Apt Pupil should have been a full length novel.

[Laymonking]

As Apt Pupil has such a unquiet idea behind it Steve King should have penned it as a 300+ page novel not a novella. Cujo and Gerald’s Game have such basic plots but they were stretched into a full length books (while they should have been novella's not novels) which is why they fell apart. Apt Pupil on the other hand is different. I know I have said this before but it just bewilders me that The Master don’t see the great story he was writing.
The potential for this story is great it is such a unique idea and yet King just wasted it as a short novella instead of stretching it out into a full length novel. He drags Gerald’s Game into novel length (that should have been novella in my honest opinion) with such a simply premise but yet Apt Pupil that deals with a Nazi fugitive and his twisted relationship with an all American kid that does become a true apt pupil he tells this story in under thirty chapters and less than three hundred pages . Yet with such a awe inspiring idea ( an idea that many novelists wish they had come up with) he completely wastes what could have gone down as his most serious work. I will not get into a debate about how wasted the movie adaptation is. The novella has such rich characters scenes of absolute shocking horror and doesn't pull any punches but it just seems to me King didn't realize how great this idea could be, there are many places he didn't go with the story examples would include Dussander past and more scenes of Todd in school,, going into Kurt's crimes. I also felt King rushed the ending. When Ifirst read Apt pupil I couldn't believe how great of a concept it was yet King didn't push it to is full potential.. King wasted one of his all-time great ideas, he completely dropped the ball with this one.
If Apt Pupil was full length like Christine or Pet Sematary it would be regarding as one of Stephen King’s best tales yet it is just novella which is a shame.
Does anyone feel this way?

[GNTLGNT]

Nope!

[prufrock21]

I'm with GNTLGNT. Nope!

[J.T. Adams]

I believe sai King writes as the wind blows.

Ka.

[Pucker]

Haven't we done this one already?

I'm almost certain there's another thread with this exact premise, but in brief, I might suggest that the reason the story is told so quickly and without a lot of extraneous background emphasizes how quickly and easily Tod became hoist upon his own petard, so to speak, and that who the characters were matters very little in comparison into who they force each other to become.

[JohnDalglish]

Nope!

Hi,

Yup.

Nope.

Long days and pleasant nights

[prufrock21]

Haven't we done this one already?

I'm almost certain there's another thread with this exact premise, but in brief, I might suggest that the reason the story is told so quickly and without a lot of extraneous background emphasizes how quickly and easily Tod became hoist upon his own petard, so to speak, and that who the characters were matters very little in comparison into who they force each other to become.

You're right. This thread appeared before. On that occasion I said that "Apt Pupil" was like Goldilock's porridge: just right.

[omm poppa mow mow]

What lengths are the various stories being discussed? Does anyone know? 100,000 words? 200? 3?

I'd read We the Animals: A Novel by Justin Torres this past week. Thought the title itself interesting. A novel. Read it in perhaps three hours. One sitting more or less. I'd read other reviews that it was 125 pages. I read it on the Kindle and their numbering scheme is beyond me...sorta like New Math I suspect...and who if anyone understands it is a spooky idea...unless it be like the stickers on the back of street signs...something so the eye-in-the-sky can record...

This all goes to say that I think many of SK's "short" stories could have been published as stand-alone stories no problemo...and maybe the reason they were clumped together is many of his fans expect doorstoppers? One of them damned if you do damned if you don't situations? Look at Blockade Billy?

I get what you are saying Laymonking and I agree it would have been entertaining to have read more "story" but we have what we have.

[jcadams]

I would have loved for the story to be longer. But SK does say somewhere that the stories themselves dictate the length and outcome. I didn't care for the movie but on the other hand, when the movie came out, more people actually knew about the story and read it.

[DVKproduction]

Apt Pupul is awesome as it is!
Have a nice day!