Okay, where do I begin?
A few years back I gave up books for a while because I didn't really have the time. Said time came back to me a few months ago so I got back into reading hardcore. And in this mania, I decided to give King's works another try. Not being completely stupid--I don't have a high opinion of his work--I decided to read only the Dark Tower series as I've always had a fondness for those and thankfully they're possibly the only creative works that still entertain me.
Why do I dislike King? Because he takes a lot of liberties in rewriting The Stand under the guise of 'staying current.' Heaven forbid the man just says 'in the future' instead of jacking up the dates in each successive volume. To me, that says a lot of about his lack of being able to effectively write. Eventually, all media--movies, books, etc--will be outdated. You can take measures to avoid this by being ambigious in description but it's a way of life. And if you don't like it, live with it or follow the process above. Rewriting your book makes you look like your talent has run out so you just need to eek a little more money out of your heydays.
Apparently I gave the man too much credit.
How hard is it to keep your characters straight? So what if Roland's matter of speech changes? Maybe it's character development. Maybe it's just life. Maybe it's just a very insecure writer too lazy to actually read his own material before doing rewrites and just likes being careless like that. Being creative means that sometimes things don't come out like they should and not being able to go back and change a work just because an idea sounds neater now then it did then. When writing an introduction for Fahrenheit 451 (and at the same time, translating it into a play), Ray Bradbury found many interesting scenes that he wanted to put into the novel, ranging from Clarisse's final appearance in the novel to Faber's death to a very interesting monologue by the Fire Chief that gives a very interesting motive to his actions. But he didn't put them in. The novel stood. Changing it would mean that Bradbury could take a very fine piece of work and subject it to hindsight and ruin what effect it had. He added those things to the play and let the novel stand.
King should have had more restraint. Just because he pulls down millions for his fantasies on paper does not mean he lives above that law. And now, I won't even bother with getting the Dark Tower. For all I know, it might have a different ending in a few years. I'm better off spending my money and time writing the fucking thing.
