Writing can be a very lonely profession. For the most part, it’s just you and your brain jotting, typing, or tapping words that you hope form complete, coherent sentences. If you’re a creative writer, this process is especially fraught because you’re attempting to entertain people whom (for the most part) you’ll likely never meet, and whose praise/condemnation you’ll never hear. (Unless they’re the posting type, in which case tread carefully.)
For professional novelists, the only opinions you’re required to hear emanate from your editor, publisher, agent and the like. Other than that, you get to choose whose eyeballs dart across each page of your book. There is no table read for this kind of writing where you get to hear if it works. You’re beholden to an individual’s reaction, and you can’t control how they interact with your writing. All you can do is wait and hope that your words connect.
When it comes to a one-man publishing powerhouse like Stephen King, an author who’s been delighting readers for over 50 years, you might think he doesn’t need to bother with the opinions of others. Sure, he’s written some clunkers, but his hit-to-miss ratio continues to be impressive. After all, if it wasn’t, his fanbase wouldn’t be clamoring right now for his latest novel “Never Flinch.”
But even the Master of Horror doesn’t write in a vacuum. His instincts may seem unimpeachable, but King can miss the mark badly while attempting to pull together his latest novel. In fact, he completely scrapped what became “Never Flinch” after completing the first draft. Why? Because his wife Tabitha, the most important reader in his life, thought it sucked.
How Stephen King’s wife Tabitha King saved Never Flinch
In a recent appearance on “The Kingcast” (now hosted by Eric Vespe and Anthony Breznican), King revealed that “Never Flinch” — which will hit the streets on May 27, 2025 — didn’t just need more time in the oven after he finished the first draft, it needed to be drastically overhauled. He knew it was going to be a novel about Holly Gibney (one of King’s recurring characters), but he had to rethink the overall story arc. As King told Vespe and Breznican:
“When I did the first draft of this book … my wife read that book in manuscript and she said, ‘This really isn’t very good. It’s derivative and it feels like it’s straining to make various connections within the story.’ I took that very hard, but I also took it to heart and I rewrote the book from the jump, a completely different version incorporating some of the things from the original draft, which was called ‘We Think Not.’ But then it was going to be ‘Always Holly.’ And finally it became ‘Never Flinch.'”
If you think it sounds outrageous for King to go almost all the way back to square one on the recommendation of one reader, you clearly aren’t aware of how important Tabitha (or Tabby, as fans have come to know her) is in the author’s life. When asked about what would’ve become of him if he’d never had Tabby in his life, King replied:
“I might’ve died of an OD at 38 or 39. The fact is, Tabby takes no s*** from anybody, least of all me, so I get an honest opinion from her a lot of times. She doesn’t try to blow smoke. She’ll say, ‘Oh, I like this, this is good.’ Or she’ll say, ‘You should fix this, and you should fix that.’ Usually, she’s right. In other words, if she really likes it she’ll say, ‘Yeah, it’s good.’ In other words, there are no superlatives involved.”
There’s no fakery with Tabby, and King’s legion of constant readers know how lucky they are to have her keeping the maestro honest and focused.
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