Serves: no purpose
500 pages (250 too many)
1 plucky heroine
1 tortured writer husband
1 crazy sadist
1 cup of “The Dark Half”
1 cup of “It”
A pinch of crazy sister
Lots of blood
The ability to sell millions based on name alone
Note: not to be served to anyone who isn’t the most loyal of Stephen King fans

Place 500 pages and your protagonist, Lisey Landon, in a bowl. Two years after the death of her husband Scott, a horror writer, Lisey has begun the enormous job of cleaning his study. She knows it’s a goldmine of unseen manuscripts and short stories, and she feels it’s time to unearth them and share them with Scott’s fans.

Helping her clean is her crazy oldest sister, Amanda. Shortly after starting on the project, not only will Amanda start exhibiting signs of self-mutilation, she’ll start saying things in Scott’s voice, leading Lisey to believe her dead husband is trying to communicate with her from beyond. Let this boil for only a minute and then add in the crazy sadist, Jim.

Jim’s been “hired” to remove Scott’s unpublished works from Lisey’s possession by any means necessary. Allow him to torture Lisey for a few pages so she understands he means business. Add lots of blood. You do not want Lisey to call the cops as it will diminish the number of pages you will have! Instead, have Lisey decide she is not giving up Scott’s work to this lunatic, then slowly have her begin planning to take on Jim herself.

In a separate bowl, start spinning the tale of Lisey and Scott—how they met, their marriage—and then, just for fun, throw in a completely different world, a universe we learn Scott created to escape his childhood and where he went to get his ideas for stories. Pour this in with the first mix. Slowly you will see Lisey decide she needs to visit this world in order to defeat Jim and to help her uncover the message Scott is trying to send her.

Describe Scott’s terrible childhood, how he grew up motherless and poor with his brother and father, both of whom eventually come down with the “bad-gunky,” a hereditary disease with symptoms much like those that make Jack go crazy in “The Shining.”

Simmer and drag this part out until you have horrible things happening to small children for way too many pages. Add a creepy otherworld monster à la “It,” lots more blood and the swift, easy ending found in so many of your other books.

Stir your concoction until you have beaten the tortured writer scenario to death. Wring the true-love-never-dies plot until you can’t squeeze another drop. Don’t forget to pepper your recipe repeatedly with words and phrases only you and your wife will appreciate. Bake for three months and voila! Not only do you have an in-joke/love letter for your long-time spouse, but it also doubles as a bland, flavorless novel you cannibalized your other books to create. This is perfect for those fans who have been following you religiously, eating everything you write, hoping for another morsel of “Misery,” another slice of “The Stand.”

Not intended to harm, but with your best works now decades behind you, there’s a serious threat here of Stephen King poisoning.