Editing Stephen King (section)

=== Critical reception ===
King has been praised for his use of realistic detail. In ''A Century of Great Suspense Stories'', editor [[Jeffery Deaver]] wrote that "While there were many good best-selling writers before him, King, more than anybody since [[John D. MacDonald]], brought reality to genre novels. He has often remarked that ''[['Salem's Lot]]'' was {{'}}''[[Peyton Place (novel)|Peyton Place]]'' meets ''[[Dracula]]''{{'}}. And so it was. The rich characterization, the careful and caring social eye, the interplay of story line and character development announced that writers could take worn themes such as vampirism and make them fresh again. Before King, many popular writers found their efforts to make their books serious blue-penciled by their editors. 'Stuff like that gets in the way of the story,' they were told. Well, it's stuff like that that has made King so popular, and helped free the popular name from the shackles of simple genre writing. He is a master of masters."<ref name=":Deaver">{{cite book|title=A Century of Great Suspense Stories|editor-first=Jeffrey|editor-last=Deaver|page=[https://archive.org/details/centuryofgreatsu00deav/page/290 290]|publisher=Berkley Hardcover|date=2001|isbn=0-425-18192-8|url=https://archive.org/details/centuryofgreatsu00deav/page/290}}</ref> [[Daniel Mendelsohn]], reviewing ''[[Bag of Bones]]'', wrote that "Stephen King is so widely accepted as America's master of paranormal terrors that you can forget his real genius is for the everyday... This is a book about reanimation: the ghosts', of course, but also Mike's, his desire to re-embrace love and work after a long bereavement that King depicts with an eye for the kind of small but moving details that don't typically distinguish blockbuster horror novels."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mendelsohn |first=Daniel |date=September 27, 1998 |title=Familiar Terrors |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/27/books/familiar-terrors.html}}</ref>

Many critics argue that King has matured as a writer. In his analysis of post–World War II horror fiction, ''The Modern Weird Tale'' (2001), [[S. T. Joshi]] devotes a chapter to King's work. Joshi argues that King's best-known works are his worst, describing them as mostly bloated, illogical, maudlin and prone to ''[[deus ex machina]]'' endings. Despite these criticisms, Joshi argues that since ''[[Gerald's Game]]'' (1992), King has been tempering the worst of his writing faults, producing books that are leaner, more believable and generally better written.<ref name="Joshi">{{cite book |last1=Joshi |first1=S. T. |author1-link=S T Joshi |title=The Modern Weird Tale |date=2001 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, N.C. |isbn=9780786409860 |pages=62–95 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/modernweirdtale0000josh/page/62 |chapter-url-access=registration|chapter=Stephen King: The King's New Clothes}}</ref>

In 2003, King was honored by the [[National Book Award]]s with a lifetime achievement award, the Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Some in the literary community expressed disapproval of the award: [[Richard E. Snyder]], the former CEO of [[Simon & Schuster]], described King's work as "non-literature" and critic [[Harold Bloom]] denounced the choice: "The decision to give the National Book Foundation's annual award for 'distinguished contribution' to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of [[dumbing down]] our cultural life. I've described King in the past as a writer of [[penny dreadful]]s, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with [[Edgar Allan Poe]]. What he is<!--not a mistake--> is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis."<ref>{{Cite news | url=http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/ | newspaper=[[The Boston Globe]] | title=Dumbing down American readers | first=Harold | last=Bloom | date=September 24, 2003 | access-date=December 29, 2006 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060617015302/http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/ | archive-date=June 17, 2006 | url-status=dead }}</ref>
	
King acknowledged the controversy in his acceptance speech: "There are some people who have spoken out passionately about giving me this medal. There are some people who think it's an extraordinarily bad idea. There have been some people who have spoken out who think it's an extraordinarily good idea. You know who you are and where you stand and most of you who are here tonight are on my side. I'm glad for that. But I want to say it doesn't matter in a sense which side you were on. The people who speak out, speak out because they are passionate about the book, about the word, about the page and, in that sense, we're all brothers and sisters. Give yourself a hand."<ref name="NBA"/> [[Shirley Hazzard]], whose novel ''[[The Great Fire (Hazzard novel)|The Great Fire]]'' was that year's National Book Award winner, responded by criticizing King; she later said that she had never read him.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2003|title=Stephen King makes a prize call for populism |work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/21/usnationalbookawards.awardsandprizes}}</ref>

[[Roger Ebert]] wrote that "A lot people were outraged when he was honored at the National Book Awards, as if a popular writer couldn't be taken seriously. But after finding that his book ''On Writing'' has more useful and observant things to say about the craft than any book since [[William Strunk Jr.|Strunk]] and [[E. B. White|White]]'s ''[[The Elements of Style]]'', I have gotten over my own snobbery. King has, after all, been responsible for the movies ''[[The Shawshank Redemption]]'', [[The Green Mile (film)|''The Green Mile'']], ''[[The Dead Zone (film)|The Dead Zone]]'', ''[[Misery (film)|Misery]]'', ''[[Apt Pupil (film)|Apt Pupil]]'', ''[[Christine (1983 film)|Christine]]'', ''[[Hearts in Atlantis (film)|Hearts in Atlantis]]'', ''[[Stand by Me (film)|Stand By Me]]'' and ''[[Carrie (1976 film)|Carrie]]''... And we must not be ungrateful for ''[[Silver Bullet (film)|Silver Bullet]]'', which I awarded three stars because it was 'either the worst movie made from a Stephen King story, or the funniest', and you know which side of that I'm gonna come down on."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=March 12, 2004 |title=Secret Window |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/secret-window-2004}}</ref>