How many folks here have written a novel?

I like King, but he has put out some dreck, too.

“Insomnia” might be a brilliant troll, but it’s a terrible novel. “Tommyknockers” is half too long and just not very good at all.

Where King really shines is in his short stories. He’s a modern master of those.

 

True, some dreck. "Billy Summers" was great, "Fairy Tale" wasn't. But the dialogue is always spot-on, written just like people talk in real life.

 

A few writers put out a book a year Grisham, Patterson, Sue Grafton. George Higgins pissed out a book every year in a drunken haze.

 

Yeah those collections are exquisite. There are a few short stories of his that fucked me up and good, with "Graduation Afternoon" at the very top of that list.

 

Is Father John Misty in the house?

 

Elmore Leonard was second to none.

 

Leonard was very good at it.

Best dialogue I ever read was "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" by George V. Higgins.

 

King’s dialogue in “Children of the Corn” was so, so spot-on.

 

King's been such a machine he has no memory of writing Cujo. Four-hundred-page novel and he has no recollection of it.

 

Might have something to do with the coke, no?

 

Or being run over on his bike ride.

 

Elmore Leonard lived in that neighborhood as well.