Does King really not have control over his stories?

[Adumbros]

yes the writer does have a certain influence, but again, to force that influence would leave an effect much like God doing absolutely whatever it takes to get me on that plane regardless of the fact i would rather be butt-raped than fly. in order to make the story work, you really do have to relinquish a certain amount of that control, or else get backed into or corner, or worse, produce a shitty story.

do i believe that a story can ONLY go one way? of course not. stories reflect reality; in reality, we always have a choice. same with writing. there's always a choice. but one of them is always WRONG. does that mean it CAN'T be done? no, but as experience in life teaches us, doing what we shouldn't holds disastrous consequences.

I really do believ that to a large extent, a writer can't know how the tale will evolve. yes, he can know that Bill is 6'2", 198 lbs, blue eyed, green-haired, reminiscent of an overgrown elf of Tolkien imagery; he can know Bill's going to have some serious struggles, he can know Bill's mom is nuts and his dad bled to death after being castrated and hung from the barn roof by gravity boots, he can know Bill's dog is gonna get hit by a car and that it will profoundly affect Bill. What he can not know is how it will affect Bill, or how much Bill loved or hated his parents, or that Bill's going to die. To assume he does know such things brings an element of profound doubt into everything that follows.

So...yes, I concur, it's a bit of both. To say, for instance, that Steve had no idea Georgie Denbrough was gonna die in It...well, come on,that was one of the crucial plot points, and Georgie, although crucial to the tale, was not an essential character, but rather a sort of forethought that would profoundly affect/alter the lives of each crucial character.

On the same token, to say he knew from the get that Stan was gonna slit his wrists...no. I mean, sure, we all know the type of guy Stan turned out to be, and how much sense his suicide therefore made, but to assume Steve himself knew it at the novel's outset would be a bit preposterous. After all, the biggest truth pointing to the evidence of the original question in this thread is precisely this:

writers, as well know, write for themselves. whether they get paid for it or not, writers write. that being said, answer the question, if the writer already knows essential plot points and can therefore successfully predict the outcome of the finished work, why in the fuck would he bother writing about it at all?

[BillyxRansom]

I will play devils advocate here and say that authors have a "general" idea of where their characters are going. The specifics will always change with the writing of course.

I hope the below isn't a spoiler, I tried to write it so it wouldn't be

For instance--I fully believe that Rowling was unclear until the end weather or not Potter would die--but she had to know that the scar would be part of the end and put it in at the very beginning.

For an author to have a "structure" for their book, I think they do have to have an idea of the overall story beginning middle and end. Obviously not anything specific because that can be taken in any direction through the writing.

Exactly. Agreed all around. Rowling has said herself that she had the last chapter of the 7th book written BEFORE (I believe) she finished the manuscript of the first book in the series.

But, as with me right now, sometimes you just get a feeling, and almost see, in your mind's eye, how something needs to be. Sometimes it's unsettling, other times it's fine. I really have no idea whether the good character facing the evil character is going to be wounded nearly fatally or not (I can say this, though, he has to survive; I just hope he isn't hurt too badly that it changes the course of things).

JK said she cried when she wrote the last words of the last book, and she cried in other spots that were rather heartbreaking. Sometimes you can't ignore the feeling. It just comes, and you have to let it do that, or else it will be forced, fake, contrived, and it will all around be a shitty piece of writing, because you're not telling the truth.