This article contains discussions of violence and sexual abuse.
More Stephen King adaptations are on the way, with a new version of Doctor Sleep. For as iconic of a writer as he is, Stephen King does have a tendency to reuse a lot of tropes in his story, for better or worse.
Even if there are those who don't know Stephen King's stories, chances are, they'll have at least heard his name before. Though he is known more for being a master of horror, Stephen King has also delved into fantasy, adventure, and dramas, and these also share many tropes seen in his horror stories.
Group Of Children Protagonists
Though not as frequent as other tropes, Stephen King has written several stories featuring a group of kids experiencing a horrific adventure or just going on a journey. There is the Losers Club from his iconic IT story, the four friends in Dreamcatcher, which focuses on a group of friends as kids and adults similar to IT.
Children are much more susceptible to horrific things due to their less desensitized nature, which can make it easier for audiences and readers to side with them. At the same time, it leads to situations where adults don't believe the children nor can they help them, raising the stakes of their situation.
Strange Names For Classic Concepts
The truth is that the threats featured in Stephen King's books are monsters and forces that have appeared in other stories. For example, "Tommyknockers" are simply aliens and "shining" is another term for telepathy. Even the terrifying Pennywise The Clown (or IT) can be labeled as a shape-shifting alien considering his true origins.
In Doctor Sleep, Rose The Hat and her True Knot are essentially a unique twist on vampires. King likely does this to make the lore of his books feel self-contained, even though it turns out that nearly all of his stories take place in a shared universe with many of the supernatural threats having a common point of origin.
Abusive Parents
Sadly, many stories by Stephen King feature at least one character suffering from an abusive relationship with one or even both parents. In The Shining, Jack Torrance already had hurt his son Danny prior to the events of the story and ends up attempting to murder Danny due to the corruption of the Overlook Hotel.
The titular Carrie White of her story has a monstrous woman for a mother who abuses her emotionally and physically. Finally, the vilest of them all is Beverly Marsh's single father who emotionally abuses her and molests her. This trope is usually used as a means to make a character more sympathetic since they are just as much in danger at home as they are against whatever threat is happening.
Killing Off Children
It's a bit of an unwritten rule for authors and screenwriters to let children live because they are innocent. Stephen King has never followed this rule and wisely so since it shows that nobody is really safe, raising the threat level. The most famous example would be in IT, which featured multiple children being brutally murdered by Pennywise The Clown and even eaten alive.
The catalyst that starts all the problems in Pet Sematary is the death of Gage Creed, who was just a toddler. In Doctor Sleep, the True Knot targeted children because their fear made feeding on them even more delicious, similar to how Pennywise feeds.
Unhinged Bullies
In the real world, bullies can be needlessly cruel, but they are still human -- but not in Stephen King stories. From Henry Bowers in IT to Ace Merrill in Stand By Me, the bullies in Stephen King stories are not just bullies but downright sadistic murderers with no redeeming qualities and some of Stephen King's greatest villains.
One of the best examples is the group of bullies who made Carrie White's life a living nightmare in Carrie. These hateful characters usually end up getting a well-deserved punishment at the hands of the protagonist or the supernatural threat, in some cathartic fashion.
Psychic Children
Granted, once readers understand how Stephen King's shared universe works, this trope makes a lot more sense. However, without the explanation, it seems like Stephen King loves to make at least one child in his stories have the psychic ability known as "shining."
Both The Shining and its sequel, Doctor Sleep, focused heavily on this with Danny Torrance and the character Abra. It was Carrie White's telekinetic abilities that allowed her to get revenge on those that were cruel to her. Beverly Marsh in IT developed a psychic ability after encountering Pennywise's dead lights. Even the entire main cast of characters in Dreamcatcher have telepathic abilities, with one of them having an extra homing ability.
Author Main Character
It's not uncommon for authors to put analogs of themselves inside their stories, but it would seem that Stephen King enjoys doing this more than others. Several stories feature a prominent character that happens to be an author: Bill Denbrough from IT, Jack Torrance in The Shining, Paul Sheldon in Misery, and Thad Beaumont in The Dark Half.
This character archetype is present in so many other King stories, including The Tommyknockers, Salem's Lot, Desperation, and more. King may tend to use this trope a lot, but he effectively shows the bright and dark sides of writers and their struggles with each character, with Jack Torrance being the most troubled and Paul Sheldon the most likable.
Alcoholic Main Character
Stephen King has made it no secret that he's struggled with his own battle against alcoholism in the past and that shows through several characters. Jack and Danny Torrance both struggled with it in The Shining and Doctor Sleep, Jim Gardner was trying to recover from being an alcoholic in The Tommyknockers, and much more.
This is often used to depict the character's struggles in life, whether it's the current supernatural threat or their traumatic experiences of the past. Jack Torrance ended up being a mix of multiple tropes since he was a struggling writer with alcoholism with abusive tendencies.
Religious Villains
Intentional or not, there is a common use of characters whose zealous religious ways turn them into as much of an antagonist as the monsters and killers featured in his stories. Carrie's mother used her views as a means to hurt her daughter and attempt to kill her in the climax.
One of the best examples of this trope is in one of the best adaptations of King's novellas, in which Mrs. Carmody manipulates the survivors using her so-called words of God to turn them into her own zealous cult that was willing to murder and sacrifice people to the titular mist that was filled with monsters.
Small Town, Maine
If a person goes to pick up a Stephen King book or watch one of his movies, there is a high chance that it will take place within the state of Maine. The town of Derry, Maine is the place where Pennywise has lurked for centuries in IT and after that, Maine can be found in so many more books: Pet Sematary, Cujo, Salem's Lot, Carrie, Dreamcatcher, etc.
There are some stories that branch into other areas of the world such as Misery and The Shining that take place in Colorado, but those continue to take place in small towns and isolated areas such as his Maine stories. The setting of Maine comes from the fact that Stephen King grew up in the state and loves its vast fields and endless amount of small towns where so much can happen, but nobody would know unless they were there.
