King Dethroned, Part 3

I think Stephen King faces the peril any hugely successful writer can face -- namely, that anything he writes can get published, acknowledged, and read, regardless of the quality of the work.

This is the opposite of the problem most writers face (beyond the self-published), and it's ironic because it's very much a "be careful what you wish for" type of scenario.

Most writers would dream of having the profile King has over his long writerly life. Most (as in nearly all) writers will never come close to that degree of literary prominence.

Now we know, and even King knows, that, as in his famous quote:

"I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami." ~Stephen King

King's the most successful salami writer we'll ever see, most likely (I don't count people like Patterson or Childs -- they're stupendously successful niche potboiler writers -- they don't have the cultural prominence King has had). He took salami writing as far as it could go.

Anyway, if/when a writer attains that sort of an arc, they cross a threshold where what they write doesn't matter anymore -- it'll get published because their name is so big that they get an automatic "yes" on their work.

Again, it's a dream most writers would wish for, but the result is that inferior work gets out there, and a writer loses their edge. It's actually yet another peril writers face.

King should have retired decades ago. Sure, he could still write, but he shouldn't have pushed out work that way, because it tarnished his reputation.

Readers find themselves having to make excuses for it -- there are the fanatics who like everything, no matter what -- but the rest? Not so much. There's an inertia that keeps sales going on some level, but you also see readers complaining when the work doesn't work for them.

A writer needs to know when their work isn't what it used to be, and when that happens, they need to either move more into a private writerly space, and/or take up some other activity to occupy themselves and hang it up.

For a former alcoholic and cocaine addict like King was, he's likely addicted to writing, too. I understand that drive to write, I really do. But there's also the need to know that one's work isn't what it used to be, and the need to step away. Or at least move into a place of writerly solitude again and confront one's work honestly -- retirement, in other words.

Only a deluded egomaniac thinks everything they write is fit to see the light of day. Hell, I have tons of fragments and even completed stories where I just didn't feel like they made the grade.

As an unknown and remarkably unsuccessful writer (certainly a major failure at audience-building), I have that luxury. I can just shake off works and not have any pressure to get them out there.

But someone like King, above and beyond his own writerly ego, has an entire publishing apparatus eager to get his work out there. It's almost predatory. Or maybe it IS predatory on the part of his publisher.

And it doesn't help readers, who get increasingly inferior works that they're being told by marketing and advertising that they're a must-read.

It's a macro-scale version of the problem with all the junk writers who are currently clogging Kindle Unlimited and indie in general, only it's made worse because King has actual success, and his footprint is massive, even as he ages.

I imagine Joe Hill, as his heir apparent, will have access to piles of manuscripts King's written, and will likely become the steward of his father's literary legacy, the way that Christopher Tolkien is with his own father's work. Maybe a little ghostwriting here and there, hoping that'll further raise his profile.

There'll be huge incentive to keep cranking out Stephen King work, and Joe Hill will think himself up to the task (personally, I don't think he is, but rank hath its privileges). The fact that Hill even chose to write reveals a lot about him. No doubt he absolutely thinks himself up to the task of handling his father's legacy.

King's work has been sunsetting for a long time, now, but the drive to continue making money on the work will prove overwhelming. At some point, it really will come down to:

Stephen King is dead; long live Stephen King!

One can expect more salami writing coming, and that's not baloney. Weirdly, it'll feel like a horror story, come to think of it....