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On Writing is a great book and I recommend it even if you have no interest in writing.

As far as King's writing goes some of my favorite work of his are his short stories The Body (basis of the film Stand By Me) and The Breathing Method. You can find them in a few anthologies. The latter is actually my favorite for the odd way it's split into an inner and an outer stories and his vivid description of the 'club' and what it means to the character. I'm still puzzling over the possible metaphorical meaning of the story encapsulation there in relation to the symbolism of both. Or maybe there is none. Shrug. But it's an awesome piece.

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You can find them in a few anthologies.

Those two were published originally in Different Seasons, which had three of its four novellas adapted into movies. (Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and Apt Pupil)

King does his best when limited to the constraints of a short story. He tends to ramble otherwise--look at the later Dark Tower books for an example.

His "Nightmares & Dreamscapes" anthology is a solid introduction.

Skeleton Crew is one of my favorites, mainly because my family used to shop at the grocery store from "The Mist" when we went to Bridgton in the summer. It's still open, but it's not really recognizable anymore. When I was a child, it was pretty much exactly the way he described it, all buzzing fluorescents, wilted produce, and green linoleum.

I got really mad at Stephen King for writing himself into the Dark Tower books, but I kind of get it. I see the last two books especially as Steve plowing through a story he'd basically given up on as un-finishable, because he also couldn't not finish them. Putting himself in as a character is his apology to us as readers for there being no possible satisfactory conclusion to the series.

edit: remove redundant redundancy

It's funny, because I'd say his reputation and recognition is primarily as a novelist... but I think he's absolutely a better short story writer than a novelist! Don't get me wrong... I love almost everything King has ever written (well, fiction anyway... I can do without his ridiculous politics), including both novels and short stories. But every time I sit down and start reading one of his short story anthologies, I'm reminded of just how amazing his is in that form. I just read Bazaar of Bad Dreams earlier this year, and, once again, I was blown away.

the film is "Stand By Me"

Fixed. :)

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