Stephen King is one of the most respected and prolific writers who has given Hollywood many incredible plotlines for blockbuster films. From his first horror classic, Carrie, which he binned after facing so many rejections, to the bestselling memoir, On Writing, which he wrote after a near-death experience, Stephen King’s journey to success has been anything but easy.

The modern-day master of horror has given us some of the most bone-chilling and twisted horror stories, but how many of them were inspired by his own life experiences? You’ll be surprised to find out.

His Father Abandoned Him At An Early Age

Born in Maine, Stephen King was the son of a merchant named Donald, but when he was only two years old, his father abandoned him because he couldn’t cope with the family’s poor financial state. One day, he told King that he was going out to buy some cigarettes, but he never returned.

For years, King’s mother, Nellie, hid Donald’s absence, telling everyone who asked that he was in the Navy and had gone overseas. It was a scary time for King and his family, who were left to fend for themselves. But the worst of their troubles was yet to come.

He Didn’t Have A Stable Home

After Donald abandoned them, Nellie became the head of the family, often dragging King and his older brother, David, from one place to another, searching for a stable job. They never stayed in one place for long, and by the time King was 11, he had lived in many different cities, including New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

But that year, he finally moved back to his hometown to look after his severely ill grandparents. His mother found a new job in Maine after their passing, and there was finally some financial stability in King’s life, but that didn’t last for long.

He Found A Life-Changing Treasure In The Attic

Stephen King never really got to know his father because he was still very young when he left. But Donald was also fond of writing, as Nellie recalled, although King never got the chance to see any of his work.

One day, he discovered one of his father’s favorite books in the attic that sparked his love for literature. It was a dusty collection of short stories by HP Lovecraft, but it was nothing less than a treasure for King. In his own words, reading that book made him feel at ‘home’. That was Donald’s final gift to his son, one that would change his life forever.

His Mother Got Him Into The Habit Of Reading

After his grandparents passed away, King’s mother got a job at a learning facility for people with mental disabilities. And even though it paid enough to sustain the family, she struggled to look after her two young boys as a working mother.

Since she couldn’t afford child care, she tasked Stephen and David with reading to each other in her absence, and after returning from work, she would ask questions about the book to make sure that they had really read it. It was a fun activity to keep the young boys occupied, and it also gave King the nudge he needed to start writing his first story.

He Hated School

Even though he loved to read, King wasn’t particularly fond of studying. In fact, he hated school so much that he would often skip classes. He even failed first grade and had to repeat it due to low attendance.

This shows that the budding writer was playing hooky from a very young age, which might make one wonder what he did with his time away from the classrooms. And it turns out that he didn’t miss all those classes in vain. In fact, he was doing something very productive with his time.

His Brother Has A Hand In His Success

It turns out that the King brothers were hard at work cranking out manuscripts on their new manual printing press. David had gotten the mimeograph machine, and the two had a plan to make their first buck at such a young age.

David wanted to use the device to print his own newspaper, and he already had a name for his publication: Dave’s Rag. And it’s first employee was going to be Stephen King. But little did the boys know that their new business was about to get them in some serious trouble.

His First Business Was Shut Down By His Teachers

Stephen might have been skipping classes at school, but he was using that time to grow his brother’s newspaper business while simultaneously striking out on his own. Although he enjoyed writing, he knew that his talent didn’t mean anything if it wasn’t making him any money.

That was when he decided to take his writing career to the next level by selling copies of his horror stories. He started convincing other kids to buy the stories with their lunch money. This was a fairly lucrative business until his teachers found out and made him return all the money back to his schoolmates.

His First Job Was Scarier Than Most Horror Stories

Believe it or not, Stephen King’s first job was spookier than any horror fiction he has ever written. You’re thinking that a young boy his age probably worked at a restaurant or a car-wash, but King was busy digging graves for a living. This sounds like a pretty grim job for someone who admittedly sleeps with the lights on because he is scared of the dark.

While digging holes wasn’t exactly his idea of a perfect evening, this macabre gig ended up giving him some inspiration for his first published story, “I Was a Teenage Grave Robber.” Although he didn’t earn anything from the story, his destiny was about to change.

He Fought Back In The Face Of Rejection

Much to our disappointment, his first published story didn’t exactly get his writing career off the ground. King still had a long way to becoming the master of horror he is known as today, especially after facing so many rejections from journals and magazines that refused to publish his work.

But none of this disheartened King, and he continued pushing forward. He must have known it in his heart that success was inevitable; why else would he save every rejection letter, even going as far as to put them on his wall to serve as motivation. He kept submitting his writings, and one day, someone responded.

He Finally Earned His First Paycheck From Writing

Like every budding writer, Stephen King also went through a dry spell when almost nothing he wrote was good enough for the publications. But after years of submissions with no success, a then-19-year-old King finally got his breakthrough with a story called The Glass Floor.

Although this wasn’t his first work to be published, it was the only one he had written till then that earned him a paycheck. $35 for a story after years of rejection wasn’t exactly the best money, but at least it was enough for King to call himself a writer. Now that he had the ball rolling, there was no stopping him.

He Met His Wife In One Of His Favorite Places

Earning his first paycheck was the best form of motivation he could have asked for. By the time he was in college, he was putting in all his spare time into writing workshops, typing out manuscripts, and running his own column called Steve King’s Garbage Truck in the student newspaper.

But amid all this mayhem, he was still able to find love, and that too in the most unusual of places. One day, while scouting around the library for his next read, he came across an interesting woman, and they instantly hit it off. Little did he know that he had found his soulmate.

Starting A Family

During their conversation, he found out that the woman’s name was Tabitha Spruce. The two started dating while they were still in college, and four years later, they decided to tie the knot. The pair has been happily married ever since, welcoming three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen.

Both Joe and Owen followed in their dad’s footsteps by becoming writers, proving that apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. While King’s children grew up in a life of luxury, their father didn’t exactly have an easy time climbing the ladder of success. In fact, after graduating, King almost ended up in jail for the most bizarre reason.

He Almost Went To Prison… But Was Saved By A Miracle

Things didn’t get easier for King after finishing college. He continued to churn out stories only to face more rejection and the ones that did get published hardly paid enough to cover the bills. He was living in a trailer with his family when, one day, his car broke down. King lost his cool and, in a moment of anger, stole a traffic cone.

He was eventually tracked down by the authorities and asked to pay $250 for petty larceny. He couldn’t afford to pay off the fine, but someone picked up his short story at the last minute and sent a paycheck big enough to cover the bill.

A Dark Period In King’s Life

Living in a trailer with a young family wasn’t easy. He would often spend his nights writing stories, but to no avail. Had it been someone else in his place, they would have given up after facing so many rejections, but not King. He didn’t know how to give up on his love for writing.

During those tough years, King turned to alcohol to cope with his problems. He started drinking excessively in the early ‘70s, going through an entire case of beer every day until one day, when he looked at his garbage bin overflowing with empty cans, he realized that he had a serious problem.

He Gave Up On Carrie, But His Wife Saved It

After so many rejections, King started second-guessing everything he wrote. He eventually made a breakthrough with his novel Carrie, but little do fans know that he gave up on the story three pages into his first draft. It was his wife who fished out those crumpled pages from the trash and encouraged King to see Carrie through.

She continued to give him valuable input throughout the process that helped him get a female perspective on Carrie’s character. He finished the story and sent it to the publishers, expecting the same response as he did with the last three novels. But then, he received a telegram that changed his life.

Carrie Changed His Life Overnight

Since he couldn’t afford to keep a phone in those days, he had to rely on other means to communicate with the publishers. On one fine day of 1973, King received a telegram from an editor named William Thompson, who had tried calling King several times on his old number to give him some good news, but the call never went through.

So, he resorted to sending a telegram, announcing that his book was finally going to get published with an advance payment of $2,500. It was the biggest sum of money King had ever seen, and he used it to buy his first car.

But Then Tragedy Struck Him

With Carrie’s advance, King bought a car. It wasn’t exactly a Lamborghini, but his first Ford Pinto became the inspiration behind one of his best novels to date called Cujo, in which the protagonist, Donna Trenton, drives the same vehicle.

Carrie sold millions of copies worldwide and New American Library later acquired its paperback rights for a jaw-dropping $400,000. But just as his career had started to take off, King was hit by the tragic death of his cancer-stricken mother. While it was a terrible loss, King found some consolation in the fact that she was at least able to witness her son’s first success before her death.

His Alcoholism Became Worse

After losing his mother, King’s drinking became worse. He left Maine and moved to Boulder, Colorado, but his demons followed him there. His new-found fortune only meant that he could now afford more beer… and eventually, even drugs. King was fuelling his manic writing pace with illegal substances, and it was starting to take a toll on his health.

Despite his addiction becoming more severe by the day, King never gave up on his love for writing. After all, he didn’t know who he was without it. On the contrary, he picked up his pace, typing out manuscripts as fast as possible, until he had created yet another masterpiece.

He Tried Making Films But Failed

He took only ten days to write his next dystopian thriller, The Running Man, which inspired a movie by the same name, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. By this point, King was unstoppable, and naturally, the next step after becoming a writer was to make some films. This is where things started to go awry.

He made his directing debut with an adaptation of his short story, Trucks, which had a relatively straightforward plot about trucks that tried to kill people. It was the combination of a bad story choice, lack of experience, and his drug addiction that made the film a huge flop.

He Hit Rock Bottom

Between his crazy writing benders to non-stop drinking sprees, King wasn’t just losing himself but also the relationships around him. His wife threatened to end their marriage, and his friends set up an intervention for him, going through his entire office to collect any evidence that they could use to convince him that he needed help.

King’s demons were out in the open now, and he had no other choice but to face them. One by one, his friends pulled out every stash of illegal substances he hid in his office until he realized that he had hit rock bottom, and there was nowhere to go but up.

The Master Of Horror Disappointed His Fans

King sought help for his addiction in the late ‘80s and successfully managed to kick his self-destructive habits for good. It was time for a change, and the master of horror wanted to step out of his comfort zone and venture into fantasy. This inspired him to write The Eyes of the Dragon, a book that wasn’t even close in popularity to his horror thrillers.

Needless to say, King wasn’t cut out for fantasy and fans demanded that he stuck to the genre he knew best. He then pulled the most insane stunt of his writing career, one that left his fans perplexed.

He Published Books Under A Fake Name

Remember the time when King had turned into a human typewriter, churning out novels in just days? His career had just taken off and he wanted to write as much as possible. However, publishers didn’t think that putting out more than one book a year was good for a writer’s reputation. Then there was also the fear of over-saturating his brand name, which pushed King to pen books under a pseudonym, Richard Bachman.

He kept his fake name a secret for years, publishing several books, including Rage, which was later pulled off the shelves because of its dark plotline that became all too real as school shootings became more common.

His Secret Was Finally Caught

By 1982, King had successfully written four novels under his pseudonym and was on his fifth, Misery, when his secret was exposed by a bookstore clerk named Steve Brown who noticed that there were way too many similarities between King and Bachman’s writing styles.

He set out to uncover the mystery, going through the publisher’s records, only to discover that one of the books under Bachman’s name called King the author. Brown sent the copy of the documents he had found to King’s publisher. A few days later, he suddenly got a phone call. On the other end of the line was King himself.

A Tragedy Almost Took His Life

King told Brown to write an article about how he discovered the writer’s secret, and he even agreed to be interviewed for it. The announcement was made in 1985, but by that time, King was already a successful writer who didn’t need to hide behind a secret identity.

Things were looking up for him, not just in his career but also in his personal life. But on one fateful evening of 1999, a tragic accident turned King’s world upside-down. He was out for a walk at 4.30 p.m. when a fast-approaching van ran into him, sending him to the ER.

He Underwent A Gruesome Surgery To Save His Leg

Barely conscious and in extreme pain, King was rushed to the nearest hospital, where the doctors examined his broken leg. They soon realized that his condition was worse than it appeared. The collision's impact had resulted in a fractured hip, fractured ribs, and a collapsed lung.

But worst of all, his right leg was so severely damaged that the doctors considered removing it. The only way to save the leg was to screw rods into it and attach it to an external frame to keep it in its proper position. It wasn’t the best solution, but at least it allowed King to keep all of his limbs.

His Past Came Back To Haunt Him

After several operations and months of physical therapy, King was finally able to walk on his feet. But when he resumed work on his best-selling memoir, On Writing, which was put on hold during his recovery, he struggled to write for even a few minutes because of the unbearable pain.

The problem became even worse when doctors prescribed him pain medication, which might have helped at first, but ended up making him addicted. But like last time, he was able to kick the habit with the help of his family. As for the neglectful driver who almost took King’s life, he got the most tragic ending one could imagine.

Something Terrible Happened On His Birthday

Bryan Edwin Smith, the man behind the tragic accident, was charged with assault and careless driving, which earned him six months in prison. His driving license was also suspended for a year, but the incident had taken such a toll on him that he ended up taking his own life.

To make the tragedy even grimmer, the news of his death came on September 21, the day Stephen King was born. Scared that Smith’s cursed van might fall into the wrong hands, he bought it for $1.5K and sent it to a junkyard to be destroyed.

His Hard Work Finally Paid Off

From living in a trailer to owning three gorgeous homes, Stephen King has come a long way. Despite have a net worth of $400 million, he still enjoys a relatively simple life. His only passion is writing, and he spends pretty much his entire day doing just that.

Except for his properties in Florida and Maine, he isn’t a fan of collection material things – besides books, of course. His Victorian-style mansion in Bangor, Maine houses a massive library in the basement with thousands of books to choose from. After all, a writer of King’s stature didn’t get to where he is today without a fair bit of reading.

His Traumatic Childhood Influenced His Stories

If you’re wondering where Stephen king found the inspiration for his many horror stories, his childhood experiences might have played a role. When he was just a kid, one of his closest friends died after being struck by a freight train.

Although it must have been a traumatic experience for young King, he hardly has any recollection of it. But whether he remembers it or not, some experts claim that it might have been the reason behind his obsession with death and horror. His friend’s fate was also the inspiration behind the plotline of The Body, a novella he published in 1982.

He Drew Inspiration From The Most Unusual Places

One of the most prolific writers of all time, Stephen King’s mind is his playground for creativity. He draws inspiration from the most random things and places, like the bridge he was once crossing, which made him think of the great ugly troll from the Norwegian folktale, The Three Billy-Goats Gruff, that lived under a bridge and terrorized the goats who dared to cross it.

The story inspired one of King’s greatest works, ‘It’ where the bridge was replaced with a storm drain, goats became children, and the troll was swapped for a scary clown.