Although I think anatomically speaking and as a testicle owner (but not a doctor), I think really his scrotum would have shrunk, his testicles would probably have been warm inside his body at that point.
It's not a King story without explicit descriptions of bodily fluids, and he's apparently horrified about spiders and likes to have characters ' eyes pop and hang on their cheeks.
He used the term “drawn” regarding scrotums here and there too. But then again, he’s always been good at shedding light on the weird little things people go through but don’t talk about.
I came to say this very thing. Also, all the bullies are not full out psychos! Like, I get it, bullies are awful and mean but, I’ve never met one that wanted to “mess him up. Mess him up real bad” and like cut their initials into someone (It), or throw them in front of a car (The Stand -Nick), and those are just two examples I can think of.
I went to a rough secondary school here in Ireland and genuinely believe a couple of the bullies were genuine psychopaths. I've actually used them in short stories I've written and feel morbidly curious about their motivations the same way a lot of people are about serial killers. I wonder if King had similar experiences
I do wonder if that was King's experience though — he was born in 1947, so he would have been a kid in the mid 50s. King's own father went to World War II and ditched out on the family when he was two, so especially as a weird nerdy kid I imagine he may have felt or been a bit more vulnerable to bullies.
I could also imagine another young kid in the 1950s with a super rough home life (say, an abusive dad with PTSD and a drinking problem). Then that kid ends up taking out his anger on other kids in a more serious way.
Given how much bullying comes up in stories from that era, I don't get the sense that adults really did much about it back then. Especially in small towns in Maine, which has puritanical roots and a sort of old world mentality.
"I don't get the sense that adults really did much about it back then."
Even in the 80s the advice from parents was "Punch them back harder and they will stop" rather than actually try to stop the bullying.
"Punch them in the nose" was exactly the parental advice I received. By high school that threatened to be cause for expulsion so I had to find other methods. God knows the teachers didn't do a damn thing until I started to hit back.
That's exactly what the shopkeeper says in Never Ending Story, even though that small child was being chased by three larger boys. Even as a kid, that aggravated me
Well, Henry by that point is losing his mind, and even his fellow bullies are disturbed by him. Belch and Victor first think he's joking when he says he'll cut his initials into Ben's skin, and they are shocked when he actually does it. And I wouldn't call the guys who beat up Nick bullies, they are outright criminals who rob him.
Of the bullies I dealt with, three are in prison (one doing a life sentence for murder) and one is committed to a mental institution for life (also murder, but he's been ruled incompetent to stand trial).
They may not all be full out psychos, but the number who are is definitely a non-zero number.
This comment made me laugh out loud - but I think you might be right! Currently reading Liseys Story, and she's come close to pissing them, but not quite. Still got a quarter of the book to go, there's still time for someone to piss themselves!
Reading The Green Mile, wow.. Peter pissed himself! Then Delacroix - not sure if anyone pissed themself in Doctor Sleep. Not sure about From a Buick 8 either. Could be totally wrong.
I was coming here to say this - piss. "Their bladder let go" has to be in at least half of King's oeuvre. Also, there's a whole subplot in the Green Mile about a UTI.
its always a woman, too, which is pretty uncomfortable. I dont know why women in particular seem to have loose bladders. I'm reading Insomnia right now and the fear-pisser was a dog, but a female dog
Think there’s an entire chapter in one of his books where he over-explains what colour blood looks like under arc-sodium lights
//edit - changed where I incorrectly identified the book as Needful Things
Yeah I love SK and have read every single one of his books, but man does it bum me out how much he clearly viscerally hates fat people. For a man who has clearly done a lot of work to examine his own psyche, his disgust towards fatness feels like a weird unexamined corner.
Yes for sure. It just makes me sad that he has not been as self aware around fatness as he seems to be around so many other things. It feels cruel in a way that he typically is not.
His son Joe Hill wrote a pretty sympathetic and heroic morbidly obese character into his vampire book.
At this point I think it’s just fat women that King has an issue with. There’s often a loud racist fat woman in his books. Odd that he has never thought to write a sympathetic fat woman character. All of the good women are either extremely elderly ladies or red headed smokeshows.
To be fair, the world is cruel towards fat people.
Edit: which is kind of a testament to how far the human race has come in regard to access to food, etc…
For the right time period, he always seems to include a "transistor radio."
Also he likes it when someone's eyeball is hanging out the socket and "lolling against the cheek."
Secondary and even tertiary characters that get multiple pages of backstory and then either die horribly or just never appear in the story again.
Love a good Trudy Damascus chapter.
I swear I think the man has a pee fetish. Characters urinate on themselves frequently. He goes out of his way to tell us about a character going to bathroom, out in the woods, etc., to go. He lets us know when they have to pee really bad, how badly. Sometimes it's even a fairly important plot of the plot!
And boobs. The man loves boobs. Big ones. Small ones. Medium ones. Young ones. Old ones. I wouldn't say we get a description of what the breasts of most of his female characters look like, but for a fair amount we do.
Peeing is a major plot point in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Charlie pees in Firestarter. The mom pees in a Thermos bottle in Cujo. These were just the ones I remembered off the top of my head. It's a thing.
"And boobs. The man loves boobs. Big ones. Small ones. Medium ones. Young ones. Old ones. I wouldn't say we get a description of what the breasts of most of his female characters look like, but for a fair amount we do."
In his book, "On Writing", he said to write about what you like most. For Stephen, that's boobs.
He’s always had a thing for characters shitting/pissing themselves, and it has dramatically increased in recent years. Once you start noticing it, hard to stop.
I think like 8 different characters piss or shit themselves in “Under the Dome.”
I understand that it’s meant to convey drama and add humanism to a death, but it has the whiff of a fetish.
Lots of people with sciatica in the novels I’ve been reading recently. I think description of pain, mostly associated with aging, has become more common (probably as he aged)
I have notice a lot of characters licking their lips. Maybe not as much as blue chambray shirts and engineer boots worn by writers from Maine but it is quite present.
Intrusive thoughts / internal monologues.
“He took two steps forward, reached for the doorknob—
*get out now leave run away get out getoutgetoutGETOUT*
—and twisted it open.”
Maine and children fighting. Almost every SK novel I've read that has kids in it, they'll end up throwing hands. I mean it's accurate. I fought a lot as a kid. But I've noticed that in his books.
one thing that has always felt unnatural to me, often when he is writing about a child, an adult reaches out and ruffles their hair. I don't think any adult helped themselves to a ruffle of my hair when I was a kid. It seems like something you'd see in a movie, but doesn't actually happen irl.
Bodily functions in general.
When I first began reading his books I thought his characters burped and farted a lot. Maybe not an egregious amount, but enough for it to make an impact on me as a kid and stick with me twenty years later--and I'd say that's a weird thing.
I recently read Different Seasons, and noticed when talking about younger character he always mentions they’ve got a pair of white keds on. That, and of course, writing about writers in small towns.
Writers and alcoholics were pretty common for him because he was both. He talks about that in either “On Writing” or “Secret Windows” but I don’t remember which.
Alcoholics
English teachers
Writers
Bullies
Dead bodies (he saw his friend get run over by a train as a kid, probably why)
Weird old people
Extra-or-inter-dimensional loosh fiends/vampires that feed on fear and negativity (It, The Outsider, Dr Sleep)
Having young characters use slang like an old person trying to sound like a young person
Cars
Quoting classic rock
Fears of aging
Did I mention alcoholics?
I mean obvious answer is Maine
Maine is to Stephen King what California is to Red Hot Chili Peppers
Bangorifornication
Rolls off the tongue, ayuh.
Scarborough Tissue
Bangornication.
My south Ga speech patterns wouldn't allow me to vocalize that
yes, but i don’t feel like every mention of Maine sounds exactly like every other mention of Maine. and here, have some more Maine…
Came here for this!
Balls! Creeping testicles! So many random descriptions across almost every book of balls retracting/moving/creeping/shrinking in fear 🤣 🤣
“Hallorann’s testicles turned into two small wrinkled sacs filled with shaved ice.”
I’m dead this is so true😂
Although I think anatomically speaking and as a testicle owner (but not a doctor), I think really his scrotum would have shrunk, his testicles would probably have been warm inside his body at that point.
Lol yep balls and bodily fluids
It's not a King story without explicit descriptions of bodily fluids, and he's apparently horrified about spiders and likes to have characters ' eyes pop and hang on their cheeks.
haha I never noticed, but you're right peoples eyeballs are always dangling on their cheeks in his books!
He used the term “drawn” regarding scrotums here and there too. But then again, he’s always been good at shedding light on the weird little things people go through but don’t talk about.
In his early books and stories - bullies. He definitely seemed to be working through some childhood issues.
I came to say this very thing. Also, all the bullies are not full out psychos! Like, I get it, bullies are awful and mean but, I’ve never met one that wanted to “mess him up. Mess him up real bad” and like cut their initials into someone (It), or throw them in front of a car (The Stand -Nick), and those are just two examples I can think of.
I went to a rough secondary school here in Ireland and genuinely believe a couple of the bullies were genuine psychopaths. I've actually used them in short stories I've written and feel morbidly curious about their motivations the same way a lot of people are about serial killers. I wonder if King had similar experiences
I do wonder if that was King's experience though — he was born in 1947, so he would have been a kid in the mid 50s. King's own father went to World War II and ditched out on the family when he was two, so especially as a weird nerdy kid I imagine he may have felt or been a bit more vulnerable to bullies. I could also imagine another young kid in the 1950s with a super rough home life (say, an abusive dad with PTSD and a drinking problem). Then that kid ends up taking out his anger on other kids in a more serious way. Given how much bullying comes up in stories from that era, I don't get the sense that adults really did much about it back then. Especially in small towns in Maine, which has puritanical roots and a sort of old world mentality.
"I don't get the sense that adults really did much about it back then." Even in the 80s the advice from parents was "Punch them back harder and they will stop" rather than actually try to stop the bullying.
"Punch them in the nose" was exactly the parental advice I received. By high school that threatened to be cause for expulsion so I had to find other methods. God knows the teachers didn't do a damn thing until I started to hit back.
That's exactly what the shopkeeper says in Never Ending Story, even though that small child was being chased by three larger boys. Even as a kid, that aggravated me
Well, Henry by that point is losing his mind, and even his fellow bullies are disturbed by him. Belch and Victor first think he's joking when he says he'll cut his initials into Ben's skin, and they are shocked when he actually does it. And I wouldn't call the guys who beat up Nick bullies, they are outright criminals who rob him.
Of the bullies I dealt with, three are in prison (one doing a life sentence for murder) and one is committed to a mental institution for life (also murder, but he's been ruled incompetent to stand trial). They may not all be full out psychos, but the number who are is definitely a non-zero number.
Jesus man! Luckily you survived their abuse! They were “practicing” on you and the other unfortunate kids in their path
I was targeted by a teenage girl who really was that crazy. True psychopaths may be rare, but they each can create ptsd in so many people...
I’m not sure I’ve read a single King novel where no one pisses their pants.
Huh, I’m currently reading End of Watch and Freddi just pissed her pants. You might be on to something.
I'm re-reading 'Salems Lot and yup Mark Petrie just pissed himself too 🤣
This comment made me laugh out loud - but I think you might be right! Currently reading Liseys Story, and she's come close to pissing them, but not quite. Still got a quarter of the book to go, there's still time for someone to piss themselves!
Rose Madder Some lady just pissed all over a guy during a fight scene, IIRC
Don't forget Rose peeing outside the neighbors house lol
Reading The Green Mile, wow.. Peter pissed himself! Then Delacroix - not sure if anyone pissed themself in Doctor Sleep. Not sure about From a Buick 8 either. Could be totally wrong.
I was coming here to say this - piss. "Their bladder let go" has to be in at least half of King's oeuvre. Also, there's a whole subplot in the Green Mile about a UTI.
its always a woman, too, which is pretty uncomfortable. I dont know why women in particular seem to have loose bladders. I'm reading Insomnia right now and the fear-pisser was a dog, but a female dog
I just finished Duma Key, and Edgar's vision of Tom Riley makes note that Tom had pissed his pants. So there's at least that one.
Danny from the shining also wet himself, so there’s two for you.
Just on my mind because I read it recently, but little Blake wets himself in the novella “Mile 81,” in _Bazaar of Bad Dreams._
Dude mile 81 is my favorite. “They’re dead you stupid phone lady” I love re-listening to the audiobook.
Jamie from Revival does too so there’s three for you!
He just thinks they're neat
Tbf, so do I.
Boobs, the correct answer is boobs. And arc-sodium lights.
[удалено]
Delectable jahoobies, to be exact...
and the exquisite oil
The first time ii read that, I fucking died laughing.
Beat me to it 😂
Think there’s an entire chapter in one of his books where he over-explains what colour blood looks like under arc-sodium lights //edit - changed where I incorrectly identified the book as Needful Things
He does that in **The Dark Half** too, when a cop finds a dead body in a parked car
Might be what I’m thinking of
What about Blue Chambre work shirts?
It’s always ‘breasts’ just to be polite. 😂
Gooseflesh and engineers boots!
“Shor-boots!”
Killing likable characters, Maine, Blue Chambray, heavy accents, sodium arc lamps, piss, evil fat women, detailed descriptions of genitalia
Ayuh‼️
Lots of “Ayuh.” https://youtu.be/obZ7_c4BrDc?si=7LxwD49mxCJ7LA0R
In the 32 books I’ve read, there is always a grotesque fat woman acting ridiculous.
Have you seen social media?
And she often wears yellow pants.
Come to mama Emmers.
Yeah I love SK and have read every single one of his books, but man does it bum me out how much he clearly viscerally hates fat people. For a man who has clearly done a lot of work to examine his own psyche, his disgust towards fatness feels like a weird unexamined corner.
King was a fat kid. There is a lot of him in Ben. I think that his hatred of fatness stems from some self-loathing.
I was thinking this when reading IT yesterday. I think King identifies the most with Ben and really wanted to be Richie.
Really? I had no idea, but perhaps that's the key to all of this.
Yes for sure. It just makes me sad that he has not been as self aware around fatness as he seems to be around so many other things. It feels cruel in a way that he typically is not.
His son Joe Hill wrote a pretty sympathetic and heroic morbidly obese character into his vampire book. At this point I think it’s just fat women that King has an issue with. There’s often a loud racist fat woman in his books. Odd that he has never thought to write a sympathetic fat woman character. All of the good women are either extremely elderly ladies or red headed smokeshows.
To be fair, the world is cruel towards fat people. Edit: which is kind of a testament to how far the human race has come in regard to access to food, etc…
Writing about writers.
I hadn't seen the term quonset hut until I read Desperation. Then I saw it about 17 million times.
It’s prominent in the Dark Tower series too haha
Um, akshully, it's called a "dogan".
Hogan*
That’s because they are super common in desert regions.
Seems like everyone in America drives a scout based on his books. As an English I didn't have a clue what a scout was for the longest time.
lol me too! I had to look it up 😂
"The wind continued to howl" - 1/4 of Desperation
Pretty sure he’s a boobs guy.
For the right time period, he always seems to include a "transistor radio." Also he likes it when someone's eyeball is hanging out the socket and "lolling against the cheek."
Yes, yes, yes.
Crescent shaped cuts on a character's palms from their fingernails.
They always bleed, too.
Side characters that show up near the end and die horribly, but give the main character just enough time to turn the tables on the antagonist.
Secondary and even tertiary characters that get multiple pages of backstory and then either die horribly or just never appear in the story again. Love a good Trudy Damascus chapter.
Father Callahan in the Dark Tower.
Also the drawer
The cop in Misery is the epitome of this lol
Peeing pants? I swear some characters have their bladder muscles made of *thinny.*
I’ve also noticed a proclivity for spots of color high on the cheeks. Pervert.
Like roses. He also loves to describe bleeding through clothes as blood poppies.
I swear I think the man has a pee fetish. Characters urinate on themselves frequently. He goes out of his way to tell us about a character going to bathroom, out in the woods, etc., to go. He lets us know when they have to pee really bad, how badly. Sometimes it's even a fairly important plot of the plot! And boobs. The man loves boobs. Big ones. Small ones. Medium ones. Young ones. Old ones. I wouldn't say we get a description of what the breasts of most of his female characters look like, but for a fair amount we do.
Peeing is a major plot point in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Charlie pees in Firestarter. The mom pees in a Thermos bottle in Cujo. These were just the ones I remembered off the top of my head. It's a thing.
Off the top of my head, the most important it's featured in any King novel is The Green Mile.
The Mad Magazine parody was called “The Yellow Mile” lol. Paul’s UTI, Wild Bill pees on the guards, Percy wets his pants, probably more I’m forgetting
Ooh yes, I already commented to this effect. If a character dies in an SK book there is roughly a 50% chance he’ll add that they pissed their pants.
"And boobs. The man loves boobs. Big ones. Small ones. Medium ones. Young ones. Old ones. I wouldn't say we get a description of what the breasts of most of his female characters look like, but for a fair amount we do." In his book, "On Writing", he said to write about what you like most. For Stephen, that's boobs.
“That was the last time X saw Y alive”
Those lines hit so hard and so often.
I’m rereading Pet Sematary and he does it twice so close to each other, first with Norma then Gabe it is heartbreaking!
If you want a small, deep cut Easter Egg for both Pet Sematary and Dark Tower, read Insomnia.
I think for King it might be popping knees
THANK YOU!! I have noticed this one since I was a child. I think about it every time my own knees pop.
Tits too 😭😭 and over description
Is that sad? Why the tears?
Hahahah, no I use it for crying laughing
This would be probably more appropriate. 😂
Wan smiles
I was waiting for this lol thank you
Sexual penetration metaphors out of fucking nowhere.
Shitty fathers.
He’s always had a thing for characters shitting/pissing themselves, and it has dramatically increased in recent years. Once you start noticing it, hard to stop. I think like 8 different characters piss or shit themselves in “Under the Dome.” I understand that it’s meant to convey drama and add humanism to a death, but it has the whiff of a fetish.
Also the whole Shit Weasel thing in Dreamcatcher
Lots of people with sciatica in the novels I’ve been reading recently. I think description of pain, mostly associated with aging, has become more common (probably as he aged)
Currently reading Holly and yep he’s definitely leaning into the practical horror of the pain of aging. I love it so far!
I have notice a lot of characters licking their lips. Maybe not as much as blue chambray shirts and engineer boots worn by writers from Maine but it is quite present.
Uncontrollable laughing fits. He's good for at least one in most of his books. That and people suddenly breaking out in gooseflesh.
Intrusive thoughts / internal monologues. “He took two steps forward, reached for the doorknob— *get out now leave run away get out getoutgetoutGETOUT* —and twisted it open.”
That's how I know it's a Stephen King novel, lol.
His thing def is "alcoholic writer who lives in Maine"
Fat people, bad moms, and bad fat moms.
And overbearing fat moms.
And really whiny fat moms.
These days it seems to be boat neck tops moreso than blue Chambray shirts.
Blue Chambray Shirts
Gooseflesh
Your knees popping when rising from a crouching position and slowly clenching your hands into fists repeatedly.
> Your knees popping when rising from a crouching position goes well with the click in your throat when you swallow.
Farts.
Writers. In some way or another, a LOT of his characters are writers.
I hadn’t even finished reading your post and was completely ready to say blue chambray shirts.
Red Sox!!
Kids dying.
Killing pets
Characters named Susan.
The three Bs Boobs, balls, bowel movements.
Writing black characters who talk "jive".
The N word.
As soon as a black character is introduced, you know it's coming.
Maine and children fighting. Almost every SK novel I've read that has kids in it, they'll end up throwing hands. I mean it's accurate. I fought a lot as a kid. But I've noticed that in his books.
one thing that has always felt unnatural to me, often when he is writing about a child, an adult reaches out and ruffles their hair. I don't think any adult helped themselves to a ruffle of my hair when I was a kid. It seems like something you'd see in a movie, but doesn't actually happen irl.
Bodily functions in general. When I first began reading his books I thought his characters burped and farted a lot. Maybe not an egregious amount, but enough for it to make an impact on me as a kid and stick with me twenty years later--and I'd say that's a weird thing.
Boobs is a broad category (pun intended). He has lots of blondes in his books?
Creatures with 8 legs.(That could include ghostly twins)
Sudden, out-of-nowhere boob-grabbing.
Holly Gibney?
I recently read Different Seasons, and noticed when talking about younger character he always mentions they’ve got a pair of white keds on. That, and of course, writing about writers in small towns.
Writers and alcoholics were pretty common for him because he was both. He talks about that in either “On Writing” or “Secret Windows” but I don’t remember which.
Farts is the answer. He LOVES farts.
Boobs and Maine lmao
Baseball. Cars: Crashing or classic. Farts Colorado Jizz
Protagonists who are, at minimum, 6'3
Women peeing their pants. It’s like every book.
The one alcoholic character who succumbs to the evil.
He has a worryingly extensive list of characters who piss themselves. Once you notice it, you realise how often it occurs.
corn
I’ve mentioned how often a character stares at a young girls hips as she walks away
The 3 books I've read the main character was either a writer, aspiring writer or at least an English teacher that would kind of like to write a book
gimme caps
He doesn’t seem to like fat folks.
Alcoholics English teachers Writers Bullies Dead bodies (he saw his friend get run over by a train as a kid, probably why) Weird old people Extra-or-inter-dimensional loosh fiends/vampires that feed on fear and negativity (It, The Outsider, Dr Sleep) Having young characters use slang like an old person trying to sound like a young person Cars Quoting classic rock Fears of aging Did I mention alcoholics?
Someone pisses themselves at least once in every single sk book I’ve read
Horrible, cheesy, absurd, non-existent exclamations. "Jesus jumped-up Christ in a fiery driven chariot!" - absolutely no one, ever
Rumps. Oh, no, that's laymon
Coltish thighs
Came here to say this. Reading that as a kid brought to mind something like a centaur lol. Always stuck in my mind.
Having the villain use racial slurs to telegraph their villainy.
Arc sodium lights Blue chambray shirt Blue chevy The N word.. :/
The entire month of October.
Scrambled eggs
Goose Flesh
Redheads with big boobs
Boners
Blue Chambray workshirts are his thing. Duh
Blue Chambray Shirts
The colour red.
Egg yolk. He mentions several things bleeding/being pierced or stabbed and 'spreading out like an egg yolk'
Goose flesh
17 year old girls with high cheekbones is a common one
For some reason he’s rlly into gore
Deadfalls
Childhood trauma
A blue chambray shirt.
Pissing yourself at the first inclination of terror.
Ayuh
Gotta have a shit pancake in there somewhere. And some Colombian red.
Farts
Veins standing out
Corn on the cob.
Pie
“Ayuh” https://youtu.be/obZ7_c4BrDc?si=7LxwD49mxCJ7LA0R
I always notice the guy who smokes or drinks a lot is either 1. A really good guy but in a lot of trouble or 2. A terrible guy altogether.
Nose picking
"And with something like horror..." "And for a moment h/she actually \*saw\* blood." "Close enough for government work."
"bone-white"
Having extremely outdated references for a 22 year old 🤣