ROLEBIO we'll just have to see if there are other opinions. Sundayclose (talk) 15:54, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

One more point: It is utterly and laughably absurd to state "philanthropist" before "author" as his occupation, as you did when you reverted my edit. Sundayclose (talk) 16:00, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Fair point. I've just removed it since it is disputed and was recently added(not by me). As I said I don't think the policy has been interpreted correctly here and that no "exception" is required; that this change falls well within it, but I have plenty on my plate so I'm not able to actively pursue this further. 331dot (talk) 16:47, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that "philanthropist" doesn't belong in the lead, as it's not what King is primarily known for. If you were profiling, say, Andrew Carnegie, someone known as a philanthropist, it would belong in the lead. But King is primarily known as a novelist, and that's what should be in the lead.

That doesn't mean that King's philanthropy isn't worth mentioning. In The New Yorker, Mark Singer writes that King "also subsidizes the National Poetry Foundation". That was in 1997; anyone know if he still does?

King's Philtrum Press seems worth mentioning, don't you think? But there's nothing about it in the article. I'd also be interested in knowing more about the radio stations King and his wife own; there's a sentence about it under "Personal life", but it seems like something to expand upon. Charlie Faust (talk) 17:29, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Friendship With Peter Straub

Straub and King collaborated on two novels, The Talisman and Black House. They were longtime friends and admirers of each other's work; Straub included King's "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French" in the Library of America anthology American Fantastic Tales. Straub compared King favorably to Charles Dickens, and, after Straub's passing, King told The New York TImes "he was a better and more literary author than I was." (See Risen, Clay, "Peter Straub Literary Master of the Sueprnatural, Dies at 79." The New York Times.)

Does anyone know when and how King and Straub met? That would be worth adding to the pages of both authors. Charlie Faust (talk) 18:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Quoterdämmerung

The template informs us that "This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations for an encyclopedia entry." That's been there since June, but no one has identified the offending quotes.

The article has several quotes from King, two of which are about a paragraph in length; they're from his nonfiction books Danse Macabre and On Writing, respectively. Is that excessive? I don't think so. I think the quotes provide insight into King's creative process. The Wikipedia article for Roger Ebert (which I have contributed to) has several quotes from Ebert that are over a paragraph in length, and it's a certified "Good article." (Not that I'm complaining; I think those quotes are illuminating, too.)

Someone should either identify the quotes that should be removed, or remove the template. Charlie Faust (talk) 03:18, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Trouble with the Lead

"Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Called the "King of Horror", his books have sold more than 350 million copies as of 2006, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. King has published over 65 novels/novellas, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and five nonfiction books. He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in book collections."

Well, that's true enough, but "his books have sold more than 350 million copies as of 2006" is 17 years out of date. And isn't the number of books he's sold a little superficial? King would be the first to tell you that there are plenty of great writers (like Thomas Williams and Don Robertson) who are not bestsellers. If we have to mention his popularity, why not mention (as Joyce Carol Oates did) that he's the "world's best-selling author" and leave it at that?

"King has published over 65 novels/novellas." This is kind of confusing, as most of his novellas were published in collections, like Different Seasons. It's not clarified by "including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman"; are the seven Bachman books novels, novellas, or some of each? The "five nonfiction books" is confusing, too; I'm aware of Danse Macabre (1981), Nightmares in the Sky (1988, with photographer f-stop Fitzgerald), Midlife Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America With Three Chords and an Attitude (1994, with Amy Tan, Dave Barry, et. al), On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000), Faithful (2004, with Stewart O'Nan), Guns (2013, as an ebook) and Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All) (2013, an ebook with Tan, Barry, et. al). Of those, I'd say only Danse Macabre and On Writing are widely known; they're the only ones listed on his British site, And Nightmares in the Sky and Faithful were collaborations, as were the music books. So "five nonfiction books" is potentially misleading. Even if we attribute all of those to King, his nonfiction output is dwarfed by his fiction output. If we feel that Danse Macabre and On Writing, his best-known nonfiction books, deserve special mention, why not mention them specifically? Charlie Faust (talk) 22:37, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Not only is "five nonfiction books" potentially misleading, it includes works which were co-authored and which aren't widely known. King also wrote a musical, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, with John Mellencamp; it's not mentioned in the header for the excellent reason that it's not a major work (it is mentioned elsewhere in the article.) Nor is his directorial effort, Maximum Overdrive, mentioned in the header, since it's not a major work (it, too is mentioned elsewhere.) I maintain that Danse Macabre and On Writing are King's only nonfiction books which are widely known, and that merit mention in the header. Charlie Faust (talk) 23:53, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Tale of a train

We learn that "As a child, King apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train, though he has no memory of the event. His family told him that after leaving home to play with the boy, King returned speechless and seemingly in shock. Only later did the family learn of the friend's death. Some commentators have suggested that this event may have psychologically inspired some of King's darker works."

Folks, that story doesn't pass the sniff test, for several reasons. First, King makes no mention of it at all in his memoir, On Writing (2000) or in any subsequent interviews. If King doesn't remember the event, how could it have "psychologically inspired some of his darker works"? What does "psychologically inspired" mean?

The story relies on the notion of a repressed memory ("he has no memory of the event".) But the phenomena of repressed memory has been largely discredited (see Loftus, Elizabeth; Ketchum, Katherine., The Myth of Repressed Memory. 1994) The clinical psychologist Richard McNally writes that "The notion that traumatic events can be repressed...is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry. It has provided the theoretical basis for 'recovered memory therapy'—the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era." (See McNally, R. J., "The Science and Folklore of Traumatic Amnesia", Clinical Psychology.) It's common enough in fiction (including some of King's fiction), but not in real life. And, interestingly, it wasn't even common in fiction until the nineteenth century, when it entered the popular imagination.

In Physiological Medicine, Harrison Pope, Mihcael P. Poliakoff, Michael B. Parker, Matthew Boynes and James B. Hudson tell of an experiment in which they "advertised in three languages on more than 30 internet web sites and discussion groups, and also in print offering US$1000 to the first individual who could find a case of dissociative amnesia for a traumatic event in any fictional or non-fictional work before 1800. Our search generated more than 100 replies; it produced numerous examples of ordinary forgetfulness, infantile amnesia and biological amnesia throughout works in English, other European languages, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit and Chinese before 1800, but no descriptions of individuals showing dissociative amnesia for a traumatic event."

The authors conclude that "If dissociative amnesia for traumatic events were a natural psychological phenomenon, an innate capacity of the brain, then throughout the millennia before 1800, individuals would presumably have witnessed such cases and portrayed them in non-fictional works or in fictional characters. The absence of cases before 1800 cannot reasonably be explained by arguing that our ancestors understood or described psychological phenomena so differently as to make them unrecognizable to modern readers because spontaneous complete amnesia for a major traumatic event, in an otherwise lucid individual, is so graphic that it would be recognizable even through a dense veil of cultural interpretation. Therefore, it appears that dissociative amnesia is not a natural neuropsychological phenomenon, but instead a culture-bound syndrome, dating from the nineteenth century." Small wonder that Pope, in the British Medical Jounral, writes that "on critical examination, the scientific evidence for repression crumbles." Do you think he would change his opinion on hearing the King story? I don't. Maybe supporters of the story can ask him, or the editors of the British Medical Journal.

So "he has no memory of the event" falsifies the story with high confidence. In the spirit of Pope, Poliakoff, et al., I'll ask if anyone knows of any recent interviews (since, say, 2000) where King mentions the incident. As far as I can tell, there are none. Nor do there seem to be any direct quotes from King's family members mentioning the incident. Where does the story originate? In King’s 1981 book Danse Macabre, where he offers it as an explanation for what happened in his youth to make him write horror. But, as noted, he makes no mention of the alleged incident at all in his memoir On Writing (2000). And he has offered other, simpler explanations for why he writes horror. In a recent interview, when Terry Gross asked King about his childhood, he replied, “I’ve been queried a lot about how I got interested in this stuff. And at some point, a lot of interviewers just turn into Dr. Freud and put me on the couch and say, ‘what was your childhood like?’ And I say various things, and I confabulate a little bit and just kind of dance around the question as best I can, but bottom line – my childhood was pretty ordinary, except that from a very young age, I wanted to be scared. I just did.” (See Gross, Terry, Stephen King: ‘My Imagination Was Very Active — Even At A Young Age’ National Public Radio). (Emphasis added.) Occam’s razor tells us that the simplest answer is usually correct, and the answer King gave Gross (“my childhood was pretty ordinary, except that from a very young age, I wanted to be scared”) is the simplest. He makes no mention at all of the alleged incident.

In a separate interview with Time, King recalls that "I would be asked, 'What happened in your childhood to make you write those terrible things?' I couldn't think of any real answer to that." (See Cruz, Gilbert, "Stephen King on His 10 Longest Novels". Time.) But actually, he had: In the introduction to Night Shift (1976), he says that he is often asked why he writes horror, and argues that most of us, whether we admit or not, have at least some interest in it: "No need to belabor the obvious; life is full of horrors small and large, but because the small ones are the ones we can comprehend, they are the ones that smack home with all the force of mortality... Fear has always been big. Death has always been big. They are two of the human constants. But only the writer of horror and the supernatural gives the reader such an opportunity for total identification and catharsis." (King, Stephen. Night Shift, p. xv-xvii.) He says this interest in horror begins, with most of us, in childhood. He makes no mention of the alleged incident. His explanation is consistent with what he told Gross in 2015, where he says he thinks an interest in horror is "built in" as "part of human nature" (based on the way King's books sell, I'd say he's correct.) As established, in the Gross interview he makes no mention of the alleged incident. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, when asked how he became interested in horror, he replied, "It's built in. That's all." At this point, I shouldn't need to say that he makes no mention of the alleged incident. (See Greene, Andy. Stephen King: The Rolling Stone Interview. October 31, 2014.)

No need to belabor the obvious: Since the story is based on psychology that is dubious at best and dangerous at worst (per McNally, repressed memory "is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry" and "has provided the theoretical basis for 'recovered memory therapy'—the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era"); since there are no direct quotes from family members mentioning the alleged incident; since King makes no mention at all of the alleged incident in his memoir or in subsequent interviews; since he mentioned the alleged incident once in 1981 as an explanation of why he writes horror but never before or since; since he has, before and since, offered other, simpler explanations of why he writes horror ("from a very young age, I wanted to be scared. I just did"), and since he admits he used to "confabulate" when asked what happened in his youth to make him write horror, the story does not belong in the biography section, where it is damaging the credibility of the article and of Wikipedia. Charlie Faust (talk) 21:34, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Whether or not this incident actually happened, it has nothing to do with repressed memory. It has nothing to do with King's memory at all. Not remembering something is not the same as repressed memory. My family has told me about a few events that I don't remember that occurred in my early childhood. I didn't repress the memory because of how emotionally charged it was; I simply don't remember because it was many years ago and I was a small child. That's a common occurrence that has nothing to do with repressed memory. The reported cases of repressed memory always involve the person recalling the memory after years of not remembering it. King says he has no memory of the event. The incident is based entirely on the reports of family members who witnessed King's behavior at that time. A claim of repressed memory is based on the recovery of the repressed memory. King has never claimed that he has recovered any such memory. It's the repressed memory argument that doesn't pass the sniff test. One fact is well sourced: King's family reported the incident. If you want to make a case for repressed memory, you need to provide the evidence that King claims to have recovered the memory. Sundayclose (talk) 13:45, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe it doesn't relate to "recovered memory", as King doesn't claim to have recovered it; it does rely on "repressed memory", as King seemed to claim to have repressed it. In Danse Macabre, he describes it as a case of traumatic amnesia: "seemingly in shock", etc. What would stop him from recalling it besides traumatic amnesia? And, as established, traumatic amnesia is common enough in fiction (including King's fiction) but not real life. McNally: "The notion that traumatic events can be repressed...is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry." (See McNally, R. J., "The Science and Folklore of Traumatic Amnesia", Clinical Psychology.) I Traumatic events are usually the ones we recall most clearly. If he had witnessed his friend being hit by a train he would, almost certainly, recall it. And, as established, King doesn't seem to have mentioned the incident since Danse Macabre, certainly not in his memoir On Writing, and admits he used to "confabulate" when asked what happened in his youth to make him write horror. And he has, before and since, offered other, simpler answers to that question: "from a very young age, I wanted to be scared. I just did." Occam's razor tells us the simplest answer is usually correct.

So in the spirit of Pope, Poliakoff, et al., who offered $1000 to anyone who could find an example of traumatic amnesia in a fiction or nonfiction work published before 1800, I'll ask if anyone knows of any recent interviews (since, say, 2000) where King mentions the incident, or any direct quotes from King's family members mentioning the incident (not what King had quoted them in 1981 as having said, direct quotes from, say, his mother Ruth or brother Dave.) (Not surprisingly, Pope, Poliaoff, et al. got a null result: "If dissociative amnesia for traumatic events were a natural psychological phenomenon, an innate capacity of the brain, then throughout the millennia before 1800, individuals would presumably have witnessed such cases and portrayed them in non-fictional works or in fictional characters. The absence of cases before 1800 cannot reasonably be explained by arguing that our ancestors understood or described psychological phenomena so differently as to make them unrecognizable to modern readers because spontaneous complete amnesia for a major traumatic event, in an otherwise lucid individual, is so graphic that it would be recognizable even through a dense veil of cultural interpretation. Therefore, it appears that dissociative amnesia is not a natural neuropsychological phenomenon.") And I don't think an unauthorized biography counts as a direct quote. I wish that I had $1000 to offer to anyone who could provide a direct quote from a family member mentioning the incident, or of King mentioning the incident since 2000, but I do not. So it goes. Charlie Faust (talk) 16:24, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Your wall of text about the science of repressed memory is irrelevant because King does not claim the train incident is a repressed memory. If you disagree, give us unequivocal evidence, not that he discussed repressed memory in general, but that he says the train incident is repressed memory. I can discuss repressed memory ad nauseum, but that doesn't mean I have any repressed memory. You're putting up a straw man to divert attention from the real issue, which is not repressed memory. Again, there is no evidence that King repressed any memory about the train incident. His family reported it. That does not constitute repressed memory. He says he doesn't remember it. There is no evidence that he recalled a repressed memory, which is a sine qua non of repressed memory. Sundayclose (talk) 18:21, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Collaborated

With author Richard Chizmar 2600:6C64:667F:49B9:A0A5:7EF3:7578:A309 (talk) 03:47, 10 January 2024 (UTC)