of his stories. King has followed in his footsteps with the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. Castle Rock is a combination of several towns that King moved to and from with his family in his childhood. The main town that it resembles is that of Durham, Maine. It was after the exposure to H. P. Lovecraft’s stories that King first began to write. While growing up and moving around the way his family did, Stephen had never been able to feel comfortable and settle down in one place and make friends they way other kids his age did (Underwood 77). Around the age of twelve the King family finally settled in the town of Durham, Maine. For Stephen King, Durham was the place where his imagination began to shine. It was at this time that Stephen first began to make friends. Along with his friends, Stephen would go the movies a lot. Stephen would use the movies as a inspiration. Although he enjoyed going out and having fun, whenever he would come home, Stephen would immediately write down his experiences and observations. Frequently King would place his friends and family into childhood fantasy tales. And one would always know how Stephen felt about them because of how long they lived in the story. It was not until college that Stephen King received any kind of real recognition for his writings. In the Fall of 1967, King finished his first novel, The Long Walk, and turned it into his sophomore American Literature professor for review. After a couple of weeks and a couple rounds around the department, the English professors were stunned. They realized that they had a real writer on their hands. From then until he graduated with a bachelors degree in English from University of Maine at Orono in the Spring of 1970, King concentrated on rounding off the edges of his writing technique. One short story that best shows the type and technique of Stephen King’s writing is “The Body.” “The Body”, which has been adapted...
