9 Amazing Inspirations Behind Your Favourite Stephen King Books

2. Misery Was Inspired By Angry Fans And A Short Story

One of King's most twisted novels is Misery, which tells the tale of a writer named Paul Sheldon, who is rescued from a car crash by an obsessed fan, and is subsequently held hostage (and forced to write a new book). The novel acts as a sort of demented, fun house mirror version of reality. After the publication of King's The Eyes Of A Dragon in 1987 €“ a novel that was straight fantasy rather than horror €“ there was a massive backlash from fans, who felt disappointed that he had deviated from his known genre. In Misery, Sheldon feels shackled to the Misery series he writes, just like King was beginning to feel shackled to horror fiction. Not only that, but King was also battling drug and alcohol addiction at the time, and so feeling trapped and contained was a feeling he was very familiar with. Another inspiration came from the short story The Man Who Loved Dickens by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, which details a man who is held prisoner by a chief in South America. The chief falls in love with Dickens' stories, and forces the prisoner to repeatedly read them.