Apparently, a film version of It by Stephen King came out recently, not to be confused with the miniseries version of It from 1990. Apparently, the new It is pretty popular. I have not seen it yet. I’ve seen the miniseries, though. The miniseries is a bit clunky and a bit lovable. It’s like an ugly dog that knows how to fetch slippers or something.

As for the novel, I’ve always held it in fairly high regard. I’ve read it more than once, twice, three times even. Part of the appeal is the monster aspect, but the other part is that I enjoy how King captured childhood within the book’s pages. Sometimes I take the book out and reread sections. I particularly like the part where Ben walks home from school on a cold winter evening. Growing up in Minnesota, I could relate to such weather and the mood. I don’t really care to review the book. Suffice it to say, as for the controversial part, yeah, I think it’s stupid. As for the ending, which many consider stupid, I didn’t mind it. It was suitably, epic-ally weird. As for It’s reveal, I didn’t have a problem with that either. As far as I’m concerned, it fit in with all of the other cheesy monster forms.

But the release of It, combined with my last post about rewriting Richard Matheson, motivated me to do the same thing with the opening of It. I wanted to look at how King wrote it, and then see how I would tweak it. It ended up being an exercise in finding the right balance between purple prose and dry prose. I suppose that balance is called voice.

Here is King’s opening:

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years — if it ever did end — began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper racing down a gutter swollen with rain.

The boat bobbed, listed, righted itself again, dived bravely through dangerous whirlpools, and continued on its way down Wicham Street toward the traffic light which marked the intersection of Wicham and Jackson. The three vertical lenses on all sides of the traffic light were dark this afternoon in the fall of 1957, and the houses were all dark, too. There had been steady rain for a week now, and two days ago the winds had come as well. Most sections of Derry had loss their power then, and it was not back on yet.

A small boy in a yellow slicker and red galoshes ran cheerfully along beside the newspaper boat. The rain had not stopped, but it was finally slackening. It rapped on the yellow hood of the boy’s slicker, sounding to his ears like rain on a shed roof…a comfortable, almost cozy sound. The boy in the yellow slicker was George Denbrough. He was six.

The reader in me finds this prose perfectly welcoming. The editor in me sees potential for tightening, which is something King is often accused of needing. The above passage is 197 words. The first sentence seems to have a couple of hitches in it. I find the description of the traffic light in paragraph two to be a bit awkward, and some redundancy exists. For example, if the traffic light and houses are without power, do we need to be told the power is not back on yet? Onto paragraph number three — how many times do we need to be told the boy’s slicker is yellow? And he ran “cheerfully?” How else would a boy run next to a newspaper boat in the rain?

So here is a version of that opening, but tightened:

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years — if it ever did end — began with a newspaper boat racing down a rain-swollen gutter.

The boat bobbed, listed, righted, sailed through whirlpools and continued down Wicham Street toward the traffic light that marked Wicham and Jackson. The traffic light was dark this fall afternoon of 1957. The houses were dark, too. A steady rain had fallen for a week. Two days ago the winds came as well. Now most sections of Derry were without power.

A small boy in a yellow slicker and red galoshes ran beside the boat, boots splashing in puddles. The rain had not stopped, but it was slackening. It rapped on the boy’s hood, sounding like rain on a shed roof…a comfortable, almost cozy sound. The boy was George Denbrough. He was six.

That version is 138 words — roughly 30 percent shorter — and still contains the same information. What it doesn’t contain is King’s voice. So what’s the verdict? Is it too dry? Or does it work? I’m not sure myself. Part of me prefers its more streamlined approach. Another part of me misses King’s narrative fingerprint. I guess I provide no answers as to what is “better.” Rather, it is more of an educational exercise. I find such things useful at times to see if my writing does or doesn’t work.

Book sales say King’s writing style works; that we do know…