Why Stephen King Can't Write (according to some guy)

I'm starting to get the feeling that police thrillers aren't his strongest suit after reading Mr. Mercedes. I don't really have that much emotional connection to Hodges, the main character like I did to the man, the woman and her baby in the prologue.

I'm still going to read it, then maybe post a review about it on my blog once I'm done. But I think King needs to stick to supernatural horror. :/ That said, it has its strengths as well. I look forward to completing the read, then moving on to the ssecond book.

 

I like the idea King is branching out to be honest. I think King is at his best when he's really trying to not be Stephen King.

Of course, I've not read the new books. So I don't know if they are any good.

 

@Lemex
What exactly is wrong with Harry Potter? I've never actually read the books (well, I think I may have read the first one when I was very young).
Not trying to be snarky or anything, I just legitimately don't know since I've never really heard anything being particularly wrong with them and I would have been too young to notice any flaws..

 

You just opened a can of worms, Void.

There's a thread I made a while back called: 'Harry Potter...Overrated?' in the Book Discussion section if you want to check it out.

 

Met me grab some whisky and let me cry at you for 500 words.

Basically, the world makes no sense. That's the best I can sum it up without going into specifics.

 

I've only really watched the films, but yeah, I do have my own quibbles with the lore. Mostly I feel they have prioritised style over coherency and consistency, making the defining phrase of the series "why don't they just..."
I can respect the intention to a certain extent, but I usually like to know why a plot hole is or isn't a plot hole.

 

Yeah, I quite agree.

 

To be fair to Harry Potter, the series is written from the perspective of a young kid. I can excuse, to a certain extent, how the books treat one side as the epitome of goodness and the other side as slimy and evil. We're looking at it from a perspective of a teenager, and we all know how perceptive they are at judging opposing sides.

 

I used to think that, but is it true? The point of view is third person limited, which can reflect the psychology of the characters, but if you are to argue this then the first chapter/prologue of The Philosophers/Sorcerers Stone is problematic.

 

It's a fictional world. In Rowling's fictional world, good and evil tend toward absolutes and evil is disgusting, slimy, or whatever. Doesn't matter that the real world isn't that way. That part of it doesn't bother me.

 

That's why I said 'to an extent'. When it's from Harry's POV, it's understandable, but in the prologue of the first book and in chapters from Snape's POV, then...yeah, it could've done better had we seen a different side to the Dursleys and Snape than how Harry sees them.

EDIT: Though to be honest, the Dursleys, if anything, teaches children this lesson: some people are just assholes. They're happy when they're picking on others who can't fight back, who are different from them. They don't need an explanation or a tragic past like they were tortured by Lord Voldemort (though that would explain a lot.) They're dicks...because they're dicks. They hate Harry, he represents everything they're not and that's enough for them to abuse him.

 

The thing I can never work out is why put the first portal to the magic world the reader finds out about in one of the most used train stations on the planet? It's so strange.

 

I just chalk it up to 'willing suspension of disbelief'.

 

You are kinder than I am then.

 

The whole world and everyone's actions within it are entirely inconsistent. I enjoyed the books, but they make no sense whatsoever.

 

Agreed. And to be honest unless it's obviously an allegorical story, like Animal Farm, or another world there are few things I'll be able to accept without critical comment.

 

That choice randomly worked out for Rowling, seeing as the real Kings Cross now has an area marked as platform 9 3/4 with a luggage cart sticking half way through for people's photo opportunities. Tourists love it and it's a permanent Harry Potter advert in one of the planets busiest train stations.

 

I don't understand how that is random.

 

Well as in I don't think it was planned by her as a marketing opportunity when she wrote it.
I've also just read that she got confused and thought she was writing about an area which turned out to be in Euston.

 

I read it was where her parents met, so putting it there was her way of paying homage to them.

 

I'm not sure anyone thought it was a marketing opportunity. But it's a nice little fact.

 

I'm a high schooler and i got two poems published just within last year but i guess i'm still simplistic and pathetic. I say words rooted from the 16th century, but i guess my rudiments are just an empty void in your secular viewpoint of high school writers.

 

Shame BlackRaven hasn't returned. I liked his grandiose pretentiousness.

 

He can't waste too much time on us - there are so many other ignorant souls living in the darkness who can only be saved by his benevolent light.

 

It makes perfect sense, like putting the bus station just outside the railway station, with a cab rank adjacent. No need to walk too far to change from one transit system to another.